Hiring a nanny to help with looking after kids and doing housework is an expense, but is it worth it? from Darell Muessig's blog

Is it worth getting a nanny?

I strolled in every night to a house cooked meal, a clean home, and delighted kids. I paid around $475 a week for mine. However I likewise gave her lots of getaway. She had 6-8 weeks off a year and I paid her for those weeks. She got 1 week off of her choice.

I had no luck with care. com Our first nanny from there was terrible. If you decide to get a nanny, ask around for people that know individuals.

Let's start with some word association. Nanny. What is the very first idea that pops into your mind? Do you photo Mary Poppins or Maria from The Sound of Music (I think Julie Andrews plays a great nanny)? If you were raised in a lower or middle class family (like I was), do you dismiss nannies as an overindulgence of the rich who don't want to take responsibility for raising their own children? Did you have a baby-sitter maturing and consider her part of the household? Over the last twenty years, I have been fortunate to harness the results of upward movement.

The run-down pre-owned automobiles and cramped row homes of my youth have actually been replaced with BMWs and six-bedroom Victorians. Another brand-new experienceunheard of in my childhood but typical amongst my present buddies and neighborsis the usage of baby-sitters. With the arrival of our daughter this summer, we understood a crossroads was approaching.

2 childrenone in daycare and one at a different place in preschoolis a complicated prospect at best. After months of hemming and hawing, we concerned the conclusion that employing a nanny is the very best option for us. Prior to talking about the pros and cons of employing a baby-sitter, let's dissect the nontrivial procedure of finding and working with a baby-sitter.

However, you can't yet purchase baby-sitters on Amazon (at least not until Robonannies become a thing). The majority of people discover the baby-sitter of their dreams in among three methods:. In talking to several nannies, this is surprisingly typical. We spoke with a baby-sitter with twenty years experience who had never ever been officially spoken with; she had constantly been referred by word of mouth to another household when her current family no longer required her services.

com have made the nanny finding procedure more available for do-it-yourselfers. Simply established an account, plug in your criteria and location, and search away. Our buddies discovered their baby-sitter this way. For those who would prefer a bit more hand holding, a baby-sitter finding service is the method to go.

In lots of parts of my life, including individual financing, I am a do-it-yourselfer. To find our nanny, however, I chose to make use of a service. That choice expense me $1850 (the fee charged by the nanny service), which I felt deserved every penny. Exactly what did we get for this undoubtedly large chunk of modification? The process began with a two-hour conversation between the director of the baby-sitter finding service and us.

The service maintains a large panel of pre-vetted candidates who the director has spoken with thoroughly. All nannies have gone through a comprehensive background check, employment confirmation, referral check, and (most likely) a flea and tick check. The director helped with decision of a suitable task offer, consisting of salary, getaway, and benefits. Our position was then promoted to regional nannies.

Following our choice, the nanny service provided a sample employment arrangement in addition to guidance with taxes. If our chosen nanny does not exercise, we get a partial credit of the cost towards finding another nanny. I would guess it may have taken us 20-30 hours to perform the equivalent work of the nanny finding service.

After the choice was made and work contract signed, it was time to attend to the less glamorous side of hiring a staff member: taxes. Some choose to (illegally) pay baby-sitters under the table, i. e. without taxes. One of the candidates we interviewed and otherwise quite liked highly preferred to be paid this waya offer breaker for us.

So what is associated with paying taxes as an employer? Rather a bit, it turns out. Obtain a FEIN (Federal Company Recognition Number) as an option to a social security number in the reporting of nanny taxes Determine and keep employee federal and state earnings taxes Keep FICA (social security and medicare tax) from employee Determine and remit employer FICA (7.

2% of the first $7000 employee earnings Determine and remit Pennsylvania's State Unemployment Insurance (tax) of 3. 6785% Remittance of all these tax payments on a quarterly basis Furnishing W2 for staff member and Set up H for us each year In the end, we decided to use a "nanny tax service" at the expense of $1000/yr.

But for this charge, they direct deposit our nanny's paycheck after automatically withholding the appropriate taxes; gather and remit all federal and state taxes (worker and employer) on a quarterly basis; and supply and file all the essential tax documents come April. According to the IRS, the typical household invests 50-55 hours each year handling baby-sitter tax issues.

The entire point of hiring a nanny was to make our lives less challenging; why would we shoot ourselves in the foot with additional work and tension at the last minute? If this all seems like a big annoyance, it is. And now let's go into the factors why we chose to sustain this ass-pain (i.

employ a nanny) in the first place. Ours will be the primary caretaker for our infant child throughout the day, and pick our child up from preschool in afternoonsaving us a possibly frantic drive to arrive on time. We can stroll in the door relaxed and all set to invest the night with our kids.