# $ For Teen Babysitter



## NiBeKa (Jan 26, 2006)

How much does your teen make as a babysitter for friends/neighbors/family's children? My daughter is never sure how to answer this question when asked by clients







and I haven't paid a sitter in years. Thanks


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## mommyto3girls (May 3, 2005)

It really depends on where you live. WE are in a middle to upper middle class suburb in the midwest and the going rate here is $5-6 an hour. However I know people in Seattle, New York, the DC Area, who pay $10-12 and hour. I imagine there are areas where $3 or $4 is the accepted rate.


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## sunnysideup (Jan 9, 2005)

My daughter get 5-6 an hour.


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## sweetfiend (May 22, 2004)

We are in Northern California and the rate is $5.


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## Yoshua (Jan 5, 2006)

I always over pay people. Seattle area.

I do 10$ an hour if its 1-3 hours or I do 35-40$ for an entire night if they don't mind keeping the boy till 8 or 9 the next morning.

Plus if they are at my place I'd do frozen pizza's but we havent had that yet.


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## treemom2 (Oct 1, 2003)

We do $5 an hour per child--so usually $10 per hour. We also leave money for them to go out to eat at the local eatery and we pay for the babysitters food as well.


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## chel (Jul 24, 2004)

treemom2- Do you let the babysitter drive or are you in an area with something walkable. I just find teen drivers very scary.

I pay $6-7 for a young teen (13 yrs-on the young side but dd is easy and it's usually for 2-4hrs, though last time she covered dd with marker tattoos including face and did a really bad nail job on dd, all on a late school night







: so dd needed to go right to bed when I got home and no time for a shower before school, I'd just given her a bath before the sitter came







: )


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## treemom2 (Oct 1, 2003)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *chel*
treemom2- Do you let the babysitter drive or are you in an area with something walkable. I just find teen drivers very scary.

It's only a couple blocks away so they all walk together. I don't think I would let my children ride with a teen yet either!!


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## Debstmomy (Jun 1, 2004)

My dd gets paid around $5-$10 an hour. Depends on who she is watching & if she is there alone (with me!) or not. Last time someone paid her with a gift card & my dd thought that rocked!!!


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## NiBeKa (Jan 26, 2006)

Thanks everybody. That is about what my dd gets paid too. $5-$8 depending on time of day and # of kids. Wow, everyone on this site is so quick to help a fellow parent.


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## Isaac'sMa (Mar 13, 2006)

Wow! I saw this thread and was very curious about other areas... We're in Baltimore and the going rate seems to be between $10-15 an hour!







At least that's what all the sitters we have called have told us they charge. Luckily we've been able to rely on family or else we'd be in the poorhouse!


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## hipumpkins (Jul 25, 2003)

Twice by 2 completely differnt gilrs I hae been told 14.00 an hour!!! Althoguh they will accept less if that isn't doable.







:


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## Tinas3muskateers (May 19, 2004)

Kay charges 3 an hour, we are in PA. I know when Kay was little and we lived in NJ we would be charged closer to 10 an hour, so I think it depends on where you are.


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## mamaroni (Sep 12, 2003)

I am paying about $7.50 an hour for my 3 kids. we are in the the suburbs of detroit. In the summer we spend a lot of time in northern michigan, and we use a couple of teenaged sisters, and they are paid about $6.50 an hour. We always round up. Every teenager I've ever asked "how much do you get paid an hour to babysit" says 'whatever you think, i don't really know'.


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## PajamaMama (Dec 18, 2004)

The teenage boy who occasionally mows our yard charges $20. It takes him less than 2 hours to do this work. I would not dream of paying a teenage girl less money to take care of my kids than I would pay the boy to mow my grass, kwim? So if you don't know what to pay your babysitter, think about what you would pay a teen doing other kinds of work.


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## lesliesara63 (Dec 18, 2004)

My dd goes to a HDCP and she has a 13 yr old dd. If Shelby comes over to babysit I pay her $5/hr. The problem I have is that I pay her mother $25/day. So if Shelby comes for 6hrs I owe her more than what mom gets for the whole day. It hasn't actually happened yet so I'm not sure how to handle that.


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## angelpie545 (Feb 23, 2005)

For me, it depends on the sitter. I'm pretty picky about who I use for my kids, and I expect a lot out of them, but I pay about 12-13 an hour depending on how hard the job is going to be. Seattle area, also.


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## Vampyre500 (Sep 3, 2006)

I paid $10 per hour for three kids and would never let a sitter leave with less than $20. I expect that a sitter will have already paid their own money to go through the red cross CPR course for babysitters and I want to help cover that overhead.

If your daughter has friends who babysit, have her ask them how much they generally get paid per hour so you know what's about right for your area.


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## Ambrose (Apr 20, 2004)

I pay the babysitter between $5-7/hr. I think the longest she babysat at one time was 3 hours and we gave her $20.

Our babysitter never gave us a rate she just said whatever you can afford. I tend to pay a little more than we can afford just because she is such a GOOD babysitter. Since we don't use babysitters often, I'd rather pay her a little more than I can afford, letting her know that we appreciate her work and so she continues to treat my DD as well as she does. (She even INTERACTS with DD!







We came home early one day and they didn't realize we were back at first because they were too busy playing musical instruments in the bedroom







)


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## Inci (Apr 22, 2005)

Babysitting wages depend on the sitter's age and experience, the area you live in, how many kids you have, etc.
I babysat all through my teen years, and received about $7/hr, on average. After I had been caring for one family's children consistently for a couple years, they gave me a raise, to $10/hr.
I still babysit occasionally, in addition to working full-time elsewhere, and receive $10/hr on average, although some families give me $12-15, and I do accept less from families who can't afford my usual rates. When babysitting is not my main source of income, I can be flexible about rates. When asked what I charge, I say that the general range is $8-12, but that I leave it up to the parents to decide.

If a teenager is old enough to make minimum wage at a job elsewhere, she should earn at least that much for babysitting.
I believe that when you are literally entrusting a person with your children's lives, she should be compensated at the highest rate that you can afford, regardless of her age. It doesn't make sense to pay someone more money to cut your hair or mow your lawn, when the services they are performing are so unimportant in comparison. JMO.

For many years during my teens and early 20s, babysitting was my main source of income. Usually I pieced together several part-time sitting jobs, to total 30-40 hrs/wk. Babysitting was my JOB job, not just something on the side, and I took it very seriously. I am grateful to the families for paying me enough money so that it was *possible* for me to have that be my main source of income.


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## mamaofthreecats (Aug 17, 2006)

when i was younger i made a dollar per kid per hour. baby-sitters are making more that some adults now. i paid my last sitter fourty bucks which was over a normal amount, but it was last minute and gas is so expenisive these days.


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## gamecaco4 (Sep 15, 2006)

Wow! Im in lower Michigan and the rates here are teensy compared to the places listed here! When I was a teenager, I made $2-3 an hour for a few hours or $20-25 for usually anything over 5 hours.

I just quit babysitting for a very distant relative (who I had no idea was a relative before I started sitting). I only had her dd, who is 5. I started getting $70 per WEEK. Granted this is lower than I would normally charge, but not by much. When I quit, I was watching her from 4:45AM to 2:45PM Monday-Friday. When she was here everyday, I would get $75...for 50 hours and early mornings.

Daycares here are cheaper than a lot of places, too. On average, in the area, family daycares charge between $90 and $115 depending on age per week.

We have only had a sitter twice since DS was born and both were while we were home...just needed to get some things done when we were finishing the house. I think we paid $20 both times for a days work.


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## Yooper (Jun 6, 2003)

We are in the way upper regions of MI and we pay about $5/hour. I had a really hard time figuring it out as we use a mix of HS sitters, college sitters, and adult friends (that do daycare for a living). I figured the college students and adults deserve at least minimum wage. The I got to thinking, the HS sitters are not doing any less work, so I pay them the same. I do pay more like $4/hour for HS sitters that need a ride to and from. In a more urban area, I would expect to pay more like $10/hour. I got paid about $4/hour when I was in high school in Ann Arbor. And that was 15+ years ago.


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## 2mama (Feb 3, 2006)

Iused to get $1.50 to $2 and my mom told me she get $0.35 when she used to babysit. Maybe start babysitting at night!


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## runes (Aug 5, 2004)

the summer after i graduated from college, i answered an ad in the paper for a family looking for a babysitter. i worked one day for them, a full 8 hour day with 3 kids.

i hadn't negotiated the rate with the mom beforehand (my mistake!!) and when the day was over, i just told her to pay me what she thought was fair for my time.

she wrote me a check for $20.

i was so floored i didn't know what to say and was completely exhausted from watching those 3 challenging kids. i never went back.

we haven't used a sitter with dd yet, but we have one really nice college student who we might ask in the event we need someone. we're planning to pay her $12/hr for her time. gas is expensive, and she loves dd and is wonderful with her, and having been there/done that as a struggling college student, i think it's only fair.

if we were to have one of our pre-teen neighbors come over to be a mother's helper, we'll probably pay her $5/hr.


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## Nora'sMama (Apr 8, 2005)

Wow! Babysitting rates have really gone up!

When I was a teenager in the 90's babysitting in San Diego, I mostly got $2-3 an hour. Even with inflation there is no way that translates to $14 an hour or even $10! I had a few wealthy clients who generously paid me wayyyy more than I charged (one couple with the most adorable and easy baby did pay something like $10/hr and their fridge was always well-stocked with junk food!) but that was totally the exception.

Pretty good biz for a teenager! Minimum wage is only $5.15 and you get taxes taken out!


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## UnschoolnMa (Jun 14, 2004)

Dd was making about 25 bucks for 9-17 hours of sitting a week. It was for a close friend though. I would think 3 or 4 an hour is good generally speaking. It depends on how many kids though too.


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## Dar (Apr 12, 2002)

Rain generally charges $5 an hour, although last night she sat for 4 hours for the sweetest 6 year old girl and they insisted on paying her $6 an hour, because that's what they paid back in Texas (where they used to live). She's decided this is the perfect babysitting job - they had a great time together, playing slapjack for an hour (while the family dog fell asleep on Rain's lap) and running around doing something with swords, and then reading for a bit before the little girl went to bed... and then Rain found a Smithsonian magazine to read in the living room with an article about Shakespeare.

Oh, and she said the little girl turned to her at one point and said, "You know, I really like babysitters!"

Dar


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## chiro_kristin (Dec 31, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *mamaofthreecats*
when i was younger i made a dollar per kid per hour.

me too! But then I was never asked how much I charged. You were at the discretion of the parents, and you could accept or deny. But that was normal back then in my area.


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## Purrfect_doll (Sep 20, 2006)

WOW! I can't let my dd see this thread she'll increase her prices. We live in rural CO and she charges $4/hr for up to 2 kids and $2 extra for each kid over the first 2.


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## Blu Razzberri (Sep 27, 2006)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Debstmomy* 
My dd gets paid around $5-$10 an hour. Depends on who she is watching & if she is there alone (with me!) or not. Last time someone paid her with a gift card & my dd thought that rocked!!!


I'd be cautious about giving a gift card instead of cash for a few reasons.

1) Your babysitter might be saving for something personal (like a bike, for example)

2) Gift cards are only valid at the place of purchase (ie: WalMart) and maybe your sitter doesn't shop at that store.

3) Gift cards expire. So if the sitter doesn't use it, the money disappears.

I guess what I'm saying is, if you want to go the route of a gift card, make sure you know the sitter will use it and appreciate it (instead of be angry without saying because she really just wanted money). I like the idea that a gift card could be more of a bonus (ie: noticing that she went above her duties and cleaned the house up...so, thanks, here's a gift card bonus) instead of full payment.

Thanks for reading my input.


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## sunnysideup (Jan 9, 2005)

Good points. If I was expecting to be paid with money and got a gift card instead, I'd be angry.


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## SweetAfton (Sep 23, 2006)

Ask the baby sitter how much she usually gets paid. Average around here (Iowa) is $20-40 for an evening + supper.

Gift cards? Maybe as a bonus on top of money. I'd say save the gift cards for birthdays and give money for baby sitting.


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## 63977 (Sep 14, 2006)

When I babysat, I made five dollars an hour, which I thought was fine. Afterall, it's tax free, and you can eat their food.


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## spruce (Dec 11, 2004)

My 13yo gets $10/hr, by decision of the people she sits for. She NEVER eats their food, brings her own lunch and stuff to do with the kids, makes sure all the dishes are washed and floors swept and cleaned (she loves making cleaning up a game for the kids she's sitting), and of course changes the diapers and whatnot.

She was shocked that they offered her "so much money," but she's definitely worth it.







Now people are passing it around that "This kid is great! You should hire her, here's how much we pay her." SHe's seeing all the benefits of her hard work.

love, penelope


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## rozzie'sma (Jul 6, 2005)

I pay $7 per hour and provide dinner.


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## doublesnap (Sep 11, 2006)

I'm in the upper middle class suburbs of Washington DC and during college and even right afterwards, I was getting paid about $10-15/hour for 1-3 kids. Granted I was a college student with much more experience but I basically did the same work a high schooler would do - sit on a Saturday night, feed/bathe/play with the kids and put them to sleep. My actual "work" time averaged about 2 hours and then I would check in periodically on the kids while they were asleep. An average night of sitting would be 7-11 and I'd leave with around $40-50.

Now with my own baby on the way it seems like a lot to pay for an evening out (especially once you factor in the night's activities!). I know I did a great job with the kids, they always had fun and were completely safe in my care and I think I was worth the money. I'd definitely pay more now for my own child to ensure good care.

As far as what teens in the area get paid, I think $7-10 is about average.


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## teastaigh (Dec 17, 2001)

Hi,

I live in Northern Colorado and pay $15/hour. That's living wage
in my city -- what it costs just to exist without sleeping in a shelter.
When we have a babysitter, we have her for about 2 hours. When
we couldn't afford one, we didn't have one. We have no family close
by, so we just went everywhere with our kiddos or stayed home.
It all worked out well. I expect our babysitter to be mature, calm,
and very level-headed and responsible. She plays with and engages
our children. I wouldn't pay ask anyone to do something for me that
I wouldn't want to do myself. It's a do unto others kind of thing ...
Also, in her entire life, our babysitter will never have a more important
job than caring for my children, as far as I'm concerned. If her pay
means that our dates are a nice long walk, that's good for me.

peace,
teastaigh


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## kennedy444 (Aug 2, 2002)

I pay $5 per hour. This is what I give my dd1 when she watches her sister. I don't pay her all the time but if I go out on a weekend night. Recently dd1 and I went out to the same function. I paid her friend the same amount to watch dd3. Seems fair for a 7th or 8th grader.


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## momfirst (Apr 14, 2006)

Some of you might find this interesting....put in your zip code and age/experience of your sitter and see what it says. I thought it was sort of high for my area...it'll be interesting to hear what others think.

http://www.sittercity.com/index.php?pid=rate_calculator


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## sunnysideup (Jan 9, 2005)

I tried it and it seemed high for my area.


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## AntoninBeGonin (Jun 24, 2005)

that was a fun waste of time


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## Mel L (Sep 9, 2006)

I tried the calculator, and kids are getting much more than 7.75/hour. I think the going rate is about 10/highschool sitter. It really does depend on your neighborhood though. We are in a pretty wealthy area, but our neighborhood isn't that wealthy. We haven't had sitters here yet, but we have heard the same "pay what you think" when we ask.

As a late high school/college student with 5-7 years experience, I got about $5 for 3 kids an hour. This was just a few years ago! Wait that was over 10 years ago.

I think most of our friends pay somewhere around 7-10/hour a little north of Dallas. We mostly use family or trade outs with friends. That doesn't help your daughter, but it may help others. We had some friend ssit the other night, and we fed everyone (ourselves included) a really nice meal before we left. It was great for us because dinner cost us a whole $24 to feed 5 adults and one child (another friend came over to keep the others company). My hubby and I would have spent way more than that for dinner for ourselves and for a sitter. We were then able to go out (Blue Man Group concert), feel good about who was at our house, and know that we had saved a little money.


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## NiBeKa (Jan 26, 2006)

Thanks everyone for all the different prices throughout the country. What a spread! When I was sitting I made $1.00 per hour with an additional 25 cents for each additional kid. My I'm dating myself.







So it was hard to give dd advice on prices. Thanks for all the input.


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## Dar (Apr 12, 2002)

It said that my 13 year old with 2 years of expereince should be getting $4 an hour... so it was low for us. She starts at $5 an hour, but most of the time people insist on at least $6 an hour, for one child.

Dar


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## rainyday (Apr 28, 2006)

It seemed awfully high for young babysitters, at least here in the Seattle area. It said 7.75 for an 11-13 year old with no experience. I pay 5 - 6 for someone like that. The rates were closer for older teens, though.


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