Monday

All-Inclusive Contract

OPINION
How should I set up this nanny share: I will be working for two families caring for two infants, the babies are 3 months apart in age. The plan is I will start with family G in December, caring for their daughter in their home, Mondays 10am to 8pm Tuesdays 10am to 6pm Wednesdays 7am to 6pm Thursdays 7am to 6pm and Fridays off. I will start with family T in February, caring for their daughter, Monday through Friday 9am to 4pm. The plan right now is that Family G will host and Family T will bring their baby over or I will bring the baby to their home on overlap days. They live in the same city so it won't be much driving. I have a contract with family G. They also pay me $18/hr. Should I write a separate contract for family T? Should I write up a new contract for both families? How much should I charge each family? Please include everything I will need in this contract, I want to cover all my bases. Thank you all so much! - Anonymous

12 comments:

MissMannah said...

Your best bet would be talking it over with Family G about how they want to do payment. They will either prefer both families give a paycheck individually or Family T pays G their half and G gives you one paycheck. If they want to do the former, get a separate contract with T. Write it up exactly like your other one. If they want to do the latter, you need a whole new contract signed by both families. Since you're making $18 for one baby, I would say about $22 is reasonable for two babies. That gives both families a huge discount at $11 apiece. Are the parents friends? That will probably factor into their decision about payment.

Village said...

I have such a different opinion. I think the nanny should charge $18 for each hour for each child. IT'S TWO JOBS.

At the very least, don't take less than $25 hour, but I'd go for $30. FOUR parents, two houses, again, it's two jobs, not one. $15 an hour. They both want her. There must be a reason.

MissMannah said...

Parents do a nanny share to save money. They aren't both going to pay a single-baby rate.

Village said...

They are paying her $18 now. $15 is cheaper. The nanny needs to get something out of this too.

Nannies need a union, STAT.

COnanny said...

I think that you should expect that each family will give you paycheck. The reason being that at tax time, it will be much easier for them to keep track and proof of everything.
For the contract, a lot of nannies seem to recommand two separate contracts, one with each family. I am in a nanny-share myself and we have only one contract: I use to have one with my first family and when we started the share with the second family we made a whole new contract which gave me the opportunity to change or improve a few things from the "old" contract.
As for pay, they add $5 to my original rate when I take care of the two babies.
Make sure that you keep track of all your hours since you will have some time with baby 1, other time with baby 2, or both babies. My employer gives me a timesheet to fill out every two weeks (since that is my pay period). He does it himself using Excel.

I hope this helps a little!

N is for Nanny said...

I would have a separate contract with each family. If one family leaves the share, you can obviously revisit your contract with the other family. (I would put a provision in each contract, requiring a meeting if one family leaves the share, just to make sure that the next share/arrangement is optimal for where you and the remaining family are at the time.) The contracts should start from the same original, so things like PTO and sick policies match. I am pretty sure that for the arrangement to be legal, each family has to withhold taxes and pay you separately.

I would suggest a rate of $24 or $12/family.* My understanding is that most nannyshares are compensated with each family saving around 1/3 and the nanny making an additional 1/3, due to the second set of parents and extra logistics. I would also suggest including a one-child rate, for any extra hours (e.g., date nights) a family may want and the hours the families don't overlap. (This is also really helpful to establish now, in case one family leaves the share and there is a gap before another family joins it.)

If you're expected to do support tasks or there's some sort of compelling issue, I could see asking as much as 1.5x your normal rate ($27/hr) but if you ask for that, you may be asked to justify it. If you are negotiating, I could see asking 1.3-1.5x your normal rate, "depending on job specifics" just so you have negotiating room. I agree with Mannah that a big perk of a nannyshare for parents is the savings, so your rate will be expected to reflect that.

*The families may choose to have one family pay more than the other, in which case I would leave the division of your rate during shared hours up to them, but make the one-child rate consistent.

nycmom said...

Village,

I understand your theory behind wanting to simply double the rate, but this is sort of like working overnights. If the cost is too high for the parents, they simply won't do it without a perceived benefit.

So if OP wants the extra $$ of the nanny share, she should make her fees reasonable, but competitive. I usually say each parent pays 66% of their normal rate and the nanny makes 1.5X. So if one child rate is $18, each set of parents pay $12 and the nanny makes $24/hr.

If OP wants to stick to one child, and just make the nanny share financially undoable, rather than simply saying she doesn't want to do it, then yes she should just double her rates.

Although I am not a huge fan of unions, I do agree that nannies are the exact group who do fairly benefit from the original purpose of a union. However, I doubt even a union would be able to guarantee double pay in this situation!

OP said...

OP thanks for te advice so far. I think I am leading towards separate contract.

Do you think it would be fair to include something about going to $18/hr if one family should leave the share?

Bethany said...

I would write ontracts for each families.

As for rate what do you charge for twins?

You will essentially be caring for twins. They can then split it.

Example if your normal twin rate is $25/hr each family would contribute $12.50.

Village said...

I set $25 as a floor for two families, and I agree the rate should go back to $18 for one child.

MissMannah said...

OP, yes I absolutely think you should be able to charge your normal one-child rate if one family chooses to leave. Make sure you put in something about severance pay if they choose to leave suddenly.

Ann O'Neemus said...

I do a share with two families who use different hours. We have one contract which specifies the usual hours for each family. Shared hours are at one rate and solo hours at another.

Since family A is paying you $18/hour for solo care, I would ask that rate for solo hours with each family and ask for $24/$25 for shared hours (that gives you a little room to negotiate, I wouldn't want to offer shared rate of less than $22)

Your schedule sounds complicated to me - good luck! Do let us know how things turn out.