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

by cv harquail January 16, 2015
au pair advice, petty cash

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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Awkward Arrival Time But We Like This Au Pair — Should We Match or Move On?

by cv harquail January 15, 2015
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We’re new to the AP process, currently interviewing for our first AP ever. I’m in academia, and was hoping for someone to start in July or August, so that they can get comfortable with my son (will be 3 years old in the Fall) before school starts back up in September. One issue is that […]

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Rules & Methods for Paying Your Au Pair

by cv harquail January 14, 2015
hello-kitty-blossoms-check-series

Paying your Au Pair her or his weekly stipend, on time and at the right amount, is critically important for sustaining a good au pair-host parent relationship. Your Au Pair is working hard at a real job, and s/he is earning that stipend. Plus, s/he probably has a lot of plans for using this money […]

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Do You Round Up Your Au Pair Stipend? (poll)

by cv harquail January 12, 2015

Here’s a quick poll to get a sense of the numbers behind our responses to Why You Shouldn’t Round Up Your Au Pair’s Weekly Stipend

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Why You Shouldn’t Round Up Your Au Pair’s Weekly Stipend

by cv harquail January 12, 2015
P1000288

What is “One Hundred Ninety-Five Dollars and Seventy Five Cents“? A:  The amount of an Au Pair’s weekly stipend, or B: An awkward, not-round number? Both. Which is why many families ’round up’ from $195.75 and pay their au pairs an even $200 per week. Rounding Up seems to make sense. If you pay your […]

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Who Pays for Your Au Pair’s Gas?

by cv harquail January 10, 2015
au pair car, au pair driving, gas money

Au Pairs should pay for their own gas when they use the family’s car(s) on their own personal time.  Host Families should pay for gas used when the Au Pair drives for family and child-related activities. Managing who pays for gas is pretty simple, right? If only cars came with two gas tanks, or funky meters […]

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Notes on the Blog: You aren’t crazy

by cv harquail January 8, 2015
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You *have* been seeing new posts pop up and then disappear.  I’ve been trying to untangle some of the hijacked threads —  by creating new posts for some topics, and then assigning comments to these new posts (using a new tool I just found, hooray me).  But, since posts have to be ‘published’ in order to […]

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Evaluating Progress As Your Au Pair Aims to Improve

by cv harquail January 8, 2015
au pair performance, au pair rematch, host parent advice

How much improvement is ‘enough’ to shift an au pair out of  “on the way to rematch”? When there are performance issues with an Au Pair and we ask for an improvement, we expect that: (1) The au pair’s performance will improve, (2) Performance will improve enough to satisfy the Host Parent’s original concerns, (3) The […]

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Au Pair Host Parent Word for the Year: Hygge

by cv harquail January 2, 2015
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Last New Year many of use chose a few ‘words of the year’ to help keep us focused on our values and goals as host parents (and people!). Micro-affirmations like “3 Words“, Core Desired Feelings , and even just a parenting mantra help us make small changes in our habits that, over time, can help us grow. […]

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Is It This Particular Au Pair, or Is An Au Pair Just Not Right for Me?

by cv harquail December 31, 2014
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Au Pairs “as a concept” and a particular au pair in real life are two very different things to imagine in your world. An Au Pair “as a concept” is the idea of a young adult living with you as part of the family and as an employee childcare provider, sharing your food, sharing your […]

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