Babysitting in New York City is no joke. People are willing to pay obscene amounts of money for childcare, which shouldn't be surprising considering as New Yorkers, we pay obscene amounts of money for nearly everything, but it still shocks the crap outta me.
A family interviewed me last week and asked how much I charge to watch their two boys, ages 4 & 5. This question always makes me nervous because if I charge too little, I'm stuck at that rate for a while and if I charge too much they might not hire me. I did some research and found this helpful site that helps calculate babysitting rates based on area, experience and number of kids. BTW, the information this link shows you does not reflect my zip code, sorry stalkers! Anyway, the information I typed in resulted in a rate of $18/hour! That's more than I make at my full-time job BEFORE taxes! And the crazy thing is, when I told her my rate she didn't bat an eye! Her response? "Great, I have a long list of dates for you!" No.Freaking.Way!
I watched these boys, C and S, on Saturday morning from 10-2 and we had a great time. We set up a baseball diamond in Central Park and people that passed us stopped to play. It was so much fun to see the camaraderie of the park, especially in a city that can be so self absorbed and difficult. We had some lunch and took a nap and by the time 2pm rolled around, I was $72 richer! Wow. Their mom e-mailed me a handful of dates for the upcoming week so my schedule already full for next week between the two babysitting families!
And the best part about a second job (ok, the second best part, the
money of course takes the cake) is that when I'm working, I'm not
spending. When I work on a Friday or Saturday night for Date Night, I
get to relax at their home once the kids go to bed and enjoy cable tv
and still consider it "work" so I'm not out on the town myself.
I am meeting one more family this week and now I'm starting to have to turn people down because I simply can't work that much. I can't believe my luck to have found this goldmine! I am very excited to increase my savings and decrease my debt faster with all this extra work, especially now that my moving expenses are taken care of and I can settle in a little more.
Stay tuned to start seeing some serious debt tackling. There WILL be a post soon to celebrate my reducing my first credit card debt to $0 and to kick off the snowball effect.
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