Life admin / mental load - let’s have your outsourcing inspiration!

Same 😂
"I hired a butler"
"I have a meal chef for a £100 a week"
It's like a window into a parallel universe 😁

No my kids are feral and scruffy. I don’t know what they do all day but they come home filthy and I won’t be washing uniform every night.

And I have never been able to take a white shirt out of the washing machine and it dry it 🤷‍♀️

I ensure each of my children has 5 full sets of school uniform (minus school blazer and tie for secondary school son) and I pay for a cleaning and ironing service for them. Essentially someone picks them all up on a Friday evening, washes and irons them and drops them back to me on a Sunday afternoon

Crikey! Can't they re-wear a cardy, jumper, skirt, trousers? Who irons school uniform - it's made from that material that comes out of the machine without creases.

When both of my DC were at school they had ONE set of uniform each which I washed on a 15 min cycle as soon as they got home. This worked really well and was so much better than having umpteen sets of uniform all over the place.

I ensure each of my children has 5 full sets of school uniform (minus school blazer and tie for secondary school son) and I pay for a cleaning and ironing service for them. Essentially someone picks them all up on a Friday evening, washes and irons them and drops them back to me on a Sunday afternoon.

I spend all Sunday morning preparing every evening meal for the week, and creating slow cooker dump bags, which I label and freeze and chuck in the slow cooker in the morning. I also make sausage rolls, and a massive cold pasta salad - such as tuna mayo, pesto and pea. I then use all this as school lunches.

And I have a cleaner who comes every Wednesday for three hours.

I was considering a chef because my friend has one. She is an Indian lady who cooks all their meals for the week and freezes them. She is not expensive. It's certainly cheaper than getting a few takeways because you don't have the time to cook.

while I agree that it's just life and normal chores, you only have to see how many school parents are completely unable to manage (or even read properly) 2 school emails a week 😂

Exactly. I’ve never got the ‘mental load ‘ I was a single parent with a SEN child with significant medical issues, low income and managed a professional degree at the same time as remarking insurance and paying the bills.
Everything is online. I find looking at holidays quite interesting.
Booking a meal takes about 2 minutes.

Yes, but while a meal is heating up or being delivered, you can do something else.

By the time you’ve waited for a takeaway you can cook a meal. Even if a chef cooks it you e still got to heat it up and put it out.

There are VAs and life concierges around.

Google calendar for everything eg MOT, insurance, birthday gifts, when blue recycling bins go out. Never rely on memory. That makes up too much headspace

Well stocked freezer is cheaper and more healthy than takeaway eg we always have several curries in there. "Bored of Lunch" has some good recipes

Ruthless decluttering

But mostly, don't live with / marry a misogynist who thinks it's your job to do all this stuff. Share the jobs fairly

Recipe boxes are a good idea for those who are struggling with shopping, choose the quick cook or minimal prep ones as suits you. Definitely a good medium level hack cost wise.

perhaps i should hire myself as a personal chef once I retire from my day job … i could do 3 - 4 houses in a day and leave food cooked for the week in their fridges. I’m already doing a bit of it for friends (I do have my level 3 food hygiene certificate too!)

We had a neighbour that was reliable like this in our old house but our current neighbours are less reliable. My partner is also very colour blind and at a distance can't tell what colour bins are out

Aspiration
Pmsl
not sure pissing four hundred quid a month against a wall cause I'm too incompetent to cook some meals is anything to aspire to hun

I have a physical diary

I do not iron anything

I have a robot hoover & a Henri

I have a dishwasher

@SlightlyHassled I just look out the window, boiler suit man always has his bin out early, could set your watch by him.

Maybe you should think about using some of your extra money to improve your manners 🙄

OP - please do answer our questions about your "chef."

We're intrigued.

Very snide @Countrysu

I get a Hello Fresh box 3-4 meals a week. I think I actually save money because it means I’m only going to the supermarket once a week instead of 2-3 times, so I’m not being seduced by the aisle of shite in Aldi anymore.

I asked my cleaner if she’d consider extra hours for some housekeeping tasks, and now she also changes and washes the bedclothes and towels, and puts away the online shop. I still have to meal plan and do the online shop, but coming home to a clean house and the shopping put away is wonderful. She’ll also wait in for deliveries or repairs, if I check with her before booking and time it around when she’s free.

It works for both of us - she wanted extra hours at times that suited her (we agree times each week, around her schedule).

I dunno Wuthering you just sounded a bit overwhelmed with life when you wrote "I need help with life stuff.*

Glad you're ok.