Have I been miserly with our cleaner?

I think it sounds fine to me OP but I never know whats the done thing with cleaners, posties etc.

In the past I always bougth nice chocs for my cleaners, it never occured to me to give them money, nevermind weeks wages.

I now have a new cleaner, well sometimes it’s just her and sometimes it’s her two “girls” (both middle aged women but that’s how she calls them). The cleaning is not great, it’s increasingly starting to annoy me more and more. But the mug I am, I gave both “girls” a £20 note in the Xmas cards for them. No thank you…

They also clean my neighbours house and she gives them chocolates so I thought £20 cash is pretty good compared to that.

Incidentally we would have been due our clean today but the they started their xmas break about 10 days ago!!

We usually give a small box of chocolates for the family.

This year I gave her daughter a small box of chocolates and then a week’s pay as her bonus. She is getting married as well over the break, so it was more than we usually give.

My cleaner gave me some Polish sweets and biscuits. She does that every year.

Were you obliged to pay her for Thursday?

I don't have a cleaner, but I think you have been appropriately generous.

I've given mine what she'd get if she came to me (2 x Weds) It probably is mean not to give any extra but things are tight.

I gave mine 2 weeks extra pay as a Christmas bonus/present.

I'm clearly in the minority, because I gave mine nothing!

They do an OK job, but not amazing, and they are rarely here for the full 2 hours I pay for (I know when they come and go because of the Ring doorbell). I have mentioned this a few times, and it gets better for a couple of weeks and then slackens off again. There is always something they can do if they finish early.

They have also knocked 3 pictures off the wall this year, which needed new frames/frames being fixed. Nothing massively expensive, but an inconvenience and cost to me.

Should I change to different cleaners...? Possibly. But no cleaner is perfect (and I don't know anyone (locally) who is 100% satisfied). When I ask for recommendations, there's always a ...but...

Mine is reliable, gets an adequate job done, is friendly/personable, can be flexible with timings (in return for the same from us, which is fine), and the house is clean enough that I'm prepared to stick with the devil I know (as it were). But they're not cheap, and I don't feel inclined to give them a bonus at Christmas. I have put a fair bit of business their way (when people ask if I'd recommend them, I'm honest about what we like/what our niggles are, and I know they have 3 new clients this year directly from my recommendation).

If I added up the 10 mins a week I pay for but don't get, that would be a decent add on at Christmas.

Well I give my postie a bonus because he does what your binmen do, surely not that hard to see?

Good cleaners are like gold dust. I always gave mine extra at Christmas . I also paidnthem their usual rate when I or they went on holiday. I think they are employees.

I got ours a nice bottle of gin

Neve do a Christmas bonus. Do buy a present though but nothing much. Couple of books one year, Costa voucher another etc

I have 2 come in for an hour instead of 2 hours for one and gave each £10 and a bottle (one wine and one prosecco).

Yes l do give £500 because as l say I'm disabled and she's a Godsend.. even fetching me shopping..always rings day before she's due to clean to ask if there is anything l need.. she's even phoned the ambulance for me a few times.
Luckily I'm very well off and can afford it.

If she is from Eastern Europe she might keep 6 Jan, not 25th december.

Mine is from Georgia but she said she is part Catholic so I think keeps both.

She is coming on tuesday instead of wednesday and back again on friday (her normal days are mon, wed, fri). When she does things like this it defninitely motivates me to give her a bigger bonus!

I wouldn't think of paying her if she went away.

I think a bonus should be roughly equivalent to weeks pay? or something like that.

I gave mine £80 but she's not coming this week so I guess it's just over her normal wages for the week which is 70

I gave my cleaner £30 and a bottle of wine. She comes every two weeks though for two hours at £15 an hour.

I don't mind, I think a Xmas tip is part of the parcel of having a cleaner but she didn't even say thank you, which irks me a bit.

I gave my cleaner a box of chocs and a tenner. It's just a gesture!

Yeah I stand by what I said. It’s 25% of one week of pay. Maybe if it was 25% of the month that would be better.

I was always incredibly grateful to those customers that gave me extra at Xmas. Back then as a single parent it was my full time job, back breaking as it was - You have to go over an above to get a good reputation as a cleaner and more custom. So when customers cancelled over the Xmas break and made no provisions, it of course made things tight for me financially but it sounds like you’ve covered your cleaner OP and extra.

Do you pay cash?

Nothing remotely useful to add, except that a previous poster's "knobless oblige" in the place of "noblesse oblige" is perhaps the greatest typo I've ever seen on this site 😅 (unless it was intentional...?) either way, genuine lol

Our regular clean falls on Xmas day so I paid that (as I don’t want her here on 25th so I “cancelled”) and I gave her a one week bonus too.

I can afford it and she is lovely. So it was easy decide to do it that way.

I gave my cleaner a £20 bonus. I only spend about £35 on each of my parents so maybe I’m tight. I was chuffed with the organic Prosecco my boss got me (I don’t actually drink Prosecco but it’s the thought that counts).