paying your au pair

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 […]

38 comments Read the full article →

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 […]

63 comments Read the full article →

Au Pair Pocket Money: Do you pay more than the required stipend? (Poll)

by cv harquail February 15, 2011
201102151706.jpg

[This post addresses customs and Au Pair regulations in the USA. It may or may not be relevant to host parents in other countries.] The amount of weekly pocket money (or stipend) that a host family is required to provide to an au pair is set by the Federal Government. Right now (as of Feb […]

46 comments Read the full article →

Host Parent Tip: Pay Your Au Pair On Time

by cv harquail February 13, 2011
201102131251.jpg

“Doing something” and “not doing something” do not always have opposite effects. When something that is supposed to be done is done correctly and in a timely way, no one even notices. When the very same thing isn’t done, or is done incorrectly, it shakes the very foundations of a relationship. Case in point: paying […]

39 comments Read the full article →

Who Should Pay When an Au Pair Downloads Movies, Illegally, by Mistake?

by cv harquail October 4, 2010
201010041048.jpg

We all have a sense of what kinds of issues regularly present host parents & au pairs with relationships challenges — food, cars, late nights being chief among these. I’m becoming aware of a new category of challenges, centering on ‘Who pays for a mistake?’ We’ve had mistakes related to car damage, lost cell phones, […]

31 comments Read the full article →

6 Reasons why your Au Pair should NOT work a second job

by cv harquail March 6, 2010
201003051804.jpg

We’ve talked recently about the issues related to having an au pair work extra hours for the host family, and we’ve also talked about whether you should let your au pair babysit for your friends. But we haven”t talked about whether you should permit your au pair to work at another job. “Why haven’t we […]

91 comments Read the full article →

Agency Policies on Withholding Pay: What are they? Calling all LCCs …

by cv harquail January 25, 2010
jek in the box mugs.jpg

Let’s see if we can get some clarity on this question once and for all, and without me calling or email all the agencies to get the official answers. May I call on the LCCs who read AuPairMom, and ask you to tell us what your agency’s official policy is? I’m talking “Official” policy, not […]

13 comments Read the full article →