Many families contact us because their children are starting nursery or school, and so they don’t need their nanny full time any more.
Like Stephanie, for example. Stephanie and her husband Mark have employed their nanny Magda for years, ever since their daughter Iris was a baby. Magda is amazingly experienced, wise, well-qualified, and fun, and the whole family love and depend on her. As Stephanie said, ‘Magda is like the glue that holds everything together’.
Now, however, Iris is off to nursery school each day until 3pm. The family still needs Magda for dropoff and pickup, and occasional full days, but most of the time she isn’t doing much while still being paid full time. Stephanie and Mark had tried thinking of extra little jobs Magda could do around the house but they were very aware that Magda isn’t a cleaner, and they just couldn’t think of enough ‘sorting and organising’ tasks.
Stephanie had also tried quite hard to find a family to employ Magda during the day, but hadn’t been able to. (That’s not surprising — it’s very rare to find a family that wants a nanny from 9:30am to 2.30pm.)
Then Stephanie heard about nanny share as an option, and gave us a call.
For Stephanie, nanny share means that her family can keep Magda while defraying some of the cost.
It works like this: we find another family living close to Stephanie with either a single baby, or (less likely) a single baby and an older child at the same nursery as Iris.
The ‘other’ family makes a contribution to the cost of Magda during the sole hours during the day. This is a great deal for them, since they’re getting a fantastic nanny at a great rate. On top of this contribution to the sole hours, this other family also pay their share of the shared hours after school and during holidays or inset days
That means Stephanie is still paying a bit for the hours that Magda isn’t looking after Iris, but the cost is a lot less than it would be without the share.
Everyone wins. Stephanie saves a lot, the other family gets a great deal on a great nanny, and Magda gets paid more for the shared hours.
If you’re in a similar situation, with a nanny you’d love to keep, get in touch. We can run a calculation, figuring out the specific contributions of each party taking into account the tax effects, so you can see if nanny share would be worth it for you; and if you decide it is, we can introduce you to compatible families near you.
If you'd like to discuss sharing your nanny you can get in touch here.
