That's what I thought today, when a community friend came by to drop off payment for my son's cat sitting job. We had to cat sit for three days, shovel if necessary and our agreed upon price was $10.00's a time. She would pay a little extra if it snowed. I said $10.00's a time was MORE than enough for a 10 year old boy to look after a cat and shovel a bit - $5.00 would have been fine - but she insisted.
With 15 inches of snow, we lucked out with a neighbor that had helped and didn't have to do as much work as I thought we would.
We left notes daily with Jaspers mood, what he did with us and if he was interested in playing with the string they left for him. We played/petted the cat and my son filled his water bowls and food. I did the litter box. I also had my son write a thank you for hiring me note and this is what I did and sign his name.
So imagine my surprise when she came over today with a check for $75.00's and a NASA T-shirt and baseball cap. Neither one of us are the "hugging type" and she gave me a big hug to thank us for all we did.
I seriously need to think about a career change!
Followers
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Holy Cats Batman!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Sign me up!
Man.. I'm jealous.
Me too and to think this was for only three days - 1/2 hours each!
How much do kids get paid for babysitting these days then? Last I heard it was $10 per hour and I almost cried!
I know I wouldn't pay $10.00 per hour.... but that's me!
We are signed up for the Red Cross Babysitting class the beginning of April - so he will have the card we all got as kids.
My neighbor across the street is a single mom with two kids and if we went/have gone for a coffee and my son watched her kids - I think he got $3.00's and I was totally fine with that.
We babysit regularly for our neighbor's dog - 2-3 times a week and I am fine with $1.50 - $3.00's - depending on the needs. BUT she also gets my son birthday, christmas, valentines presents.
She use to pay him as much as $5.00's a time - but that was right before he went to Ireland - but while he was gone on the trip, I told her that he doesn't appreciate the value of a dollar and she needed to cut back.
For this job, I said $5.00's a time and the mom insisted on paying$10.00's and I totally thought that was to much.
I thought the $75's was excessive, but I guess they were so happy with everything, they felt they needed to pay more.
We had a month long snow shoveling job and that lady wanted to pay him $80's and I had to talk her down to $5.00's a time = $35.00's. She then got a $50.00's gift card from Bayshore. We had all those snowstorms in December/January and her plant watering friend called her in Peru and told her there was a snowman on her front lawn. I know she liked that, as it looked like someone was living in the house.
I guess to answer your question, I would excpect him to get paid between $3.00's - $5.00's a time to babysit, because I also would have to oversee what's going on. Like the time he babysat my neighbor's kids, they were outside playing and since they live across the street I could still keep an eye on things. When it came time to go in the house, my son was going to play downstairs with the boy, but the girl was tired and was going to laydown and watch a movie on the couch. Since she was only three, I had to explain that she was a higher priority, than the 6 year old. Juggling two was hard for him to process priorities. They are young, all of them. I think $10.00's an hour would be just to much.
Maybe this is another blog in the making. How much responsiblity we have on kids and what they expect. I know the house we were cat sitting job was to far for my son to bike to by himself. I had trouble with the back door lock the first day and had to go in the front door. The last day we were there, someone came to the door selling candy. HOW would a 10 year old handle that situation?
Like my son said. He doesn't care how much he gets paid, just that he has the job.
Either way, it is nice that people appreciate what we do. So many do take advantage of others in life!
Post a Comment