I am/was (having a break at the moment) an educarer for Jemmas.

With jemmas you can do your own tax but they also have an accountant that you can use to do your tax for you for a small fee. They suggest putting away $10 for every $100 you earn. Your hourly rate depends on how much previous experince you have (ie i was slightly higher as I have a nanny diploma to my name)

I used to do heaps with my carekids we would go to mainly music on wednesday, storytime at the library on a thursday and then some outing on the friday (ie to matakana country park where they can play at the playground and feed the animals) we also went to playgroup once a fortnight (monthly is the minimum)

We had to do a diary for the children just detailing what they have been up to with photos etc and how it relates back to Te whariki Early Childhood Circulum. Each term we have a theme that we have several outcomes and once again relates back to te whariki for example we did the enviroment around us last term where we taught them about recycling and even had a trip to the rubbish dump!! which was a huge hit.  

Its great to be able to meet up with other educarers and also bounce any problems off others esp behavioural ones. Our area co-ordinator comes round once a month to see how things are going to check your dairies and provide assistance if necessary. The diaries also have to go home for the parents to sight and comment on.

All play equipment is also provided by jemmas and the co-ordinator changes everything round (ie new books, puzzles art supplies etc) when she comes.

Tristen fitted in real well with the kids and i think he actually misses them from time to time. My good friend is also an educarer so we did heaps of stuff together. I still take tristen to mainly music so that he can see the other kids.

In the latest treasures there is an article on home based care that might be useful

We use home based care for Ella and it works really well for us. She has a really good relationship with her educarer and I would definitely recommend it. Our educarer has her 3 year old son at home and a 7 year old daughter after school. Ella fits in really well with their routine and loves going and doing the school run etc.We go through Jemmas and haven't had any problems. They also have a playgroup one morning a week, which Ella goes to and is a really good way of meeting other home based kids, as well as educarers catching up. Our carer has been doing some research into other companies and one of the things she found was that a lot of other places require the educarers to provide toys for the kids (or for the parents to bring them from home), but Jemmas have a toy library that educarers can use. Sounds like a small thing, but it is really useful and makes like a lot easier.

feel free to PM if you have any other questions

Im thinking about doing this too, look at home grown kids website its really interesting. Sorry not much help but will be interested to see what others say

What about going through a place like Porse, they would be your employer and do all the tax stuff for you.