Traveling Au Pair Has Drivers Licenses in 4 Countries

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

One of the oldest, most traditional ways for young people to earn money for travelling abroad, and in fact while travelling abroad, is by being an au pair. An au pair is a nanny, a domestic assistant from a foreign country who works for and lives with a host family. Now of course this is only a good idea for the right kind of person. You wouldn't want me to be an au pair for your kids. I'd be like, "Kids, let's go light some stuff on fire." Or, "Kids, let's go practice shoplifting." Because that's kind of what I was up to when I was a kid.

Now thankfully this story is not about me. I'm not going to go out and try to be an au pair, don't worry. In this story, a South African traveller earns money through blogging and childcare, allowing her to live in Turkey, Ireland, the United Kingdom and the United States. She now has driver's licenses in four countries, and she's been able to have a wealth of global experience while getting paid. So, like I said, a good opportunity for the right kind of person.

And in this story, I'll tell you more about how it works. Stay tuned. It's coming right up in just 30 seconds. Laredo Bombo of South Africa has a side hustle that takes her around the world. This gig not only earns an income, but also saves her money on food and lodging.

It's a job you may have heard of before, but perhaps haven't considered in this way. Laredo is a part-time au pair. An au pair is defined as a young person who goes abroad to live with a native family, often to learn a language, or experience a different culture, in exchange for childcare. Before travelling and becoming an au pair, Laredo trained and worked in digital marketing. In 2016 she started blogging, which led to freelance writing and web design work.

That's been her primary income for the past three years while living in different countries. To add another piece to the puzzle, she launched a dropshipping store in the past year. Although Laredo can spend up to 60 hours a week on her blog, freelance work, and dropshipping, all of those projects are online, and they're flexible in terms of when she puts in her hours. In other words, her day job fits easily around her childcare side hustle schedule. Typically, she'll watch her host family's kids for two hours in the morning.

While the kids are at school, she does her online work. After school, she takes care of the kids again until around 7pm. She does this four days a week, and the rest of the time is her own. Being an au pair has helped Laredo learn a lot about herself. She's grown to handle things she didn't think she was able, and she can now claim driver's licenses in four countries and proficiency in six languages.

But what are the economics of this? Let's talk about the money. Laredo's most recent au pair pay was 1,000 euros, or $1,200 per month. That may not sound like much, but remember that her food, lodging, and utilities are all free. This past April, she also made $500 in overtime because the parents went to Portugal for the weekend while she watched the kids.

She's now done this job in a lot of places, starting with her first assignment in Istanbul. While living there with a family for six months, she managed to visit eight different countries, in addition to traveling around the majestic country of Turkey. The environment there was completely new for her. New food, a different religion, and a foreign culture. The language barrier was significant as well.

Only one person in the house spoke English, although this is great for learning the local language, which she did. Laredo's other au pair placements have included a year and a half in Ireland, eight months in the UK, and one year in the US. Different countries have different regulations and minimum wages. France is one of the worst in terms of pay, at just 50 euros a week, and yet it remains one of the most popular countries for au pairs. Spain's wages are only slightly better.

Of course, these two places are likely more attractive for the potential to improve your French and Spanish. In the US, the legal minimum wage for an au pair is $196 per week. Other places, like Ireland, don't have a minimum at all, so it really depends on the family. A normal contract is between six and 24 months. Short-term contracts, like during summer holidays, can be for one month or less.

Most families require an au pair to commit for a specific amount of time before hiring them. And they prefer not to make abrupt transitions, because kids can struggle with adapting to a new person and creating a new routine mid-school year. For first-time au pairs, Laredo recommends signing up with an agency. An agency is responsible for finding families and making sure the environment is safe. They'll run a background check on the family, arrange work visas, introduce you to other au pairs in the area, and even place you with another family, if you're unhappy.

Agencies usually charge both the au pair and the family a fee. A free alternative is to create a profile on aupairworld.com. On this site, families pay to use the service, but it's free for au pairs. Since there's no vetting provided with this method, Laredo says it's important to ask a lot of questions, have multiple video calls with the family before committing, and just know that if the offer sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. Something unique about this side hustle is that it can be seasonal.

You can take on back-to-back contracts or pause between them as you wish. At the moment, Laredo is doing just that, taking a break from her assignments. She's decided to travel full-time for six months, gathering content for her travel blog, and visiting her family back in South Africa. Maybe she'll return to being an au pair, or maybe she'll apply those new skills to other endeavors. With six languages and driver's licenses in four countries, she'll have no shortage of opportunities.

Well, as I said, definitely not an opportunity for me. Definitely not something I'm going to jump on. But I'm also not a young person, so I'm disqualified in that regard, too. However, I admire the combination of freelance work and drop shipping, blogging, etc. that Laredo has combined with being an au pair, which would typically provide a way for young people to travel, which is cool, but not help a lot with the goals of paying off debt and achieving financial independence, which is what we're all about here on the program, something that a lot of young people are interested in.

So, good for her. I'm going to be sure to check out her blog, which, of course, we will link up in the show notes. By the way, fun fact, the word au pair is French, meaning "on equal terms," and the phrase originally described an arrangement between two parties paid for by the exchange of mutual services. So, au pairs weren't paid at all for a long time, and now it's much more common, as you heard in the story, for them to receive at least some kind of stipend. And someone like Laredo has found a way to make it work even more to her advantage.

Okay, that's it for today. Inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better. The show notes are at sidehustleschool.com/963. Episode 963. Got an interesting story coming up for you tomorrow.

It's all about a guy who makes money on moving boxes. You ever had to move and you have to deal with those boxes. It's just a pain. It's a problem. Well, he has created a solution, and he's doing pretty well with it, as you will hear tomorrow.

I hope you'll do one thing today to get yourself closer to a goal that you believe in. Whether it is learning a language or traveling abroad, or alternatively, creating some freedom, creating some opportunity and possibility for yourself, so that you will have more time to learn a language, or to travel, or to spend time with your family, or whatever is important to you. That is, again, what it's all about. Freedom, opportunity, possibility for you. Thanks so much. My name is Chris Guillebeau.

This is Saddussle School. More is on the way. From the Onward Project.