At what point did you get a cleaner?

[yellowsubmarineo]

I know it’s a luxury, but at what point can you justify the cost of having a weekly cleaner? Is it a certain level of disposable income/having small children/ both parents working full time etc?

I have been trying to convince myself that we should get a cleaner, however, every time I do, I end up telling myself that it would be a waste of money as I can just do it myself. Am I just being reasonable or stingy?

We both work full time and have 2 children. We have a decent despicable income but I just cannot justify spending nearly £50/week on something I can do (this money currently goes into our savings account).

I end up doing all the cleaning myself on a Saturday (DH does the tidying up and I do the deep cleaning), but it takes up so much of our “family time”, and I go back to thinking about hiring a cleaner.

So at what point in life did you get a cleaner and could justify it?

We never did as we realised we valued spending the money on other things.

What we did do was get into a good routine of cleaning up every evening before the DC went to bed with everyone pitching in (basically 30 minutes of wipe down surfaces, put toys away, hoover round if needed). Then DH and I took it in turns to take the DC to a Saturday morning activity while the other did a blitz of the worst of the house (which was generally bathroom, kitchen plus hoover). That helped keep the worst at bay whilst not feeling like it was too much of a time waster and we just lowered our standards otherwise.

I picked up an extra shift every month to offset the cost and now I would reduce many, many other expenses before I lose her. Every week before she comes I feel obliged to tidy so she can clean properly and my house is now pretty much always guest ready even with two small kids around. It's made such a difference!

A lot of my friends got one after I talked about how great it was to come home to a clean house.

They were all on similar incomes to me, but hadn't put themselves in the category of "we can afford a cleaner".

We all agree now that we'd scale down expenses a lot in other areas before we got rid of our cleaners.

We don't have much disposable income but we do have a cleaner. We have two small children. We've had her for a year now since I went back to work after having DC2. I work four days a week and my husband works full time-long days. I don't want to spend the weekend cleaning (The day to day and washing is enough) as that's our only time all together so for us it's necessary.

We’ve had cleaners on and off for years.
Both working f/t or nearly f/t
when we had young DCs
We have one atm as dh works all hours and doesn’t want to help clean on weekends (he does other household stuff during week) and I cba/haven’t felt well recently so not up to bending and lifting the heavy vacuum.
our income is fine but if we had issues I’d go fortnightly and ditch as last resort atm.
We didn’t have a cleaner all through covid and up to recently so it’s nice to have one again.
We pay £16ph / 3.5 hours a week

I’d also do two hours. And to answer your question I got one when I was 23 and moved into my first home. That was thirty years ago, I still have one. I don’t really see it as paying for something I could do myself, I’m paying for something so I don’t have to. Becsyde I don’t want to do it myself.

I got one and soon as I got my own place. It’s always been a priority to me. Some people spend their money on getting their nails done. I like having a cleaner.

@declutteringmymind

We factored a weekly clean £30 and two visits a month from a gardener, DH tried to say but we can do it, (rough translation = you will end up doing the bulk of it. 🙄)

Inflation running at 10% was not part of our retirement calculations and he has mentioned this, I due an inheritance in the next few months and I have said that whilst the money is joint money the cleaner and gardener are non negotiable. I think he is getting the message.

I think full time and 2 dc justify it!

We have one every 2 weeks which is perfect as I just have a wizz round in between and cost seems minimal for the advantages.

Do you have as such of a struggle to justify having a takeaway? It’s another household task that’s outsourced so no different to getting a cleaner.

You don’t need a big reason, you just want to not have to spend your time cleaning, the same as the reason lots of people get a pizza on a Friday night when they don’t want to cook.

If you can make room in your budget, go for it. Even if you have to sacrifice something else/cut back a little elsewhere, it’s worth a shot to see if having a cleaner makes your life easier.

In my case, I love having a cleaner (three hours once a week for £60) and would forego a lot of other things before I’d stop using her.

I think the need for justification stems from the fact that cleaning is seen as a woman’s responsibility and so she’s shirking her responsibilities. Nobody bats an eyelid when a man brings his car to the car wash rather than getting the hose and sponge out.

As soon as I got my own (mortgaged) place and realised that I never got to enjoy it because I worked long hours then had to clean in what little time I had off.

Took quite some time to find someone. First try was not successful then the next lady was brilliant & I haven't looked back. When she moved away she found a replacement who is equally brilliant. When I was looking to move house, the first thing I checked was that she would be prepared to come to our new house.

Excellent cleaner and esp when DH & I used to travel a lot, would do all sorts of things including pick up dry cleaning, fix the door of the oven (by looking up how-to videos on YouTube, stick up the fridge for us coming home.

Time is the one thing you can't get more of, no matter how rich you are.

The right person will make such a difference to your life. Love the bones of DH but he absolutely knows in a straight choice, I would pick 'Treasure' over him every time. 😁

When I got divorced, before which point I was the unpaid cleaner. It is the best money I spend, and it would be the last thing I chopped from the non essentials list.

It will be a dark day when I can't afford her, I have two hours a week and I love coming through the door when she's been, it is heaven!

When I separated from my ex - it was my treat to myself!

I have 4 hours every 2 weeks and it works wel I find. £15ph

2hrs a week here, £30

Costs me 45 minutes wages to pay her for 2 hours to do something that would take me 8 hours and I still wouldn't do it as well as she does. I've gained my weekends back, can stay on top of laundry and tidying, and my mental health has improved more than ever because of the small expense.

Do it, even for 2hrs, if they even just do the kitchen and bathrooms, you'll feel so much better.

Do it. It will enormously improve your quality of life

When I had DD, I was home on mat leave and didn't want DH to miss out on family time at a weekend so tried to do all the cleaning in the week so we could enjoy the weekends together. One day was particularly difficult and it took me 3 hours to clean one room because DD was being particularly fractious and DH told me off for not giving up and letting him do it at the weekend. I explained why I had wanted to get it done and he suggested a cleaner.

Wouldn't look back now! We have our cleaner for 1.5 hours every other week, she does bathrooms every time she comes and then cleans upstairs deeply one time and downstairs the next. It costs us about £20 a fortnight for this and it works for us as we just keep on top of it in between. When we go on holiday she comes in and does a 3 hour deep clean and it's incredible when we come home.

Does anyone have one when not working ft? I'm at home with toddler and I don't mind the tidying up and running the hoover around, but deep cleaning our old grotty bathrooms just never gets done. But the guilt! I feel like I should just do it, which is stupid really

I could cut and colour my own hair or clean my own car to save money but i don't. I see a cleaner as the same.

I think also looking at the cost only is a bit skewed. How much does your time cost per hour? What is the value of having that time back to you and your family? What major difference does putting that into savings each week make?

For me its all taken care of when i am out or shut in the study. I come home to a clean house that smells fantastic. It means DH and i dont bicker about chores or lion shares. I can focus on feeding everyone and laundry and being organised and tidy as oppose to cleaning. I am more relaxed and less frazzled. Therefore for me-its worth it.

Why don't you get a cleaner every fortnight so it's not such a massive outgoing all at once? Just do the basics in the week/ one weekend.

Thanks for your replies everyone. It seems like having a fortnightly cleaner is the way to go for now. I’m not sure how difficult it will be to find one, as I assume they prefer having their slots filled every week, but we will see.

I'm a cleaner, I would suggest fortnightly. I have some weekly and some fortnightly clients. Look on Facebook, that's where I get most of my clients

I think I have one friend in my local area who doesn't have a cleaner (I don't have one)
But the others are a mixture of working pt, working ft, SAHM, singles, couples with kids who've moved out. I don't think there's a set time to get one!

I think I have one friend in my local area who doesn't have a cleaner (I don't have one)
But the others are a mixture of working pt, working ft, SAHM, singles, couples with kids who've moved out. I don't think there's a set time to get one!

@DevaleraSpawnOfSatan

Well done! Hopefully I'll be able to do similar.

We think of it not as paying someone else to do what we could do ourselves, but buying ourselves the free time that we can't carve out otherwise.

A weekly cleaner is a lot cheaper for me than dropping the same hours at work. And it means that our weekend time is family time, and that is worth a great deal to us.