Money

My Au Pair Is Selling Products on Facebook: Should I care?

by cv harquail September 29, 2017

Au Pairs who want to make extra money, beyond their stipend and in violation of the State Department rules, usually stick to a few basic strategies — working a few extra hours for their family, walking a dog or two, or taking the rare emergency babysitting job down the street. None of these jobs are legal […]

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How to Reduce the Costs of Having an Au Pair

by cv harquail July 23, 2016

Parents who are researching childcare options for the first time invariably experience “sticker shock”. Who knew that a year of childcare in America could cost as much as a year at a good instate university? Whether childcare is provided by a retail day care center, a someone-else’s-home-based childcare center, a nanny, or an au pair, […]

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Managing the Financial Costs of Rematch: Getting an Agency Refund

by cv harquail June 16, 2016

What’s a fair way to manage the costs to the Host Family of a rematch situation that they did not request themselves? Dear AuPairMom, We are currently in a re-match situation and I’m struggling with the agency’s rematch policy. We are only 2 weeks into a 12 month extension with our Au Pair, and she […]

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When Your Au Pair Streams Movies – Illegally

by cv harquail December 1, 2015

Taylor-Swift-in-bed-with-Apple-MacBook-Pro-laptop

Deciding whether or not to pay for the online media (movies, TV shows, music) that you consume seems to be a generational thing. Young people do it, we “olds” do not. Sure — once upon a time I used Napster (dating myself). Until we got a reminder from the University where I worked that using […]

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Should Au Pairs or Host Families Pay Extension Fees? (Poll)

by cv harquail November 2, 2015

TexasHM came across an interesting fact about extension application fees — it turns out, not all agencies automatically make these fees the responsibility of the Host Family. Depending on the practices of your particular Au Pair Agency, your family might choose to pay the fee yourself, split it with your Au Pair, or even have […]

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Reimbursing Your Au Pair: Petty Cash Jars or Slush Funds?

by cv harquail January 16, 2015

How does your family manage paying for small things, like pizzas, movie tickets, or another gallon of milk? Petty Cash Jars I’m a big fan of the petty cash jar (or in our case, a zippered pencil case /envelope in the kitchen drawer). I keep about $20 in the envelope– usually in $1s and […]

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When Your Au Pair Loses Your Smart Phone

by cv harquail May 7, 2013

Yeah, it happens. The phone falls out of a pocket into a puddle. Or a purse gets stolen. Whatever the reason … If your au pair loses or breaks the smart phone that you provided for her/him, it is up to her/him to replace it, or to pay to replace it. One of our au […]

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Contact Congress to Protest Taxes on Au Pairs!

by cv harquail February 11, 2012

Dear AuPairMom Readers- I never thought that I’d be writing a post asking you all to take political action, but there’s an issue that hits the Au Pairing Community right at the heart. Congress is deciding this week whether to impose a 7.65% FICA tax on au pairs. Yes, that’s right. Congress wants to tax […]

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When an ‘Au Pair’ should really be a Nanny

by cv harquail January 19, 2012

Sometimes you just don’t want to read the subject lines of the emails that show up in our AuPairMom emailbox. The email posted below came with the subject line, “Am I being taken advantage of?”. But, by the time the au pair finished telling her story, it was clear it the subjuct should have been […]

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Too Much Generosity or the Wrong Kind? Trust your heart

by cv harquail October 8, 2011

Dear AuPairMom- The posting from the host mom offering the fancy host family situation make me think of the choices that I made when I was matching with my host family. I talked to many different families. All of them had some different things to offer, cars yes or no, no Saturday nights, babies and […]

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