How much would you pay a 10 year old to feed your fish/water the garden?

[LynnS6]

How much would you pay a 10 year old to feed your fish/water the garden? We're going to be gone for 2 weeks.

[bluebirdiemama]

$30 sounds fair to me. When I did that kinda stuff 15 years ago, that's about what I wanted and usually received for that kind of job.

[pink gal]

If the garden looked lush and thriving and the fish were alive when I got home I'd probably pay $40-50.

[ananas]

Will this be like a once a day type thing? I'd probably pay around $40.

[limabean]

How often will the 10-year-old be coming over to do the chores? Maybe 3 times a week or so? I'd probably give $6-$8 per time, so $36-$48 if he came 6 times over 2 weeks.

[mumkimum]

$30-$40 does sound fair for 2 weeks.

I'd err lower (unless they've watched your fish/garden before) and then pay a slightly higher amount/bonus amount when I came back and could tell they'd been as attentive as I'd expected.

[grahamsmom98]

I'd pay a 10 year old $50 to this, if the garden is a reasonable size for him/her to do easily. Will they have to move sprinklers around a lot? Turn them on and then come back a short time later to turn them off (this entails a bit more responsibility to remember)? Will they have to hand water anything? What about hanging pots?

We're in a similar same boat!

We'll be (hopefully) going on a 1 week vacation in late July. Our exterior property is fine as we have a sprinkler system that will handle everything outside (yard, garden & orchard), twice a day, without problem.

However, we have a huge sunroom in our house and it is filled with many exotic plants (over 150) . Most of them are good with a heavy watering before we leave (and we'll close the shades), but we have many hibiscus & several bananas that must be watered every single day without fail. We have a built-in watering wand sprayer, so the watering job is very easy (no having to fill watering cans) and just one 5-quart bucket of water daily for the biggest banana plant (which is located 10' away from the deep sink).

In the past, when we've been gone, we've asked another neighbor to water the plants in the house and she wasn't the most responsible helper! We lost several (expensive) plants because she didn't water them daily as she promised . We won't ask her again.

We are going to ask the 17 year old daughter of a different neighbor down the road if she would be interested in helping us out. It would require watering the hibiscus & bananas every day (and giving all the others only a daily misting with the sprayer) while we are gone, and she wouldn't have to water any other plants in the rest of the house. We know her parents will make sure she follows through on an agreement (she is very responsible, in any case).

It takes me about 20 minutes to do the usual watering/misting of the sunroom (admittedly, I've been doing this for years and have it down to a system ). ((My guess is that it might take her a 1/2 hour, at most))

Would $50 be reasonable for watering the special plants and misting the others every day for 6 days?

We can afford whatever the going rate is, we want to be fair to her!

[limabean]

Originally Posted by grahamsmom98

It takes me about 20 minutes to do the usual watering/misting of the sunroom (admittedly, I've been doing this for years and have it down to a system ). ((My guess is that it might take her a 1/2 hour, at most))

Would $50 be reasonable for watering the special plants and misting the others every day for 6 days?

We can afford whatever the going rate is, we want to be fair to her!

Yeah, I think $50 is reasonable, but since it's 6 days and doesn't up the cost too much (and you can afford it), I'd probably tell her that it's an even $10/day and give her $60. But only if it's no big deal to you and you know she'll do a great job. I would have been thrilled to earn $50 that way at 17.

[annettemarie]

Moving to Finances.

[Drummer's Wife]

$10 a day sounds fair to me.

[phathui5]

$25

[ewp11100]

I think it depends on how often you have them coming, lol. But you could make it "sweeter". Can they do some weeding? I pay my kids and nephew $1 a full bucket of weeds (the 3yo get $.25 as she doesn't understand full Then when you get home not only is your garden watered but if the kid puts in more effort, you come back to less stress

[nd_deadhead]

I wouldn't feed my fish if I was going to be gone 2 weeks - or fed them no more than once. People tend to feed fish a LOT more than they need, especially a neighbor kid fish feeder. If you feel they HAVE to eat while you're gone, measure out portions, and insist that he only feed one portion.

Feed them well the week before you leve, do a last-minute water change, and they'll be fine.

[philomom]

Watering can be hard work... I'd say no less than 5 to 8 dollars a day.

[lilyka]

Wow. to have the neighbor kid water my garden and feed my cat I would pay about $20 for two weeks. And conside rit generous. My dd would go nuts to get paid that much by our neighbor to do such an easy job.

but honestly thats the sort of thing my neighbors and I do for each other for free and thats the sort of thing we prefer ouyr children to do for free or cheap.

Now mowing lawns and dog sitting...thats another story all together.