January 1, 2025 at 10:20 pm

Stingy Couple Demanded Accuracy From Their Nanny, So She Triple-Checked Her Hours Worked And Discovered They Owed Her A Fortune

by Benjamin Cottrell

Source: Getty/alynst, Reddit/MaliciousCompliance

Often wealth doesn’t translate to generosity. One nanny learned this lesson the hard way nannying for a particularly difficult family.

Appalled at having to pay more, the family demanded she double-check her hours. But when she did, it turns out their penny-pinching left them writing a much bigger check.

Read on for the full story!

Mom splits hairs with nanny to save a few dollars and ends up backpaying hundreds

Karen and Ken are wealthy and extremely stingy. Their kid is Bob.

Henry is an extremely sweet, generous single dad who lost his husband a few years ago and dotes on his kid, Steve.

I have been a nanny for several years now, and for the most part, I’ve worked with lovely, reasonable families.

This nanny has some well-thought-out rules that help her make ends meet.

I have contracts for every family that guarantee the hours I work, meaning if a family goes on vacation, I still get paid because I’m technically available to work, but they chose not to use my services.

Think gym membership where you pay regardless of whether you’ve been to the gym in a month. This is standard in nanny contracts.

Another bit in my contract is called the nanny share. If two families want to combine for the day, each of them pays two-thirds of my regular pay rate.

I get paid a little more for watching more kids, and they save a little by paying only a portion of what they would have paid.

The wealthy family soon went on vacation, and as far as this nanny knew, it was business as usual.

Karen and Ken’s family went to Hawaii three weeks ago. Per my contract, I was to be paid as usual.

Before they left, they asked if I could come in and watch Bob the Sunday after they returned so that they could recover and rest. I agreed, and my hours were set at 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. that Sunday.

They went on the trip, everything was wonderful, and they texted me when they landed saying they would see me at 8 a.m.

Plans changed slightly, but this nanny was flexible.

The next day, when I was about to head out the door at 7:30 a.m., I received a text saying that Bob was just waking up, so I should show up at 8:30 instead.

After the day of nannying, Karen asked if I would stay past my regular hours during the upcoming week so that they could have two date nights.

I agreed, and Karen said she would reimburse me for all the extra hours at the end of the week since it’d be easier to make one payment. Totally fine with me.

The week finished, and I ended up staying an extra 8 hours total for the two date nights.

Since she had worked extra, she went to the couple to ask for the money she was owed.

I asked Ken to pay me for 16 hours, but he said he had to talk to Karen first to double-check hours and would pay me shortly.

But this wasn’t going to be as straightforward as she thought.

When I got home, I received a text from Karen saying:

“Hi Meowsasaurus, thank you so much for covering for us these past few weeks. Ken and I are feeling refreshed, and the show was HILARIOUS.

Since we were in Hawaii, you were paid for an entire week while you weren’t working.We don’t think this is quite fair as it is a large sum of money, so we’d like to apply some of those hours to your babysitting today and yesterday.

We will pay you for 8 hours instead.”

This was in clear violation of the nanny’s contract, so she defended her rates.

I was furious. I screenshotted the part of my contract that plainly stated I would be paid for any hours that their family was on vacation, and I reminded her that it was in violation of the contract.

She reluctantly agreed, and I texted that it would be a total of 16 hours.

But Karen wasn’t going to go down without a fight.

Karen instantly replied and WENT OFF, texting:

“On Sunday, we asked you to come in at 8:30, not 8.

We are already being generous and paying you for the holiday we took. We expect you to track your hours better next time. This is unacceptable.

You need to be as accurate as possible with the hours that we are paying you. We will pay you for 15.5 hours.”

Be more accurate? This nanny took this as a challenge.

Readers, this was a difference of $12.50. I was going to screenshot the part of my contract that said any rescheduling needed a 24-hour notice, but instead, I went nuclear.

It turns out, the nanny had actually been doing extra work for the wealthy family.

Bob has been tagging along with Steve and me to music class and soccer twice a week outside of Karen’s regular contracted hours since January.

Karen has never offered to pay for those hours, but Henry was fine with paying his full rate for those hours because Steve was having trouble making friends at school and had become close to Bob.

I chose not to say anything about the slight bump in pay because I loved watching them play together.

MALICIOUS COMPLIANCE TIME.

So she started adding up all that extra time.

As Karen stated, I needed to be as accurate as possible. I calculated all the hours that Bob has joined us since January (6 hr/week x 18 weeks), and the total amount they owed was almost $2,000.

In the group chat with Karen, Ken, and Henry, I said:

“Karen stated that it was of utmost importance that I tracked the hours as accurately as possible, so I took it upon myself to double-check everything, including the share hours.

Thank goodness I did! I didn’t realize we had forgotten to track all the hours that Bob joined us for soccer and music.

Henry, I’m so sorry, Karen actually owes you quite a bit of money. If my calculations are correct, they owe $X to you and to me.”

Henry, ever the sweet and generous type, took the nanny’s side.

Henry replied:

“Karen and Ken, I am so disappointed to hear that Meowsasaurus hasn’t been compensated properly this entire time. I don’t need my hours to be refunded for those hours because I wanted Steve to continue his playdates, but you need to pay Meowsasaurus’s portion immediately.”

In the end, the nanny made out like a bandit.

I got a huge chunk of money I wasn’t expecting, and I am now on the hunt for my next nanny family.

I’ll be putting my two weeks’ notice with Karen and Ken as soon as I do.

A rich family nickel-and-diming their own nanny is pretty shameful.

What did Reddit think?

Good nannies are hard to come by, so if you find a good one, treat them well!

Source: Reddit/MaliciousCompliance

Lord knows this family can afford to pay a few extra wages here and there.

Source: Reddit/MaliciousCompliance

Word choices often reveal more than we think about someone’s true feelings.

Source: Reddit/MaliciousCompliance

This family’s excuses are about as flimsy as it gets.

Source: Reddit/MaliciousCompliance

Karen asked for exact numbers, but she didn’t realize that “exact number” was actually more than she was already paying.

In the end, their stinginess cost them big time!

If you liked that story, read this one about grandparents who set up a college fund for their grandkid because his parents won’t, but then his parents want to use the money to cover sibling’s medical expenses.