My son just got his babysitting Red Cross Certificate, likes kids, has a few parents on our street asking for his services. We live in the Minneapolis area. How much should he charge? He prefers starting with kids who are walking, talking and potty-trained - should he indicate that and his rates on the "business card" he's making to pass out?
He shouldn't put his rate on any card. Given the type of kids he wants to babysit for - those parents will have experience in hiring babysitters and already understand the going rates.
As for your other responses - I want to live in those nieghborhoods - I have never paid $3/hour for a babysitter!
If he's just starting out I would have to say $5.00 per hour maybe ever per kid depending on how many hours the parents are going to be out. He should state on his cards that he prefers children between the ages of 3 1/2 and 10 that way he's got more leads and then he can speak to the parents when they call about if their children are potty trained. That is a lot to handle that's for sure. I am happy to hear that he got his certificate and the fact that he's a young man there isn't many of them out their that want to do that and it's great that you have raised your son that way. K.
My daughter who is almost 13 took the babysitting class, etc. and now babysits quite regularly. Although she has never been asked her "rates" - I think most poeple are pretty generous. She babysits for 2 kids (ages 8 and 6) and gets paid $5.00 per hour. When I needed sitters, I would always pay them $5.00 per hour (for 2 kids)....or even $3.00 per hour for one kid and then rounded up.
My kids are pretty easy, so I pay teenage babysitters $5/hour and my younger, less experienced baby-sitter $3.33/hour (I usually have her for a few hours at a time so I pre-pay $20 for 6 hours). The older baby-sitters usually feed the boys dinner and put them to bed. The younger one mostly comes to entertain the boys while I am home, trying to catch up on my chores. When she gains more experience, I'll leave her alone with them more and then pay her more.
I don't think he should list his rate on his business card. He may want to keep the price somewhat flexible to allow wiggle room for the number of children, level of difficulty, frequent customers, and in case he decides to raise his rates across the board after realizing the work involved.
