DH starting salary. Am I crazy?

My husband and I are just beginning our search for a DH and right now we're trying to figure what to pay her. We can afford $5000/month maximum but don't want to if we don't have to. Reading some of the threads here though, it seems that some DHs won't take minimum wage. Trying to balance fairness and our frugalness, this is what we came up with:


Starting salary of $3500. After a 3 month evaluation period, we'll give her a $500 raise if we are happy with her. After that, we're planning on holding performance evaluations every 6 months. If her performance is above average we'll give her another raise, with her salary capping out at $4500. When she reaches the salary cap, we'll give her a bonus instead of raises after a satisfactory evaluation.


Duties would be cleaning, cooking, and occasionally watching our 1 year old. Naturally, any raises will be accompanied with increased duties (we're just not sure what right now). What do you think? Too complicated? Needlessly accommodating? Not bad? Any insights/advice would be really helpful as we've only been here a couple of weeks.


Thanks!

Unless you are living in a 2000+ sf house with a baby, a dog and two cars sitting out on the street, why do you think that you even have to pay HK$5000 per month? The majority of the employers here pay the around the minimum. There is no correlation between how much you pay and how good/bad your helper is. The only strong correlation is probably to your own take-home salary and allowances.


If guilt is getting to you, then you can set aside a fund for your helper. When she leaves you, you can give it to her as a surprise bonus.

We made a big mistake with our first helper and paid too much.


Now we start with 3,700 (3,400+ food allowance of 300), and if it goes well after 3 months will increase to 4,000.


You can also opt to contribute to the Philipines Social Security - you give her the money, and she goes to the embassy and deposits it and gives you the receipt.


When I was interviewing helpers, I interviewed many who came from expat families and expected 5,000 a month - I flatly refused and they did not take the job. To be honest, they were the best helpers I interviewed (excellent English, great cooking skills, lots of newborn and baby care experience, first aid certificates, etc...) and probably do deserve that, but we are hiring two helpers and do not want to pay so much to each of them.

If you can afford $5k maximum, don't forget to add food allowance and levy into that. Minimum food allowance is $300 a month, levy $400 a month. So you may want to bring the starting salary to nearer $4k. or give the minimum, you can always give bonuses for good work, paying more does not mean you'll be getting a better worker. There are thousands of great DH out there that work for the minimum.

We pay ours $3,500 plus $500 food allowance.

I pay my helper $3,500 which is about min. wage. She eats what we eat. Then I give her generous bonus on holidays and also if she had to do little extra work because we had a guest for dinner or for whatever reason. I also set aside 1 mo. salary per year as her severance pay. Why commit your self to high salary? Once you commit your cannot scale back.

I pay my helper $3,500 which is about min. wage. She eats what we eat. Then I give her generous bonus on holidays and also if she had to do little extra work because we had a guest for dinner or for whatever reason. I also set aside 1 mo. salary per year as her severance pay. Why commit your self to high salary? Once you commit your cannot scale back.

I agree with the above posters. You should start with a level of pay with which you feel comfortable, not with your maximum - you can always work up from there, but you cannot go down if you've started high.


We pay ours $4200 because our house is a bit bigger than average. We give her an extra month's salary once a year (this year it was Christmas, although I was planning it for CNY but she needed the money then). We'll give her a small lai see at CNY (tossing between $500 and $1000), and give her token gifts (Body Shop gift sets etc.) and some cash for birthday and Christmas too. We pay her bonuses when we have house guests (usually $500 each time) or when we have big parties, because she does have to work harder. We pay for all of her food - either she eats what we do, or she adds her own requirements to the shopping list. She has taken to adding her own toiletries, which I had not planned but it's hardly worth an argument. We pay for her landline, but not her mobile or her calls. We bought her a tv/dvd and pay for her Now Broadband. I did not stretch to putting in cable tv (with Tagalog channels) for her because it would have been a whole new contract and a lot more expensive. We fly her home twice a year at times that suit us (she has young children), but am reconsidering this as it seems to lead to requests for loans.


We are considering whether to give her a raise once she's been with us for a year, but I am inclined to stick with bonuses as they have a more measureable work-reward transparency. Shehad been on minimum before she started with us, so she is still up on the deal. We will probably wait until the end of her contract before we increase her wages.

Not only should you consider how much you are comfortable with, but also the type of helper you want. For those who are inexperienced like mine is, I would pay the minimum wage. It takes more effort to train them, etc. As she is also taking care of my child, I will be sending her on a First Aid/CPR course ... something I will pay for and she will have to take (paid) time off work to do it. However, it is something she can put on her resume for future employers. She eats whatever we eat, but I make sure that she has some snacks, etc. that she likes.


For a very well trained and experienced helper, I would expect to pay more, although unless she has been with you for a few years, I certainly would not be paying her a big starting salary. Like the others who have replied, I'd start lower and reward her loyalty and efforts with bonuses and thoughtful gestures.