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

I would love a housekeeper to run things for us. Possibly also a butler called Willikins!

They exist. Urban PA who deal with everything from sorting your photos, booking your holidays or managing your birthdays or sorting your receipts to get your tax return ready.

that you can employ for 2 hours for a specific task, or on a daily/ weekly basis

There are a lot of businesses doing exactly that.

Bet Niles is jealous

why is it "tone deaf"? If it's called outsourcing, it's obvious there will be a cost and it's not a bargain hack.

It's in YABU, not in a "surviving under the poverty line" section. It's people talking, not trying to rub anything in people's nose.

You have threads about private schools, family luxury holidays, best dress for under £500. Some people have more money than others. That's life.

I think it’s the word inspiration that is probably making this feel off

outsourcing suggestions would be less emotive

because “hey let’s throw money at the problem “ doesn’t feel very inspired

Off topic but can you tell me more about your private chef, it’s something I’m interested in.
where do they cook, are they insured, how do they charge and what sort of meals ? X

Everyone has things in life they need to do though like making meals, cleaning, organising appointments. @Countrysu is goady. £100 a week for some batch cooking that she could fo herself.

Niles is livid. He'll just have to re-season his crepe pans himself this year.

Dont know why so many people post about how hard life is these days and about mental health. Everyone should think themselves lucky they dont have to drink dirty water theyve had to collect themselves or lose half their kids to disease or wash the few items of clothing they possess in the river. I could go on.

We could all clean our own windows
wash our own cars
clean our own house
maintain our own gardens
clean our own bins
walk our own dogs...

some posters will do that
Many of us pay someone else to do it. How is that "goady"?

People pay for Fresh etc subscription, there's nothing in there they couldn't do themselves?

Are the meals genuinely edible after 5 days? I always felt meal prepping or batch cooking sound great in theory or for people who aren't naturally picky eaters but they never work in real life when you have children and also like to be militant about food safety. I cannot imagine a 6 year old coming home and willingly eating 6 days old soggy broccoli that's been sitting next to 5 day old salmon in a box in the fridge. If the meals are frozen and you have to prepare fresh sides then that's almost as much faff as making it all from scratch.

Have you ever thought of becoming a psychologist? You have amazing insight and would be able to help so many people!

No I havent but thats a good idea.

I persuaded DH to retire (actually he suggested it and I said YES PLEASE).
We are between cleaners (she moved back to Poland, how unreasonable of her!) but we have an ironing service that picks up and drops off).
DH does the "retired person's walk to M&S" 2-3 times a week for stuff we've run out of.
We have a large blackboard in the kitchen which is for shopping we've run out of. Originally it was for meal plans but now we plan 4 weekly.
We get a veg box that's mixed one week, fruit the other.
DH has always been a grown-up about children's arrangements but now he does more than half of them.
We actually only get a supermarket delivery once every 3-4 weeks but I use Cherry Pick to plan about 3-4 more interesting meals, the rest are rotated though we do add in new meals that have been successful.
Every Friday is takeaway and movie night. We take it in turns to choose.
I try and batch cook my lunches - I actually have 2 lunches each of two different curries plus one serving of fritatta in the freezer so won't need to cook tomorrow.

This

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.

Completely agree with this. IME it doesn't make things easier to do some tasks jointly plus you end up with even more hassle if you don't completely agree on how to do something.

Touch it once- similar to PP, if something can be done right now do it right now.

I also largely agree that the whole mental load concept can be unhelpful and where people talk about the mental load being too much the actual issue is often just lazy partners not pulling their weight.

Good to see the tone police out and about this fine morning.

Absolutely. I was trying to think of a nicer way of saying "well off woman shows how life is when you have money " but you did it better than me

I just stopped reminding DH about family birthdays or buying them presents. He never asked me to, but I took it upon myself, then decided a few years ago it's a bit more admin I don't need and it's not my responsibility.

I really don't think many 'ordinary' families could justify the cost. I do my own batch cooking.

Some of these are out of reach for many people due to affordability.

I looked up Urban PA, it came up on LinkedIn.

About us
At Urban PA we value our customers, and that it is a privilege to be a part of there daily routine.

They cant even spell their correctly....

Yep. This sums it up. Has always been so and continues to be so, pay someone else to do it only works if you have the money. 🙄

WHY do people go on thread about "OUTSOURCING inspiration" which cannot be anything but costly, to complain that people don't want to spend money to outsource? 😂

Who do you think you can outsource anything to , and they will do it for free?

lol. I wouldn’t employ them for that reason alone 😱

Also £100 a week for the chef plus ingredients *faints

Outsourcing to DH - same as others here. All tasks get split and don’t get involved in the ones you don’t do. (Ie don’t criticise or make comments - it’s been outsourced). Eg I do doctors Dh does dentist.

I appreciate that if you are single the above is not available but
outsourcing to DD and DS also works. Eg school uniform washing - they learn a life skill and after the first few times of not having something to wear they soon get (a bit) organised (usually a last minute Sunday night !).

Because I can afford it I also get cleaner to change all the bedding and towels then leave me a bag that I can drop for a service wash. It’s been one of my favourite luxuries.