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Babysitting – Is It Easier Than Online Income?

Yesterday was my first ever real job. Some of you may recall my attempt at becoming a caddy at a local golf course which was ended with the claim of age prejudice. However this time, my age worked in my favour.

Babysitting is probably the classic job for teenagers. You don’t have to be a girl to look after kids when their parents are away – fortunately for me though, I was taking care of a young boy for 4 hours. Anyway, the hours go by quickly, there is often no manual labour involved and the pay is pretty decent compared to working at the local supermarket.

Anyway, my next door neighbour called me up to ask for a favour and I readily agreed to babysit her son. Once I arrived, the boy and I played on his Nintendo Wii. This was my first time and to be honest I was pretty amazed by how fun the games were, even though the graphics weren’t next generation. My favourite game was Tennis on Wii Sports. Whilst I won’t turn this into a battle of the consoles though, I still prefer my Xbox 360!

After playing for 1 or 2 hours, the kid ate his dinner (which his mum had pre-prepared) and we played a few boardgames. Then after 3 and a half hours I put the boy to sleep and went downstairs to do a bit of light Economics reading. His parents came back shortly after and I got paid £20 for the 4 hours – not bad considering supermarket wages are at £4.50 odd per hour here in the UK.

But was this income easier than earning online? A few points:

  • You don’t really gain any knowledge from babysitting. Whilst blogging, Im constantly reading and acquiring new technical jargon and techniques to increase earnings, alter websites – heck I even managed to be able to fully edit HTML since starting last February!
  • But – babysitters don’t really get burnt out. Much of looking after kids involves watching TV and playing games. And if the family are rich then the experience can be better than your own home.
  • The pay is much more definite and consistent, £5 per hour is nearly certain whereas online, you never know when your more faithful TLA customers might leave you. Maybe this is part of the ride for an entrepreneur and results in more thrills on top of the spills.

Really I wouldn’t say no if another person asked me to babysit. It’s an easy job and supplements my online income really nicely. On top of this I record my income on a spreadsheet in Dollars so the conversion rate will really help my cause this month! Marketing my babysitting service is something which I thought about yesterday as well, but that will take up another post for sure!

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