After school sibling fees...?

[Georgiepoo]

Hi,
After some suggestions on how to charge...

I will be having 2 year old all day and picking up their sibling from school and keeping for 2 hours.
I currently only charge hourly rates as not had siblings before, do I charge my hourly rate for both or charge rate an a half??? I know some have an after school fee but I currently have another after schooler and they pay hourly rates.

Thanks

[lollipop kid]

Hi,
After some suggestions on how to charge...

I will be having 2 year old all day and picking up their sibling from school and keeping for 2 hours.
I currently only charge hourly rates as not had siblings before, do I charge my hourly rate for both or charge rate an a half??? I know some have an after school fee but I currently have another after schooler and they pay hourly rates.

Thanks

You are limited on the number of children you look after. If you were taking two children to a restaurant, would they give you a discount just because they were related? Probably not. By the same argument, why should you discount your spaces just because these children are related? They are still taking up two of your spaces.

(I've done a slight reduction in the past - e.g. charged one child's space at £55 for the day, and the other's at £45 while they were both with me full time. I made sure that the more expensive rate applied to the younger child. Plus, these children were with me 5 days a week, so it made commercial sense to try to keep them. If they had only been with me two days, I may have priced it/approached the situation differently. When the older child started school full-time, I applied my usual after-school rate of £20. Parents were happy as it was less than the £45 they'd paid previously. I kept it at £45 for the Summer holidays, though, which the parents also liked. I'm giving these rates as examples, as they worked at the time where I operate. Apply the same thinking to the rates that work in your area rather than mine as you don't want to price yourself out of the market.)

Decision is yours ultimately. Don't commit to something that makes life difficult for your business/family further down the line.

Hope that helps.

All the best,

L

[Mouse]

Is a sibling half the work? Do they eat half the food or only use half the resources? Do you really only want to charge half fee?

From experience I would say after school children eat twice as much, use twice as many resources and can be twice the work after a tiring day at school!

I would charge your hourly rate for the whole day for the 2 year old and your hourly rate for the after school child. I would show it as a split amount so that if either child's hours changed it is easy to work out a new fee.