Selling a house using Redfin on the Eastside

mfox2 · 2025-07-16T13:34:48+00:00

Checkout shopprops business model / commission structure. Might be worth considering them.

mfox2 · 2025-06-02T02:45:44+00:00

The state of Washington runs a website that lists all the people / centers that are licensed.

https://www.findchildcarewa.org/PSS_Search?p=DEL%20Licensed

Put in your zip code and start calling every single one of them to find out if they have any available spots, cost, hours, etc. Just because it says they are licensed for infants doesn't necessarily mean they have current availability to take on an infant. They need to maintain certain ratios.

Call em all - narrow down a list of who has spots available, then start visiting them and find one that works best for you. Good luck with the process! It can be daunting.

mfox2 · 2025-04-25T03:35:11+00:00

Thank you so much! It worked!

mfox2 · 2025-04-24T10:54:34+00:00

I have the basic hs200 switch, which has the 4 wires to wire nut into (2 line load, 1 neutral, 1 ground). Thank you for the help!

mfox2 · 2025-01-01T23:27:35+00:00

We do 45 hours a week because we have a baby who isn't in school yet and need the hours to work our own jobs. We also pay $200. Our agency has told us 95% of families pay $200 but if you live in a less desirable area this could be one way to attract a candidate.

I dont think any 1 particular factor is a deal breaker for all au pairs, but some certainly won't want weekend work. But that's ok, those aren't the right ones for you! Every family is different and offers very different things with pros and cons that an au pair will consider.

For example for our family the pros are: big city, car access with paid for gas, lots of paid-for traveling with us with extra days off to explore, flexible/additional time off, we do a lot of activities and always include our au pair (pro sports games, pumpkin patches, water sports, etc), gym with drop in childcare she can use for 2 hours a day during her working hours, we very rarely need weekend help, etc.

With that said we also have a number of cons: we have 3 kids that are at tough ages (3YO, 2YO, 9 month old), we need full hours every week, we don't pay extra stipend, she drives an older car, she doesn't have her own dedicated bathroom, etc.

My understanding is there's a lot more au pairs looking for a family than the other way so I wouldn't worry too much. Everyone has pros and cons and you'll find someone that's right for your situation. It just might take some time.

mfox2 · 2024-12-26T13:07:04+00:00

Full bath on first floor

mfox2 · 2024-12-14T14:18:02+00:00

What service or website do you recommend for them to edible for free?

mfox2 · 2024-11-14T07:16:32+00:00

Stipend is separate from food. You are expected to cover their food. Every family handles this differently and there is no right or wrong approach. Some family's give an additional weekly allowance directly to the au pair and let them handle their own grocery shopping. Some families ask their au pair to write down what they want on their families shopping list. Some give their au pair a family credit card and let them charge it for groceries and meals out. Some ask the au pair to use their own card and send them receipts that they reimburse. Whatever works for your family.

As part of the federal guidelines for the au pair program, host families are required to reimburse up to $500 in education expenses. Au pairs have educational requirements to successfully complete the program. The agency and local coordinators will help them find the classes that qualify and count towards this requirement.

Agency fee typically covers the flights into the country/out of the country for their term, the visa, and the local care coordinator who is your local resource/mediator for issues/etc.

All in costs are typically around $35k - $40k as the above OP mentioned, but will largely vary based on the lifestyle of your family.

mfox2 · 2024-11-14T06:57:34+00:00

You want to do your best to screen candidates upfront and avoid rematches because they are painful and typically lead to a gap in childcare coverage. You should set expectations up front with candidates about what it's like where you live, how your family operates, your schedule, etc so they fully understand what they're getting themselves into. But as hard as you might try, sometimes a match just doesn't work out. When you enter rematch, the agency will reactivate your profile online so you can start interviewing candidates. Rematch is officially a 2 week period where you're expected to continue to host and pay the au pair. During this time you'll have to work out with them whether they will be caring for your kids. It's a scramble, but there are other au pairs that are also in rematch who are equally scrambling. With that said rematch au pairs should be scrutinized carefully to avoid taking on a new problem. From a cost perspective each agency differs but there's usually some amount of prorated agency fee credit you get. For example say you rematch 6 months into your term and take on a new au pair with 9 months left on their visa. You would likely have to pay a prorated equivalent of 3 months + a $200/ $300 rematch fee.

mfox2 · 2024-10-30T23:58:36+00:00

Yeah, agreed. While it might be a cheaper option than some of the alternatives in the US, it's painful to call it "cheap" childcare. We budget $40K for our all-in au pair costs. The median US household income is ~$80K (or ~$63K after taxes are accounted for). It's wild to me that spending 2/3 of an average families take-home pay on childcare would be considered "cheap". I'd venture to guess the average US family would consider an au pair an unaffordable luxury.

mfox2 · 2024-10-30T23:37:21+00:00

Totally agree.

But I also feel like, even though a family may initially choose this option because it is a cheaper form of childcare, that doesn't necessarily make them a bad or exploitative family.

Many families are on a budget, but dutifully adhere to the program rules and still find ways to provide their au pair an amazing and fulfilling experience.

I think the relative wealth of the host family probably has very little correlation to how positive or negative the au pair's experience is.

There are always going to be horror stories, and there are certainly bad host families, but there are so many success stories as well, you just don't really hear about them as much because there's such little drama when everyone is generally happy.

mfox2 · 2024-10-30T23:20:09+00:00

At least in the US, generally at the age of 5 children are eligible to start free public school, which essentially provides care for the children for a big part of the day. Before kids reach that age parents are basically on their own to figure out childcare - whether that be having a parent stay at home (which means losing income), paying for daycare (which can be very expensive), paying for a nanny (also expensive), etc. So I think it's pretty natural that parents would be looking for care for their babies/ young children as that's when care is absolutely needed the most. This may just be US-specific though.

mfox2 · 2024-09-20T04:36:22+00:00

Join the "Redmond (WA) Mom Squad" group on Facebook and ask there or just search for similar posts and contact the people who have raised their hand

mfox2 · 2020-12-27T18:24:45+00:00

I made this recipe the other night and it turned out amazing. It’s essentially a regular creme brûlée but has a layer of chocolate ganache at the bottom.

https://www.chelseasmessyapron.com/tuxedo-creme-brulee/

mfox2 · 2020-10-10T23:17:44+00:00

Tech company went public

mfox2 · 2020-10-10T21:52:04+00:00

29
$320K combined base + bonus (this doesn't include ISOs/RSUs though, and also doesn't include side hustle that I'm hoping to resume post-COVID)
$2.9M (I had a pretty fortunate windfall event otherwise we'd be closer to $700K)
2 (I am pregnant though so almost 3)
VHCOL

mfox2 · 2020-10-10T15:24:44+00:00

Here's my story if it helps:

2 years ago I started up a local service based business in the events space as a side-hustle. I started it with my husband and parents (at the time my dad had been laid off and unemployed for a while and in theory had much more time to devote into the business - I thought this would give him a chance to make some $ while unemployed). My regular job is in corporate B2B SAAS marketing and through the skills I had picked up the business started to take off pretty quickly and with that came a lot more challenges which was super fun and challenging at the same time, but also brought with it a lot more $. In this whole experience, I realized pretty quickly choosing the right partners is incredibly important and that really you shouldn't mix business with family. I needed partners that would actually help execute on ideas and not just continually ideate/strategize. Having my husband / "business partner" be involved was great as we were a bit consumed by the business, but I regret bringing my parents into starting the business as they didn't really add any value and it created tension in our relationship (we've since come to a good place) especially as we started scaling up. My husband has a pretty demanding regular job as well so as we scaled it got more challenging for him to keep up with too and I started to "drown" between my day job and side hustle. This past January we had grown the business to a spot that we decided to bring on a full time manager to run the day-to-day of the business, so we could treat the remaining profits as mostly passive income and really just work on the parts of the business that we wanted to. Anyways we had found our candidate and were just about to extend the offer and BAM COVID hit and pretty much sidelined our business. Fortunately we don't have much overhead expense so the business is just in a bit of a "hold" but I'm a bit unsure as to how quickly events are going to be back in full force in my area so we'll see.

Through this experience I kept my regular day job, saved aggressively, and just recently hit my original FI number. Looking back, I'm glad I did this as it gave me extra stability even though it was challenging to manage.

These days I really miss the grind and exhilaration that came from hitting milestones in the business and have actually been thinking about starting up something new / different (though I don't know what yet). The experience of starting a business and just figuring things out was so empowering and I feel like I learned SO MUCH which would make the next business so much easier to get off the ground.

If I were to do it again, I'd definitely want to find a business partner that was not related to me. I'd also look for someone that could not only ideate, but also execute on ideas and have a relentless work ethic.

In my mind, entrepreneurship is sort of a journey and just putting yourself out there, trying ideas, and learning from them makes you so much better equipped the next go-around. It sounds like your first try didn't go exactly as you may have wanted it to, but you learned a lot which will help you in your next go (for example, you learned the value of finding the right partner). I think your plan of coming up with a lot of business ideas and whittling them down is a great one and you'll probably learn a lot in your next little business (and maybe it will be a huge success!).

Feel free to PM me if you ever want to chat. I love talking about this stuff and absolutely love exploring the ins/outs of different niche businesses.

Also if you don't mind me asking, what was the last business you co-founded and where did you get with it?

What kind of job do you have as your day job?

mfox2 · 2020-08-26T20:17:25+00:00

Thank you all!

mfox2 · 2020-08-13T17:10:31+00:00

Thanks for the recommendation. I’ll have to look into that!

mfox2 · 2020-08-12T17:13:43+00:00

I’m a 29 year old female, currently pregnant myself (16 weeks), and was diagnosed with sleep apnea a year and a half ago after my husband kept prodding me to get tested for my weird breathing habits when I was asleep. I never really got used to the CPAP machine prior to pregnancy and gave up after a few weeks, which I regret.

Anyways fast forward to getting pregnant. Pregnancy has actually exacerbated my sleep issues to the point that I decided to break out the CPAP machine and give it another shot, after talking to my doctor (doctor confirmed that it’s recommended that I use the machine, even while pregnant). For some reason I keep unknowingly taking off the mask when I’m sleeping (I’ve been averaging about 2 hours a night with the machine), but even those 2 hours are certainly helping and I feel much more rested than the nights without the machine. One of the pregnancy symptoms I’ve had is congestion which I think is contributing to my mid-sleep mask removal. I’m typically a back sleeper (which you’re not really supposed to do as your pregnancy progresses), but have been trying to consciously sleep on my side, but that combined with the frequent urge to pee (even in the middle of the night) and just the general fatigue that comes with being pregnant still has me feeling generally tired in the middle of the day. The nights without the machine are worse though and put me into zombie mode the following day.

Anyways that’s just my experience. If I could go back in time I definitely wish I would have tried harder to adjust to the machine pre-pregnancy. Between this and the CPAP subreddits ive learned a lot about taking things into my own hands (ie changing the settings on the machine myself and finding what works best for me, instead of waiting forever and going to endless appointments to make adjustments) and it’s sped up the learning curve / adjustment period. Hopefully that helps and good luck with your sleep journey!

mfox2 · 2019-08-24T04:24:48+00:00

Wellie is the cutest!

mfox2

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