Help calculate a fair wage for a part-time live in nanny.

Hi there. Hoping your readers can help me to calculate what would be a fair wage for a part-time live in nanny.

Here's our situation: My children are 5 and 7. We've used Au Pairs for childcare with the exception of about a year after my first child was born when we had a live-out nanny. We moved into a house that worked well for having an Au Pair and my husband wanted the kids to learn Spanish (they didn't). The Au Pair's room is on the daylight side of our basement so her room has a lot of light. The space includes a small living/sitting/TV room area and kitchenette which leads to her bedroom and en suite bathroom. There is a separate entrance if desired (although none of our au pairs ever used it. We do need to walk through the living/sitting room area in order to access the laundry room but otherwise it's pretty private.

We have enjoyed hosting Au Pairs and have almost nothing negative to say about the experience but next school year with both children in school full-time we only really need 10-15 hours per week of childcare....primarily a daily after school gig from 3:30-5:30 or 6:00 which might include shuttling to lessons, etc. We'd also like the flexibility for an occasional very early morning (I work with Anesthesiologists and sometimes our meetings begin at 6 am and if my husband is travelling I need someone on duty from 5:30am until the kids can be dropped off at 7. This happens about twice per month).

The Basket Maker's Wife

How do I calculate what to pay a live-in in this situation? We posted at the local University to gauge interest and have had a lot of responses (I think it's a good gig for Grad Students) but now I'm getting ready to do some interviews I want to have an idea of what we should be offering in terms of salary. I would pay the nanny the same amount weekly regardless if she worked 10 or 15 hours and on the books and thought if she ever did additional work (a date night or that kind of thing) I'd pay her cash for that.

Please don't bash me...I have no idea...but is it customary to estimate what the rental rate would be for a live-in situation and deduct that from a salary? Or just pay a lower rate per hour?

We usually pay $15-$18 for adult sitters ($10/hr for high school students). If I assume up to 15 hours per week that would be $225-$270 per week or 975-1170 per month. Should I then subtract some kind of "rent" calculation? I checked Craigslist and I think in our area for a shared room situation this space would be "worth" around $600 at the low end. So should I offer the weekly rate minus $150 per week? That seems really low but it's also not a lot of hours. We'd also be open to having this person work full-time over school breaks and the summer if she is interested and would adjust the salary at that time.

Would love some advice! My motivation for the live-in is that we have the space for it, we've gotten used to having someone in our home, I like the convenience of having someone there in the mornings for my early mornings AND because I would like to save at least a little money.

P.S. One more thing: I wouldn't expect that she would do much, if any, domestic duties as well with the exception of putting something in the oven for dinner for us (unless she loves to cook and she can go to town on that if she wants!!) and helping the kids to tidy anything they've taken out. We have a weekly cleaning service come and I'm a little OCD about laundry so pretty much have always done my kids' laundry myself :)

Send your questions to isynblog@gmail.com.