Advice for young family moving to North Sulawesi

Maids are easy to find, but good maids could be harder. Your local Pak Rt or RW, or your security guard are generally good places to start asking. There are plenty of maid agencies to be found on a Google search but they'll charge a fee of whatever sort and commonly take foney from the lady as well.
As for price, that varies all over the country so I would suggest you asks locals how much they pay.

Online is pretty easy but shopping is equally so in any of the larger towns.

https://www.lazada.com.ph/shop-baby-gear/

COD

and

https://shopee.co.id/?gclid=Cj0KCQjw6eT … gle.com%2F

1. A lot of local people will offer you help.
2. Never heard that anyone is buying baby products online here. You can buy them easily in Manado. The diapers will come to your island by water, because the Minahasa throw the used ones in the rivers - and the other garbage too.

Greetings from
Tom

Baby/ child products can be easily bought online especially in bulk purchase to save not only money but convenience
We often used mothercare in Jakarta (online)
And often have special offers on certain products, and more often or not all products meet a much stricter safety standard as apposed to lesser quality imports from some websites
Usually free delivery within Indonesia within 4/5 working days over a spend of 1,000,000idr
In our experience certain size diapers/ nappies can at times be hard to find hence we often bulk purchase certain items

My wife often bought in medium quantities using mail order. They were the same branded products but notably cheaper.

I think it's a bit difficult to answer your questions accurately because I have never lived on a small island off Sulawesi where the nearest town is Manado. For any of the city, towns and villages on the bigger islands it is completely easy to buy baby diapers and baby items. But what you maybe need to do is check whether courier companies like Tiki and JNE etc provide a service to your island or not. If they do then it should not be a problem at all. We are buying from websites such as Tokopedia all the time and often have deliveries several times each day, but I cannot know if sellers on these sites would want to courier to the island where you plan to live. If not, then it might be more practical to simple make visits to Manado every now and again and buy those products in bulk and bring them back to the island.

As for a nanny, salaries differ a lot, but probably living in that island might mean that you could pay a salary of Rp1 million or less, perhaps as little Rp700k. I am guessing that the living standards and incomes of the locals there is much lower than the big cities or resort places that many of us are used to. I would also imagine that the English level of the nanny would not be all that good, unless perhaps if you find one in Manado and bring her back with you. If looking for a local one then ask around. As Fred mentioned, ask the Chairman of your local Rt/Rw if they have any recommendations. Security guards, cleaners, gardeners etc will all know someone, maybe a family member, but it is unlikely that they will speak English.

Good luck.

One thing you may want to consider is your preferred diaper/ nappy cream and bring a good supply, I found many here useless and over priced

Totally agree with Gwmeath. When my kids stopped wearing diapers I breathed a sigh of relief at the thought of the money I would be saving. Yes, always stock up well on your preferred brand.

As with anywhere there are some seriously rubbish brands out there, but also plenty of good local products.
When my youngest decided he could go to the toilet, announcing his intention in a loud voice, that was nappies only at night, then not at all. We had two packs of 20 left, one opened and a couple used, those donated to a local family.
Pretty reasonable guess at stock control.

I don't know what salary is for a local maid. but certainly through the 3.5 million agency. no one wants to be paid cheaply, man. and do not denigrate our nation.

Well if the local rate on that island is low then there is nothing denigrating about paying them the normal rate. Just because a foreigner will employ them does not mean that they have an automatic right to demand 3 or 4 times the normal salary. Also as you know, there are well off foreigners and less well off foreigners, exactly the same as Indonesians and with every country in the world.

yes I understand what you mean. I'm not comparing salaries with those who work abroad, man.
because now the salary workers are following the applicable minimum wage in their respective regions. Sulawesi is included as big as in Jakarta.
I no longer work in Hong Kong anymore. because after the replacement of the head of the consulate and 3 exclusive heads who had finished their work I would have to return. I'm in Jakarta now.

Well what do you feel is a salary that the couple moving to that remote island should pay for an English speaking nanny? Do you think it will be easy to find one who speaks
English? Of course we should think realistically about the salaries on a remote island.

now our people already know that foreign languages ​​don't want to be paid cheap dear. That skill is expensive now. especially with Westerners and working in remote islands they will think twice about it

yunisweetgirl wrote:

I don't know what salary is for a local maid. but certainly through the 3.5 million agency. no one wants to be paid cheaply, man. and do not denigrate our nation.

Sad and wrong though it is, I know many degree educated teachers on less than that.

Means...

Unfortunately not every expat has a large budget. Those with high paying jobs, housing allowance and free international school allowance probably can easily afford to pay a "high" salary for a nanny or maid.

An English teacher who is perhaps earning Rp10 million per month and who does not get free housing might find paying Rp3.5 million salary to a helper too expensive.

Also, I guess that many of the people who are asking higher salaries to be a maid or nanny have probably worked in Saudi Arabia, HK, Singapore of Malaysia and can speak English and sometimes unrealistically expect to get the same kind of salary they were getting overseas when they eventually return back to Indonesia.

The family who lived next door to me had 2 maids one to assist with children and another for cooking/ cleaning etc. They used a agent/ company who charged 3.5 million a month, but as far as I am aware the maids received around 2.5million (less than minimum wage at the time)
I've heard both successful and horror stories with hiring maids/ home help (the above family was a horror story x2),  my personal opinion is I would never want a stranger living under my roof with my kids, but that's just me

^

That's why I don't use agencies

I'd like to say thank you on behalf of my little family to all of you that have left a message here. We will take all into consideration. Keep them coming. We really appreciate it.

Is there a Sulawesi or Manado specific forums or facebook page where we can join prior to arrival? We've been searching but hardly any results.

Indonesia has very few expats when compared to other countries in the region, the upshot being there's isn't that big a presence on the internet.

Some groups have to be treated with some care, as is the case with one group I was briefly involved with. The first and last meeting I attended was all about the best beer (Ok, no real worries there), and where to find the best prostitutes. That was enough to stop any interest in any further meetings.
I removed myself from the whatsapp group because of the crackpot amount of really filthy porn they were sending.
I can happily ignore it, but my daughter sometimes uses that phone to order Go-food, and there's no way I was going to risk her seeing that stuff. 
That was, and probably will remain, my last personal contact with local expat groups.

Basically, be careful who you hang out with because there are some disgusting little slimeballs around, and they tend to gravitate into groups.