More Than A Side Hustle
More Than A Side Hustle
A Complete Stranger is Living in Our House?! Our Au Pair Experience
Cultural exchange childcare transforms family dynamics while providing flexible, affordable, and enriching care that goes beyond typical nanny arrangements. Anthony and Janoka share their experiences hosting au pairs, explaining how these international caregivers become temporary family members while providing reliable childcare.
• Au pairs are young adults aged 18-26 who provide childcare in exchange for room, board, and a cultural exchange experience
• Cost is approximately $196/week plus program fees, significantly less than traditional nannies who charge $22-32/hour in Dallas
• Flexibility of live-in childcare allows children to attend activities during weekdays rather than being in daycare settings
• Cultural exchange aspect creates opportunities for language immersion - specifically Spanish for their children
• Finding the right match requires extensive interviewing, clear communication of house rules, and personality compatibility
• Living with your childcare provider creates unique dynamics that require strong communication and feedback skills
• Program regulations include maximum 45 work hours per week, educational requirements, and specific benefits
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We had a stranger living in our house and we'll have another one in two weeks living in our house, and then we have another one coming to live in our house for in the next two weeks, for a year.
Speaker 2:All right, guys, what's going on? Welcome to another episode of the More Than A Side Hustle podcast, where we help non-to-fibers create more impact, income and influence outside their jobs. If you don't know, my name is Anthony.
Speaker 1:And I'm Janoka, and we are the CEOs of Cleaning Business University. We own a cleaning business down here in Dallas for the past seven and a half years and we're husband and wife as well.
Speaker 2:All right, let's get to it.
Speaker 1:Jumping in Now. My legs are on fire. I'm thinking about that. I've lifted heavy in the gym, Sorry, Well welcome back.
Speaker 2:I know that it's been a challenge, but you're back in the gym now.
Speaker 1:Back in the gym consistently for the past seven weeks, doing at least five days a week. So I think I'm here, I've arrived. This is your arrival season. Yes, that's good. I will continue to go that hard. Usually before I was doing five, six days a week, so that's kind of my norm anyway. But just to get back into it after having baby number two was not so easy, but I made this one a little bit more difficult. I really don't know, but I know what made me say I I gotta get to it. I saw myself in the mirror. I'm like baby okay.
Speaker 1:Gotta get it together.
Speaker 2:What didn't you like?
Speaker 1:My back and my stomach. I started having rolls and I never had rolls before. Nothing against people that do have rolls, but for me specifically that's not something that I am used to. So that was alarming to have back rolls. And then my stomach has been big before, but I just don't like the way it looks.
Speaker 2:Gotta give yourself some grace. Just had a kid. I mean, it's been 7 months now. How long is too long to get back to it?
Speaker 1:Every time I told somebody that they're like, oh, you just had a baby. I'm like it's been 6 months, listen, and for some people it takes a lot longer time. If you have a c-section, there's so many other things that play into it. But I knew I was just being lazy.
Speaker 2:Like you have to be real with yourself and personally, I knew I was just being lazy and not doing what I had to do take a look in the mirror and then I'm back in the gym now, really back in it, after having surgery in october, yes, and now we're in march, so I'm really back in the gym now. So that's exciting. Yeah, you know we've both been in the fitness game for quite some time, so being back in the gym five, six days a week feels absolutely amazing.
Speaker 2:But I got to remember I got to take it slowly Because after having that surgery, I had the same surgery twice and after I had the surgery the first time, they tell you to take it slow, You're like, oh no, I'm good, I'm feeling right. Right now I'm feeling right. So this is the time when most people go, and me included. I went and I started lifting, doing lifts that I shouldn't have been doing, instead of me taking it slow. So this time I'm going to take it slow, ease back into it. I'm doing a lot of micro exercises.
Speaker 1:You're older now too, so you have to be mindful. No, it's nothing to do with age. I don't believe that you gotta slow down because you're getting older. I absolutely don't believe that it depends on the activity, but sure, I literally just saw a 70 year old man. He worked up to it, though, but he worked up to it probably he ran a sprint with college players how many 70 year old men are doing that, though he's the exception.
Speaker 2:He's not the norm, he's not the rule. He's the exception to the rule. Why not just make that the mate, not just make that the norm?
Speaker 1:okay 70 year old man being able to sprint.
Speaker 2:When you really think about it, you go. I think I can't even sprint. I think the quote said I don't remember what the numbers were, but they said most people over the age of 30 35 don't even jump. Think about the last time you actually were like why am I jumping. So let's remove the people who do CrossFit and just do normal workouts, right Jumping Jackson jumping rope. No, what's about like jumping?
Speaker 1:How high?
Speaker 2:Just jumping.
Speaker 1:So jumping Jackson, jumping rope, that's how many times you've done that.
Speaker 2:No, let's say you're trying to jump over something. When's the last time you've done that?
Speaker 1:Playing with your daughter, I did Tic-tac. Actually, I did tic-tac toe-womb the other day, a week ago. What?
Speaker 2:does that?
Speaker 1:mean, you know you draw it on the floor. No, Not scotch. That's the way it was before.
Speaker 2:Let's talk about all right, let's take the trash can right here. When was the last time you jumped over something like that, but why would I?
Speaker 1:Actually I did jump. I was doing Jumping on the boxes.
Speaker 2:I said, outside the gym, outside of people who do those. That's the thing. When you start to have A normal, a quote unquote Sedentary life, you don't do those Type of things.
Speaker 1:You don't jump. Why would you need to, though? Why would you average? You just need to be jumping. Why not?
Speaker 2:Like this is part Of your movement, this is part of your movement, this is part of your body. Most people don't do a full-out sprint and most people don't jump once they get past a certain age and you're like why don't you do it? It's like why not? Just to test out your limits in your body. So now, okay when you do need to do it or you do need to sprint. Most of the time you play from the zombies.
Speaker 2:You, you do a full-on sprint and the next thing you know you got a hamstring. Most of the time we got that when we went to our.
Speaker 1:When I had my bachelor party, we did a race I want to say it's only when people are trying to measure or you, you, you know whatever.
Speaker 2:And then somebody got hurt. You get, you get pull a hamstring or something, because you're doing a sprint that you didn't normally do. That's hilarious. That was a little turn, but we're talking about today, but that is hilarious. We're gonna be told you want to get to the convo?
Speaker 1:yeah today we are going to be talking about an all-peer and you may be like what the hell is that? And we're going to explain further about that, like what it is and how we got into it and things like that. But we're going to be talking about having all-peer, which essentially we had a stranger living in our house and we'll have another one in two weeks living in our house, and then we have another one coming to live in our house for in the next two weeks, for a year.
Speaker 1:So I'm going to read like the actual definition so that you're aware of what it is. So an au pair is a young foreign person, typically a woman, who helps with housework or childcare in exchange for room and board and a culture exchange program Typically a woman, but they do have men that do it as well, and in this instance it's really for childcare. It's not necessarily for housework. That's not the capacity that we use it in, usually for childcare. If you didn't, if you haven't listened to us before, we did have a nanny with Alani for two years and then she entered into school and we knew, when we had our second baby, we will continue to need help and we decided to go the route of getting our all-pair. Anything you want to add to that.
Speaker 2:No Go ahead.
Speaker 1:So we did it with a program. We didn't just I mean, there are under the table ways and Facebook and stuff that you can find someone and essentially you could just find a living nanny, if that's the way you want to go as well. But Anthony had a few friends that actually used the program over and over a few times. They recommended it I think you had first brought it up when we were first having our first child and I was like, ah, because they do, they live in the home with you. I don't think I said that part, but they oh, room and board, they live with you.
Speaker 1:And I was like I don't think I want anybody kind of living in my house, which I found to be shocking anyway, because you're kind of less of a people person than I am. So I was shocked that you even wanted somebody living in your house. But then we became open to it as we spoke further you know more to your friends of like the pros, the cons and things like that and we became open to it and we started the search I want to say early last year, 2024. And we had someone come in August you know Amaya was about a month old and then they stayed with us until about Thanksgiving, so about close three to four months they were with us. But that one didn't work out. So we'll continue to speak more about just the program. The benefits why it didn't work out, cost, that type of stuff.
Speaker 2:So and the reason we have, what reason we're doing this discussion, is because a lot of people we I don't know a lot of people.
Speaker 2:I didn't know what an all-payer was. I'm not gonna say a lot of people, but I didn't know what an all-payer was, what they did, and normally when I bring it up in conversation it's the same reaction like what's an au pair? I heard about this, maybe I don't know anybody who's done it, and I want to continue to share the things where we want to continue to share the things we're learning as we go throughout the journey so that when it comes up, you know that this is an option for you. Yeah, I didn't know that this is an option for us when, when I first heard about it and learned, started learning more about it and our first kid, um alani, we didn't. We chose not to go that route. Now, why did we choose to go that route the second time around versus the first time around? Because alani had a nanny for two years, so why did we choose to all pair this second time around?
Speaker 1:I think you had one. You had more conversations with your friends, so we got a better understanding of what it was yeah two were like it's gonna be hella expensive.
Speaker 1:It's not, it's no longer one kid and now it's two kids. And the way that this program works, they don't charge you based on how many kids that you have, which generally nannies do rightfully so, um, they charge you based on how many kids that you have, and the cost would have been way higher. So we're like, okay, this is a bit more cost effective and the culture exchange we were making sure, or we made sure that whoever we brought on spoke Spanish, which is very important for us. As you know, I don't speak Spanish, but all my family does. Alana is in a Spanish immersion classroom, so she gets it there, and we want to make sure that she can get it at home as well, and so that was another part of it.
Speaker 2:So let me ask you this I want to talk about pricing a little bit Between a full-time nanny and someone that's doing an all-payer program. So, what's a typical range for someone looking for a nanny?
Speaker 1:So states matter. Where you live matters. I think the average in Dallas is about $22, $23 an hour that a nanny will get paid. What I've seen just in conversation because I speak to many people just when we're looking for babysitters and stuff like that People are really ranging between maybe like $22 all the way up to like $32. I've seen $22 to like $32. I've seen $22 to like $32.
Speaker 2:I've seen, depending on experience, per hour Per hour For a nanny, for a nanny.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it really depends on their experience. It depends on how many kids you have. For people it also depends on, like, what you want them to do. Some people include is it just nannying? Is it housework as well? It just depends.
Speaker 1:Depends, so it can vary so we're talking about like a thousand almost a thousand dollars a week for a full-time nanny yes, if you're having a full-time nanny, and so and we do understand that nannying is, or having a nanny is, more of a privilege um, because it is essentially cheaper to send your child to a daycare or home setting or just even a public daycare.
Speaker 1:It is cheaper, uh, but it's just not something that we wanted to do at the beginning for our children. I prefer to just have them home, I, just because of the lives that we live and the flexibility that we have. I don't feel like they necessarily needed to be in a, uh, daycare setting because, you know, especially when they're young, they're essentially watching them, um, which I feel like they can do here and get one-on-one interaction, and they can go to swimming and gymnastics and do all these other things during the week, versus just being in a, in a classroom setting, if you will yeah so and that's a big, that's a big privilege that we, we I don't want to say we didn't think about, but I was really upset when we were somehow sending Alani to not Alani, alani to daycare, because really, daycare is just babysitting your kid and I'm like she's not learning anything.
Speaker 2:She's only thing she's doing is just playing with kids every single day. But she's learning, alright, she's learning. But do you think she's learning more at school with 18 kids in the classroom, or is she learning more one on one with a nanny?
Speaker 1:I classroom or is she learning?
Speaker 2:more one-on-one with oh yeah, a nanny. I would say she's learning more with a nanny. And I know the reason why. Right, you got it. And if you think about what all these things were created for, it's because people go to work. Yeah, like the school system was created so that parents could go to work. Like we're gonna keep your kids here for eight hours. Do you think your two-year-old kid needs to be in a classroom for eight hours to learn?
Speaker 1:Well, they're not learning for eight hours.
Speaker 2:That's what I'm saying At least in the setting that she's in. That's what I'm saying. So, like all of these systems, I don't want to seem like a conspiracy theorist. You could do your own research on this.
Speaker 2:But the more like we have to get unprogrammed for all of this is it's literally programmed so that you have to unlearn some of this stuff and you, when you unlearn it, you can't unsee it. Yeah, you're like well, school system was created because people need to go to work. And now you're like all right, I'm sending my one-year-old or six-month-old to school for eight hours in a day because I have to go to work. Yeah, that's uh and, like all these systems were created so that's where I was at work.
Speaker 1:That was baby. That was that's where I was at. That's where you go to work. I was a baby. That's where I was at babysitters and daycares, yeah.
Speaker 2:So when we realized that Alani was going to start going to school, it was like oh man. And every morning she was like, oh, I got to go to school, I got to go to this, and it's just like heartbreaking, every single day, oh, my, entered into the school system, if you will.
Speaker 1:Daycare Last year has been a year already and then. So then we had an all-peer and we like we said we had someone here. That didn't work out, I think there was. The funny thing is we kind of knew at the beginning that maybe it wouldn't work out, but we really tried. We're like let's give the person an opportunity. We don't want to just cut you off things like that. We tried to make it work, um, and they're, and they were fine with the kids, nothing against them with the kids.
Speaker 1:It's just it's a huge deal. It's a huge thing that you're bringing on um, and I'll walk through the process of what it's like to pick someone. But you really can't really get a sense of somebody until they come here, right, and I you always say it's one thing to know somebody's, another thing to live with somebody, right, it's a whole different ball game. Like even if you live with your friends, who knows if you will still be friends it's a whole different ball game and I live with some of my best friends of living in the house with someone and then think about you're like working where you live and living where you work.
Speaker 1:so that's even more difficult, for so it's a lot of dynamics that kind of go into it that either you don't think about or just comes with, comes with the process.
Speaker 2:So yeah, those are no. Some of those things were is when you bring some, when you hire anybody in any sort of business, that you have everybody's going to interview. Well, everyone's going to look good on paper. Well, what happens when they have that first day? What happens when things don't go their way? What's their reactions? How do they turn around? What's the? What's the emotions they're showing? All these things go into any sort of job when you're hiring people. So when you think about that and you're applying that to someone living with you, there is no, you can't walk away at the end of the day because you live where you work.
Speaker 1:You just got to close the door. They don't hear you.
Speaker 2:Depending on your house structure. So you got to think about that. You can't really just walk away from your job. When you leave your 9 to 5 and you leave that office, you close that door, you're gone for the day until you go back the next day. But in this situation you have the person living with you, so there's dynamics that go to play on both parts. Let's say the person didn't have a good day and you can't show your emotions because they're they didn't have a good day. You didn't have a good day and now you're in a house all pissed off at each other.
Speaker 1:So, and then lastly, before the nanny thing, like to show the difference between the nanny and all up here. They both take care of the kids, right, but the difference is the nanny is they're paid a certain amount and all peer is an integrated family member. They become like a temporary family member. So, yes, they're taking care of the kids, but they also are part of the family. So the expectation is that they will cook, they will take out the garbage, they will have dinner with you. You may go on vacations together.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's not things you have to do, but it is someone becoming part of the family. And that's another thing. If you're like I don't want to add nobody to my family, or I don't want to do that, and this program probably isn't for you, and so that that's all part of the process. But I do want to talk about, like, the steps, because you're probably like, well, how do you even get one? How do you even find out? So they have multiple programs out there. We use the same one that his two friends use because you know they, they recommended it, and so that's the route that we went.
Speaker 2:Do you want to say the name, or you kind of hot in it or what? I'm not hiding it. Alright, if we decide to say the name, it'll be in the show notes, if she decides it's really up to her.
Speaker 1:I'm hiding it.
Speaker 2:She's not saying the name for a reason, so she's trying to get sponsored.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to get sponsored from this. One thing you never know.
Speaker 2:I'm always thinking about that this is true, but anyway.
Speaker 1:So the first step is one make a decision together that you hold on.
Speaker 2:There's a few programs that you could go to as well, so it's not just this one program that we're talking about here. All of them essentially do the same thing, so the only reason we're doing this one in particular is because they had good recommendations from our friends you just repeat exactly what I said. I said that before, alright well, I'm like maybe I had to reiterate it because we'll talk about, maybe we'll give a few inside the show notes that we're aware of.
Speaker 1:You gotta remember that yeah very strong um, so the first thing is, I guess, agreeing and understanding. So you do have to. One thing is they have to have their own room. They don't have to have their own bathroom, but they do have to have their own room. That's definitely important, and a room is considered something with a window. I know sometimes, depending on where you live, it's like a makeshift room has to have a window and you actually get someone that's kind of like a I would say like a case manager, if you will.
Speaker 1:That's assigned to you, and they come, they interview you as a family. They also want to see the children. They also look at the home to make sure, like, like, whatever you're saying is true. They also want to check just with the kids. They said sometimes people, if you will hide their kids' disabilities because they feel like it may be hard to find someone. So they're just checking everything to make sure that everything that you're saying is true. On both sides they do this, so it's really a safe program as well. That's why I say going through a program is a little different from just like finding someone independently, um, and I think that's with anything that kind of reminds me of the cleaning business, right, so like you could go with the company or you could go with a one person by themselves and just kind of hope for the best, essentially and it's funny, we actually met somebody in the nanny space that does exactly what we do in the cleaning business space too.
Speaker 2:They're like I have a nanny agency and people want a nanny and I find them, I vet them and we give them jobs.
Speaker 1:Yep, and so the steps to getting our appeal you sign up with the program and they have a fee. Some of them have an application fee. I think the one that we worked with the application fee was like waived, but I think it would have been about like $400 to just get started, put your application on there and get the process rolling. Something else is that is important is that they provide a lot of training, so they provide a lot of webinars and meetings that kind of go through different topics, like your RPR driving in the USA, what that looks like, what do you need to do? Or the first days that your RPR arrives, what do you do before they get here? All these things. They have multiple different topics and webinars that you can join before the person even comes or that they. I don't remember if it was mandatory, I think they suggested, suggested.
Speaker 2:Suggested that you sign up for. And we went to a few of them and a lot of them were informative. You just you know if you got a question, because you're gonna have questions as these things come up, right, and you're not gonna know everything, but the goal is just to have as much information as possible in case something comes up to be able and you could get an all-pair from, I think, almost anywhere in the world, right yeah, I don't think it could be for anywhere in the world.
Speaker 1:Um, yeah, I don't think there's a limitation. Yeah, I've seen many different countries. I mean, we have filtered our countries to spanish speaking but I've seen many different countries yeah.
Speaker 2:So if you got any preference, like we know west indian families, they're gonna take care of the family, they're gonna cook, you know if that's your preference they're gonna make that happen, so I just yeah and I've seen parents talk about like they only look at europeans because they drive really well.
Speaker 1:So it just depends on, like I guess, what you're looking for language, just different things like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah so that kind of helps you filter out. You know the type of person you're looking for.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you sign up with the program. They may have a fee. You fill out an application about yourself. Now, this application is pretty extensive, so you're not you got to think about it as like, if you will like yourself, if somebody looks at your profile, you know, do you have enough information on there for them to make a decision that they want to live with, conversation, have a conversation with you, take care of your kids, be a part of your family, right? So, um, you talk about what you're looking for.
Speaker 1:You add pictures of, like, your state, your area, the house, uh, the room that they may be staying in, um your family, and maybe like a tentative schedule. That's important because some people say like they don't want to work weekend. Some people prefer a split schedule. It just depends. So you just put a tentative schedule there. It can always change. You may be like, I don't know, it can always change Like. We were upfront about that when we were looking. I was currently, I was still pregnant. So we're like, as the newborn comes, that will change. Um, timing will change all these things. So you gotta that's part of your application that you fill out. Um, and, as I said, they have these available seminars for you to attend um. How to interview like? What questions do you ask? How many interviews should you have um can?
Speaker 2:we pause there for a second about the interview process, because we, if you guys know, we obviously have if you listen to this podcast, you know about our life a little bit or maybe a lot, and you know we have businesses. So when we're going to this process, we are thinking about this the same way we think about business. So the application, this is all a funnel. So if you think about a funnel, it's a upside down triangle. The first one is awareness. The second one, you know, you kind of go down to. You actually have somebody. So when we're going through this interview process, like you just did an interview with somebody, we were talking about that and they didn't have the energy. So we're coming to these meetings with these people who are going to be living with us and our goal is not to to not necessarily find the best person, but to see if you vibe check, yeah.
Speaker 2:So you want to give the person you know, you want to let them know who you are, what you do the energy. So we're coming on there like not overly, I want to say you want to give a little bit more energy than you normally would in a daily basis because you want them to feel you know who you are and what you're about Personality and personality. So you got to be a little bit more boastful and more energized so this person can feel exactly, you know what you're talking about. Oh yeah, you know what they talked about was this and this, and it also stands out in your mind because some of them may be interviewing with dozens of other families. It's a big decision, yeah, and we're asking them you know how many families are you interviewing with? And we're also letting them know that it's okay to interview with multiple families.
Speaker 2:I want you to we want you to we want you to understand what's going on, what's out there. We understand you're interviewing, we're interviewing. It's a two-way street. You want to find the right family for you, we want to find the right all-payer for our family. So that interview process, we took it very seriously and we literally same process we do for our cleaning business same process we did for our nanny same process we do for everything else. We did it throughout this same process we do at our nine to five jobs.
Speaker 1:It's a lot of skills that we have in our nine to five jobs that are transferable to these, these personal lives, to our business lives, and we did that so our interview process was pretty extensive, and we had more than one interview too yeah, and so you start to like, you get those seminars about that and once your profile is complete, like, you have to complete your profile before you can even start seeing the all peers or the options that are out there. So once that's complete, um, you can start seeing their profile, and their profile consists of pictures of them as well a video of them talking. This helps you to just get an idea of like how their english is.
Speaker 1:If you're not picking someone that speaks English fluently, you also get their background of their experience. You also they have references in there. They also do like a personality test. They put their level of driving, how often they drive, just a range of different things that you would need to make a decision on. If I even want to speak to this person, all of that information is in their profile and they can't reach out to anybody. Only it's called host. You're called a host family. Um, only host families can reach out to our peers. So they just kind of have to put their profile up there, hope that somebody wants to talk to them, and then you have to reach out to them. Um, they also have a video of saying why they want to do it. Um, experience hobbies just a blurb of them, their excitement. So we would see people talk and I'm like their energy doesn't feel like this. Or you'll see some that are very edited, cap cut, edited. I'm like where they put some time and energy I like those, I was like yo, they might know, social media.
Speaker 2:We could, we could work something out.
Speaker 1:I've seen people on there and it's funny because, um, their careers can range right. So some, a lot, almost all of them, all of them have experience with children. But I've seen people on there that were lawyers, um, accountants, engineers. Their career changes because once again, yes, they're taking care of kids, but it also is an opportunity for them to come to America to have a whole culture experience. So sometimes it's just a quick break for them.
Speaker 2:And one of my bros that went through the program. His au pair was actually getting her master's or something like that in math and his sons were actually going through an advanced math program. So he's been in the program. He's been in this all-pair program for nine years or something like that, so he's been able to get different types of all-pairs for where his family is. That's another thing you got to think about too. We got little kids, we got babies, but as you grow you might need somebody who has less experience with young kids and more experience with others.
Speaker 2:So, he's like this is a perfect timing for me to have an au pair who's getting their master's in math, because my kid is trying to go to a specialized program in math. And he's like that worked out amazing because now they're able to get a pretty much a tutor inside the home for this program that he's trying to get his kids through. Age ranges for au pairs.
Speaker 1:You didn't talk about that, did you? I didn't because I have like a section of just facts but I will talk about because we're talking about different to my masters and phds and to my babysitters and nannies, and no, because I'm talking about the steps right now.
Speaker 1:Okay but, oh yeah, go ahead. So let's keep it. Let's keep it there, and then I and then I'll talk about that after um. So, once your profile is complete, you then start to look at profiles, you start to match with, you reach out to them and you kind of just send a message asking hey, you know, would you like to have a conversation? Or hey, I think that you would be a good fit for our family, based on your profile, and they can make a decision on if they decide to respond or not. And the way that they make that decision obviously is looking at your profile. Now, now that you've reached out to them, they can now see your profile and they will say yay or nay. And then you go from there, you have a conversation. You can have a conversation directly in the app or a lot of times we have a conversation via WhatsApp.
Speaker 1:The program recommends doing at least three of them before you make a decision, and that's exactly what we did. We did three different conversations, three different interviews before making this decision. But once again, you kind of have to just, I mean like trust God and let go. I don't know what to say because it's it's hard to know someone completely based off of those conversations. But you feel like you are. You hope you're asking the right questions. You know those types of things which, like I said, the program provides you with that, so you don't have to think of it on your own. You can always Google or chat GPT as well, but those are the things. You start to interview them.
Speaker 2:We chat. We did chat GPT for our entire bio too.
Speaker 1:We put some of that in when we had to redo some of it.
Speaker 2:We put some fun facts about us the family, the kids, the girls, where we live and it was like give us a profile. We're filling out an application for all pairs. Fill out a profile that makes us more interesting and then also use the guidelines that they gave us. And they gave us a pretty good outline with emojis and fun facts, and this ended Thursday. Oh, this is pretty interesting, so we use most of that, yeah.
Speaker 1:And then, in that process, you also share a house manual with them. Now, this varies per family. Not every family provides that you may be like. What the hell is a house manual? The rules of your house, the rules of engagement?
Speaker 2:how do you function in the household and the?
Speaker 1:household that is. It's a lot to think about. To be honest with you, like what are the rules that you have in place? Because it's a lot to think about things that you're like I've never written it down because you know it's a lot to think about things that you're like I've never written it down because you know it was just you and your spouse or whoever like you just say it, I don't got to tell nobody yet. But some things like do you have a curfew? Like does somebody the person needs to be in the house at a certain time, maybe if they're working the next day, or if they're not working? Do you care Driving rules?
Speaker 1:Are you going to have a car for them to use or are they sharing the car that you use? If they do, how many miles can they drive? Can they leave the city? Can they spend a night out with the car? These are some things that we have to think about. Can they, you know, eat in the room? Can they smoke? Can they drink? Can they have a guest over? If they have a guest, if it's a female, can they bring a female over? Are no males allowed? Can somebody pick them up from your house? Does it have to be down the block. I know you're probably like huh, huh, huh, but you kind of have to just be specific. This is a new family member, if you will joining, and they have no idea.
Speaker 1:You have to set the rules and set the tone. Your schedule for the kids, extracurriculum activities, what is the expectation around that communication? Your values, responsibilities, rules, while taking care of the kids? You're like, yeah, everybody knows you don't leave the kids in the car by themselves. But yeah, you know, maybe you're just, you know you're putting that down. You're communicating, especially in a hot. You know Texas gets 105 degrees. Don't ever dare leaving our kid in the car. You know those type of things that you may.
Speaker 2:You can't even leave a dog in a car in Texas without somebody breaking your window.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's everywhere, but yeah exactly.
Speaker 2:I don't think anybody gonna break your window in New York. That's very true.
Speaker 1:Not for no pit bull anyway. Oh yeah, um, homework, financial responsibilities, if there's any perks that you're providing. Perks could be one that you, they can utilize, the car not every family has that, you know. Um, a perk can be that you're allowing cable in their room.
Speaker 2:You're going to pay for cable or you may pay to pay towards their phone bill um, one perk was we went to disney world and if we would have had our au pair still living with us, she would have came, she would have got a trip to disney world you know people who? Haven't been to disney world in their entire lives.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and she was here for three, four months and would have been on.
Speaker 2:She missed out.
Speaker 1:You missed out on a good thing girl yeah, um, so sometimes people offer kind of perks as well, and all of that is mentioned Little bonuses, little raises, if there's bonuses, if there's raises, and I'll talk about the cost that they get as well. But all of that is mentioned in your house manual, which you go over with the person during these three interviews, because that helps them to make a decision on eh, you're a little too strict, I don't really want to kind of follow your rules, or this is too much for me, or whatever the case may be.
Speaker 2:And we found that to be the case with a few people when we started giving out we were giving out house rules and our house rules are rules. It's not rules to be broken, but it's rules to govern the general consensus of the house.
Speaker 2:So it's a pretty thick manual and we were giving this out because that was the advice, like give it out before they come so that people can know. But then we realized that most families weren't doing that. So the hardsugs were being too strict and we had to tell people. We had to preface the conversation by letting them know hey, these are just some general rules so that you understand how we work, how we function. Some expectations this isn't an end-all be-all. You have to take our kid to school at 7.30, right, they have to be home at 4. It was like school starts at 7, pick up at 4.
Speaker 2:Like, these are the things that we're talking about, so we had to adjust it. We made a shorter version of it, we took out some of the rules and regulations and we had more of a dialogue around it, because if you've never met us and the first thing you get is a, you got a 11 page manual.
Speaker 2:You're like this ain't for me. So we did lose a few people throughout that process. Um, so we did understand the interview process. It's the same across the board before you start a job and they're talking about the dudes, and don't you like yo? We haven't even started dating yet. So we realized that we had to have more of an upfront dialogue. Hey, we got some rules and regulations. We could kind of talk about it on the phone and then we'll send you the document, just because it's written out. So we had to make some adjustments throughout that process, but our document was heavy at first yeah, definitely yeah, and us it's also.
Speaker 1:I would tell people. If there's something there that you saw that you had a question about or don't agree with, ask us or let us know. Maybe there's something that we can change. I'm open to it. It's not like this. Is it the end? All be all?
Speaker 2:like he said, but the good thing is that your hiring process weeds people out. This is what you want, no matter what business, no matter if it's family, personal, nine to five, you want your hiring process that we people out. So when we're giving it out to people and like, yeah, it's not for me, it's like, well, it's fine at the end of the day, because you may not have a good fit. You may not have been a good fit because you weren't able to communicate the way you felt. Right, it was something that you versus like, yeah, we might not be a good fit because we probably was a good fit. You probably saw something you didn't like and said, you know what? It's not for me.
Speaker 1:And I think in the during the interviewing process, it's also important, you see, like personality as well. Like we are very straightforward people, so it's someone that is very timid. It's alarming because I feel like you may not be able to. You may take me being straightforward as me being mean or me being disrespectful or something like that. So those are also things that we look for as well. Like, do we feel like this person can mesh with our personality? Now, we're not nasty people, but we are really straightforward. For some it's too much and that's okay.
Speaker 1:We're not for everyone, and so having that understanding is things that we're looking for as well when we're interviewing, because I'm not gonna be uncomfortable in my own house, so we need to make sure that the person, that we feel like the person, makes sense for us as much as we can right um, because you don't know until they get here and the quote is it's okay to be kind but not nice.
Speaker 2:When you're giving criticism, you're giving feedback kind of, but not nice. So that means that I'm not going to disrespect you, I'm not going to be um nasty, I'm not going to call you out your name, but what I say may not be nice. And if you can understand the difference between kind but not nice, then you're able to accept criticism. So if I'm like, hey, you know, here's me being, here's me being here's me being kind, it's like, yeah, you know you relate, but here's me being not nice. Yeah, you're always late, your alarm never gets you up Like that's not nice. So I'm giving you, I'm being kind of, like nice means that you're always late, you need a new phone, you need a new alarm, you need to set new routines, no, so if you could accept that criticism I'm being okay with someone being kind to you, but not nice then you're a good fit for us so once you match with the person so you have these interviews you both say like okay, we agree, you like you, you like me, let's go ahead and get this rolling.
Speaker 2:Make a family, become a family.
Speaker 1:You basically continue the process where you pay, you have to pay the company a fee, they book their flights. You stay in communication with this person. So the first time that we did this, we made a decision, we were in Mexico, so we made a decision in May and she came in August. And the second time that we just did this, we made a decision in January and she's coming in March. So things are different, schedule is different, amaya is older.
Speaker 1:There's so many different things we've learned from the first time as well. Just some things that like maybe we wouldn't have waited as long for. I think we were like, okay, we will make a decision quicker next time, and just different things we've. I would say that's the main thing that we've learned and how we communicate. That type of stuff is really important for us. Like what we are looking for when the person is living with us is really communication. Of course, taking care of the kids I had mentioned, like we look for the vibe check, because not that kids aren't hard, but there's many things that you can learn pretty easily.
Speaker 1:Alani's in school most of the day. Amaya is barely, she's just here. You know what I mean. She's existing, she's existing. There's not much happening and I could train you. I could tell you the things that I want you to do with them, if it's letters or that type of stuff, but like, really, how do you mesh with the family? So I'm excited to see we're on the second person that's coming in a few weeks. So I'm really excited to see what that turns out to be. I hope my enthusiasm is the same if there's another podcast.
Speaker 1:But I'm excited to see what that person would be like.
Speaker 2:And it's just like the cleaning business when it comes to hiring people, like everyone, everyone's like, oh, I clean, like that's totally fine, right, but how are you when it comes to showing up? How are you doing about? What? About the intangible things that you can't teach? I can teach you how to take care of our kids, we can teach you how to clean Anybody can teach you how to clean but how are you with those intangible things? I mean, I can say more important taking care of the kids. But if you aren't, if you aren't a great communicator or you aren't great at getting feedback or understanding or learning, then it probably won't work. It probably won't work. So you don't always want somebody that's going to be the best person at the task. You want somebody that's an all around, you know, knowledgeable, understanding person that is willing to accept feedback and criticism, to learn, grow and expand what they've been doing. Learn, grow and expand what they've been doing.
Speaker 1:And before I get to some of the facts of like working with the program, I did want to speak on one thing that they mentioned when you're just listening to webinars. But there's also things cultural differences that we don't think about. That you have to show people. So, like, pumping gas is something and the road, the, you know the driving rules. So, yeah, stop is stop everywhere, but if you have a roundabout, what does yield mean? What is the highway? A lot of them they drive, they don't do miles, they do kilograms. Is it Kilometers Kilometers? Sorry, not kilograms kilometers. So like that translation for them, walking the supermarket the first few days, this is just like going to the supermarket for them, like that's a whole different experience. A lot of american food is processed right. They're used to whole food, maybe just cutting the chicken and kind of getting the pieces, cleaning it and going, so some little things that you keep in mind. It's a cultural experience.
Speaker 2:So things like that you have to kind of show them, educate them on, let them know about, um, you know, maybe the car seat, those type of things you do have to teach them so think about you going to live somewhere else that you've never been before and you having to learn exactly their language, what they do, how they walk, how they dress not, maybe not walking dress. Yeah, actually, walking and walking might be different over there too, you might. All right, texas, we don't walk anywhere.
Speaker 1:Yeah in new york you would.
Speaker 2:In new york you would walk. So yeah, those are the type of things that you don't even think and we were going through like, oh yeah, we didn't think that oh yeah this yeah, like the supermarket. I didn't think about the supermarket till she came back and we walked every single aisle. We walked every single aisle. Show you know where things are she's like oh, wow, okay but it's a cultural exchange program.
Speaker 2:you know, to say the least. Imagine you going to live in Columbia for a year, a year, and that's what you're doing. Another thing you didn't think about, that we didn't think about right now, where governments are, there's embassies and places that are closing because they're like, well, we're not giving out visas, and stuff like that. So, depending on when you decide to get into a program like this, you don't know what the rules and regulations may be, and this is something that we had to learn because they were talking about it in, like you know, facebook groups and stuff.
Speaker 1:yeah, so that's the process of getting the all peer. That's kind of the pros and cons of it. But I do want to talk about some facts like that's just like okay, what about this, what about this that you may have and I'm gonna answer this for you so they do get paid, um out your pocket yeah, they get paid.
Speaker 1:You have so the program. There's a program fee. Right, the program fee, I would say range. I think it was about like ten thousand dollars for the year. You have to pay the program. You can do a payment plan with them or you can just pay outright and even with the payment plan.
Speaker 1:It didn't make it more money, just kind of stretched out how much you're paying them and then you have to pay the all-peer 195.75 a week as a stipend. Um, that's your stipend. Um, you may be like, oh, that's pretty low. Well, they are getting room and board, um, so you also your grocery expenses are probably gonna.
Speaker 1:Grocery expenses probably gonna go up. Your light bill may go up. Your water bill may go up. If you have gas, like those things will increase. Now, increased by how much, I think it depends on the person. Like, I really didn't see our water and electric bill go up like that. The grocery bill did go up a bit. So those are things you kind of have to keep in mind. If they're driving your car, do you pay for gas all the time? Do they pay for gas Like? That's kind of some of the stuff you may have to consider.
Speaker 1:So they get paid, let's just say $196 a week, and they can work up to 45 hours a week, no more than that, um and that and that's an important, important thing to make sure that you stick even along those lines they are entitled to one and a half days a week off. So you're like huh, what does that mean? So one and a half days is like all of Friday off and Saturday at least. I think it's like at least six or seven hours off. That's like within the week, one and a half days, within the week they have to get off. You can't have them working six, seven days a week. Oh, the cleaning people are here. That's why Blue is barking, if you can hear that.
Speaker 1:Age limit so they range between at least the program that we're working with and I think that's the standard everywhere is 18 to 26 years old. They can't be any younger, they can't be any older. Now, if they turn 26 while they are here, that is OK, or 27 while they're here, that's OK. But to enter into the program they need to be that. So for us, we knew that we wanted someone older, if you will. So our last RPR was 24. And I think the next one's coming is about the same thing. So that was important for us. Not that an 18-year-old can't do work, but we just didn't feel like we wanted to 18 is really young.
Speaker 2:18 is really young.
Speaker 1:I don't know if you remember when you was 18. It's really young and it feels like raising a kid. And life experience. You know, maybe they've never left a home. Those type of things play into how I think someone life experience, you know, maybe they've never left the home. Those type of things play into how I think someone can survive, I guess, or function in another country, not another state, another country. So that was important for us. The program runs a year at a time, so they can be in the country for two years. So say, after one year you both decide like, oh, this is working out well, we want to do another year, they can do two years. Or the person can decide that they want to go to another family to get another experience, another state or something. They can do that as well, but they only can be in the country for two years. Then they have to go back home, be there, I think, for at least least two years and they can come back if they're within the age limit.
Speaker 2:So one of the one of the pros and cons of having that age difference is that with a younger person they more than likely can stay with you and go go through the program multiple times yeah, so if you want, if you want somebody to be able to come back and stay with you. You have the ability to do that with older people. They're more than likely going to phase out before that second part of the program. So you're more than likely going to phase out before that second part of the program.
Speaker 2:So you're more than likely going to get somebody for one year and have to go through it all over again, versus getting somebody younger. Train them up, you build that rapport and then potentially they can stay with you through another term. Right, kind of like having an older president versus a younger president. You got to teach them, train them and stuff. Older guys they're going to phase out.
Speaker 1:True, which is what we just saw actually somebody phased out. They do get training um within the program, so they do have experience of working with kids, but they also get training within the program that helps them just with their documents, their visa, things like that, when they come here. Um, they also have what we mentioned like a case manager. They also have a case manager that they communicate with and once a month they have um peer activity, like groups of the ladies and all peers that kind of get together and do an activity, so they have some type of community outside of us before they meet any friends. They have all peer friends that they can connect with as well, so they're not completely alone. Um what else? They get 10 full days off during the year, so, um, they recommend or suggest that they take it off consecutively, but it really is up to you, the host family and the person. They can work it out together. Ten days is really not a lot technically.
Speaker 2:So you can. You can't force them to get your job right.
Speaker 1:It depends on the job. So you can make a decision as a host family to give the person more days off. You don't have to. You know only 6 to 10, but you can't give them less. It has to be a minimum 10 days that they're getting off a year. What else? They cannot work overnight. That's important. So if they're working it has to stop at 12, 12 am and I think they can work as early maybe as 6 am or something like that. But they can't just stay up and be a night nanny or a night nurse. I know at first we were like damn, because when she first came we were like that's what we need with our baby. I think I said it a few times.
Speaker 2:They really can't work overnight. What if there's rules? You don't want to break the rules.
Speaker 1:Once you start breaking rules, they start breaking rules and had me work overnight.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's just a mess. We stayed within the guidelines.
Speaker 1:So they can't work overnight.
Speaker 2:But they can work weekends, so there was times where. Janoka was traveling. I remember this specific time Janoka was traveling and we had them work Saturday with me, so we had both the kids. We went out to an event and I was like this is the best thing ever. I got somebody with me all day and then we came home and she helped me get the kids down.
Speaker 2:So that's the difference between having an all-parent like a nanny, because more than likely the nanny has to go home to be with their family. But since she was here, she spent the extra time helping me get the kids down.
Speaker 1:And then, once it was good night, she went up to her room, and that was't work. More than that even within the 45. That day it was 10 hours she decided to do more.
Speaker 1:Don't be throwing no illegal stuff on me, just in case um no, but so they can do 45 hours a week, 10 hours a day max. So it's not like you can just all right, 20 hours today. Um, they can't do that. Uh, they can't be alone with a child under three months in the home by themselves. So, like I said, when our peer first came, amaya was only one month, so she could never be in the house alone with her until Amaya turned three months and then they could be in the house alone. Doesn't mean they can't take care of them, they just can't be in the house alone with them.
Speaker 1:That's just important to note If you're getting an all-peer, you know, for your newborn or whatever the case may be. And they do have to take school credit while they're here. So during that time that they're here, they can do online school, they can drive to school. It's really up to them and you contribute up to $500 towards that to help them with school. So it doesn't have to be $500, but it's up to $500 towards that to help them with their school credit, however they see fit. So when it comes to scheduling, if they have a class, you obviously can't have them working during that time, but they should, depending on the rapport that you have. They should work with you to kind of schedule around that, like whatever their class schedule is going to be, see if it works for the family. So I think I covered all the bases I'm sure people are going to have more questions of.
Speaker 2:Any questions? You guys got Whatever questions you have.
Speaker 1:you got to just drop it in the comments and we'll try to answer more about it. But I'm trying to think of what are some other things like. I think, yeah, they spend time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I didn't think of what are some other things like. I think, yeah, they spend time, yeah. So if you guys, that's the pod, I think that's it, like they have their room.
Speaker 1:Yeah, things like that. Whatever, all right guys, if there's additional questions you can ask us, but that's everything we have on and all up here.
Speaker 2:We probably could say more, but if any more questions, comments, concerns put, if you're watching this on YouTube, you could drop a comment, you could send us a DM and we'll be more than willing to answer them. Maybe Janoka does a full blown Q and a on this inside our community or wherever you guys see fit. So appreciate you tapping in. You got to the end of this episode. Please leave us a five star our review. You got. Subscribe to the podcast. It helps us reach more people and if you want to learn more about how we started a seven figure cleaning business without cleaning houses, go to cleaningbusinessmasterclasscom and you'll register for our next free workshop. Bye-bye, peace.