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

Goodness OP. I think everyone already knows that the wealthy can pay other people to do their shit for them. I’m staggered at you starting a thread presenting this as a great and original idea that you need to inform others of. Everyone already knew that. ‘Having money makes life easier’ is not a mic drop.

Recipe boxes for the 3 days a week we are both in the office all day... Feel that's slightly cheaper version of the batch cook private chef

To me the most obvious one is- if it takes 2 mins just do it straight away or diarise a time. If you need a visual reminder use that 2 mins to write it down.

We have a cleaner as we both hate cleaning. Apart from that, neither of us feel like we have a mental load. We do the washing before bed and peg it out before work when needed. Household essentials are on subscription so we don’t have to think about it. I like cooking and hate batch cooking as I never fancy what I’ve already cooked, so I don’t really feel this is a chore. Everything is put in a shared calendar so we don’t forget things.

I'm intriged by the chef... do you choose the menu and they supply the ingredients? How many people does a £20 meal feed? Is £100 the introductory offer? Do they bring the meals to your house? Is it a main plus sides?

I've started outsourcing ironing which I love- it's nice to have a wardrobe full of freshly ironing clothes when you get ready!

Christ, I was just thinking "put birthdays in your phone with a reminder a week ahead do you've time to buy a present or post a card."

Chef and cleaner is a little out of most people's budget.

I used to call me smartphone my 'wife' because it does the work of reminders.

I also use the Notes app a lot - ongoing shopping list any time I noticed something has run out (shared with DP so we both update it and shop from it), telly suggestions when I read a review or hear a recommendation so there's none of that "what shall we watch" dithering, that sort of thing.

How much does a chef cost OP, and do they come to your house to cook your ingredients or do they just bring you batches of food? really interested in this as a time saver

We've started splitting our weekly shop too. Saves going into the fridge and finding something went off the day before. And it's much easier to meal plan. We've got an Ocado pass so it doesn't matter how many deliveries we have. And if we have a family party/event at home I shop for that completely separately. Makes life a lot easier.

This is an obvious point but one a lot of people find hard - completely leaving some things to DH. Completely. E.g. he does cubs/beavers admin, I am not even on the WhatsApp group/mailing list. He takes them, pays the subs, puts the camps in the diary, packs for the camping, sorts the uniform.

There is stuff I do completely as well - I do holiday clubs/school holiday childcare arrangements - again, he hasn't a clue which clubs run when or which ones I have booked until I put them in the diary and he does some drop offs/pick ups.

In general, I recommend not scrimping on childcare (obviously unless you are on the breadline and really can't afford it), I see so many people on here stressed out because they are trying to combine WFH and childcare or go for the club that finishes at 4 rather than pay for extended hours, etc. We properly outsource childcare for our working hours and we are all happier as a result. It's nicer for the kids to feel like once they're home, we are available to them.

Online groceries - obvious but in particular we have moved towards deliveries every 3 days and it makes things a lot easier to plan and less stress as there's always an order on the go.

Subscriptions - lots of our stuff is on subscription - coffee pods, toothbrush heads, you name it!

Anything that is too fiddly to iron but needs it, we take it to the dry cleaner for pressing.

Finally - we have started paying someone from task rabbit for those annoying small jobs and it's amazing. You can usually get someone for £20 / hr to put together flat pack/hang pictures/put up shelves etc.