What do you give your housekeeper at Xmas?

[mecawa]

We have an awesome housekeeper who comes in one morning a week, and we pay her $70.00 per week. We want to give her a xmas tip/bonus but we can't figure out how much, or if we should do something else for her instead. We use to give a cash bonus to our old housekeeper when we were living between two households/states(usually a weeks pay), but DH and I got to discussing it last night and we're wondering if there is any "standard" to giving a tip/bonus/gift at the holidays. I'm just curious as to what others do or have done. TIA!!

[sste]

We pay our housekeeper $50-60 per week and we give $150 xmas bonus. Our bonus is larger because she has been with us for six years. I kind of think of $100 as the min. bonus for a good housekeeper.

[LMPC]

Our housekeeper comes 1x a month for $80-100 -- I give her $100 at Xmas. With the economy the way it is, though, I think I will be giving a bit more this year....maybe $150.

[hillview]

I give her an extra full payment plus a little more (so she gets paid 120 a week and I might give her 150). I also give her helper 100 or so. She has been with us for about 10 years and we love her.
/hillary

[happy2bamom]

We can't afford a housekeeper anymore, but when we had one I use to give her (in cash) whatever she charged for cleaning our house. I think that it was $70 each time she cleaned, so her Christmas bonus was $70.

[wellyes]

We pay $90 every two weeks and give $100 for Christmas.

[Twoboos]

We pay $80 every two weeks and give $100 at the holidays.

[jgenie]

We pay $70 every other week and she has started babysitting every other week for me. I plan to give her $150 as a Christmas bonus - I was going to get her a gift from DS and give her $100 but decided she would probably rather have the cash.

[LexyLou]

Ok, so I used to give my old housekeeper the equivalent to one extra cleaning but we recently moved and I'll only have my current housekeeper (well it's a team of three) for three cleanings before Christmas and the first one was the try out cleaning. Should I still give a Christmas bonus and if it's 3 vs the one I used to have, I guess I should bump it up from the $90 bi-weekly cleaning rate, huh?

[wellyes]

If I were you, I'd give the regular bonus ($90) for the team. I know it kind of stinks since you don't have a well-established relationship with them, but I am sure they'll very much appreciate the gift and will help in establishing your new 'social contract' with them.

[mecawa]

If I were you, I'd give the regular bonus ($90) for the team. I know it kind of stinks since you don't have a well-established relationship with them, but I am sure they'll very much appreciate the gift and will help in establishing your new 'social contract' with them.

:yeahthat:

[mecawa]

Thanks for the responses, I think we will give her $100.00, she's been with us almost a year and she does a good job.

[egoldber]

I use to give her (in cash) whatever she charged for cleaning our house.

This is what I do. I may round it up to $100 this year though. I also usually give it in January as a "New Year" bonus LOL! Although mainly because I usually forget or the timing does not work out and we are out of town, etc.

[ilfaith]

We pay our housekeeper $120-$140 every other week (depending on how long she stays). We've used her about ten months, so this is the first Christmas she's been with us, and I'm planning to give her $150.