Babysitting Class

Yesterday I signed my 11 year old son up for The American Red Cross babysitting class that is offered in our community.  The upfront cost for this class was $87.  When I first saw this price tag I thought, no way!  Spending that kind of money on an 8 hour class is not frugal! But, after careful consideration and number crunching, I realized that signing him up for the class is actually one of the more frugal things I have done recently.

Why?  My husband and I do not go out a lot, but when we do, it is for at least 5 hours.  We live in a suburban area where the babysitting rate is between $8 and $10 per hour.  For us, a night out can cost us a minimum of $40, often times it is more than that.  With 3 kids, I tend to pay on the high end of that rate.    When you throw in the cost of the dinner we ate, the activity we did and the gas spent on transportation, it becomes an expensive night.

My son is almost at the age that he can babysit for us.  He will of course be compensated for his work.  A little money is enough motivation to make him behave the way we would expect of any babysitter we hire.  However, he will not be receiving the $8 to $10 an hour we pay the regular sitter.  We have agreed to $4 an hour, which is a savings of around $5 an hour.   We will break even with the baby sitting class when Alec reaches 17 hours of baby sitting for us.  When I saw those numbers, I realized that signing up for babysitting class really is frugal.