I built a calculator for unpaid labour in the house and I want to help people like me.

[AndreaMartina]

DD is 5 months old. Was up at 2am the other week doing that maths you do when you can’t sleep, what would it actually cost to pay someone to do everything I did this week.

Couldn’t find anything that let me work it out properly so I ended up building one myself. Free, nothing to buy, but I did make it so factor that in however you like.

There’s also a tracker for logging household stuff over a week, which is uncomfortably useful if you’ve ever tried explaining the mental load to someone who genuinely can’t see it. And a template for having the actual conversation about splitting things, which is the bit I found much harder. They are free resources.

Let me know if you want to calculate yours and I’ll link the calculator.

This. There's been so many of these "I built an app/calculator/thing, tell me what you think" recently.

Who'd like to calculate my unpaid labour for other people this week?

2 family guests for 3 days
3 hours prep cleaning and making up the guest room
Additional laundry load afterwards
Cooking 2 dinners and 1 lunch
1 day tour guide

But then they also provided me with
2 hours IT consultancy and sourcing item
1.5 hours DIY
Cooking 1 lunch and 1 dinner

😆

Yes I love my partner more since we've reached a fair split of both paid and unpaid work. Other people have mentioned it on

That's exactly what I built lol

God that awful, twee mummy influencer does this on TikTok, doesn’t she? Films videos as if she’s the paid help and runs a total.

Boring, tbh. It’s just what everyone is getting on with, all of the time.

You keep trying to get people to go on Reddit, for some reason.

I agree with the posters pointing out how ridiculous this is.

This kind of tedious middle class tit for tat transactional nonsense is never going to fix a relationship, you can either both empathise with each other’s point of view or you might as well call it a day.

I did! That's why I built it. It went well although he doesn't rinse the dishes after he put soap on.

I agree, plus it must be so depressing to live like this .

Yep, or cut mat leave short and get back to work if you need the validation of a time sheet of chargeable hours.

People should always appreciate what their partner is doing, but some are actually looking for gold stars.

I think you need to go to couples counselling.

Also winds me up no end when western people start complaining about ‘patriarchy’ when what they actually mean is ‘capitalism has devalued unpaid labour’

Given that you’re willing to give away your actual labour for free (you created an app and are sharing it for no charge) to strangers, then it seems weird you would resent the labour you do for the people you love (you, your kids and your husband).

You decided to have a baby with him.

Weird, but interesting!

You're on to a loser here, OP. Mumsnet hates this kind of thing. If you don't have a paid job, you provide nothing of value.

I don't think you've read the responses on here.
There are some excellent points.
Plus "Mumsnet" is just the board, it's not a hive mind.

These arguments don't work because ... who would notionally be "paying" you to start with? Your husband I presume?

The house is half yours and the kids are half yours so you have to pay yourself half out of the notional salary (a pp mentioned 85k). So you're down to 42,500.

Then out of that you deduct half the mortgage, bills, food, holidays etc plus the notional tax you would pay. If the husband does anything around the house - bins, gardening, kids bedtimes, dog walking you need to "pay him" back for half of that.

You'll probably end up back where you started.

Or you can work more hours and throw some money at outsourcing some of those things.

There are just different ways of getting it done and you need to work out the best way for you and your family. No magic app needed.

Why do you think I haven't read the responses? Your opinion of excellent and mine are different.

You haven't read the responses if you consider Mumsnet to be a hive mind.

Sure

The rate for a cleaner/home help here is £25.00 per hour

Sounds great, OP. Anything to see whether things could be more fairly allocated.