To ask how full time workers how they hell they can stop spending all their weekends doing bloody housework?

[therewillbetime]

Boring but serious question- work all week, leaving house at 7.30 and getting home 6.30 ish. DP, who also works all day gets home slightly earlier and always cooks, feeds cats etc. He does his own ironing.

I do little housework during the week apart from those everyday things you have to do or course as a) I’m knackered and b) I frequently have work related paperwork to do or study (I’m studying for an MA part time as well). I also go to the gym most nights so I admit that I cram a bit in.

This weekend I thought I was pretty much on top of things at home. Dp and I did all the food shopping yesterday but still I realise that this weekend I’ve done tons of washing (I have a teenage son), ironing, tidying, hoovering, dusting and cooking. I’ve been to the gym but combined this with my college work (reading on the treadmill) and we did relax and watch a movie last night. Dp did a load of stuff in the garden.

I am just really interested in how full time workers manage it all with the result of saying they had a weekend, or most of a weekend to do stuff not related to the home. Or maybe, everyone lives like this and I’m a whinging git!

@shiningstar2 you're so right I needed to hear that x

!!!!!!! @genius1308 you're right I'm horrified!!!

@Blackoutblinds I'm not a sheet troll just like clean ones. Please calm down.

You ARE busy!
Haven’t read previous replies, so sorry if I’m repeating but Check out the organised mum method, team TOMM. Clear, concise guidelines. Really worked for me, and my weekends are totally my own. It might give you some ideas.

But my sheets ARE clean. The most they are slept in is 5/7 days. They are changed often even more often than that in terms of sleeping in them.

You were nasty and horrible. An apology is clearly way beyond you. You jumped to a conclusion and you were mean.

Please stop tagging me (@-Ing me) royaltrux. It’s rude and I don’t like it. Thanks.

Tbh I rarely spend more than 10-15 minutes a day cleaning and at the weekend I do 30/40 minutes at most, purely because I have the time to do extra jobs.

I have one big deep clean day every 6 months (usually at the start of school summer hols and again just before Christmas) where I do all the big jobs like deep cleaning the oven/fridge/freezer, taking covers off the fabric sofas to wash them, decluttering DDs toyshop bedroom etc but then other than that most housework is done as we go so there's rarely a lot that needs doing.

Make everything convenient - I used to hate mopping as it was so much faff to get the bucket out, lug it round and then empty it later. Now I have a spray mop that lives on a hook on the wall and I just fill up the spray bottle with floor cleaner and water every couple of days, spray and clean. The cleaning pad comes off easily and gets thrown in the washing machine with the other cleaning cloths and replaced when it gets too grimy. I keep the cordless hoover charged up so that I can grab it any time I have a spare minute or need to clean a quick spill. I also keep cleaning stuff everywhere - my main cleaning stash is in the kitchen but I keep my bathroom cleaning stuff (shower spray, squeegee, bathroom spray, cleaning cloths, loo cleaner) in the bathroom cabinet so it is handy and can give the bathroom a quick wipe down without having to trek to the kitchen. I even keep a microfiber duster and some surface wipes in a drawer in my bedroom so I can give my room a quick dust/wipeover whenever I have a spare minute.

Laundry gets done overnight every 2/3 days - last thing before bed I throw stuff in the machine on a delayed cycle and it is done just before I get up so I can either hang it out, hang it on the airers or throw it in the tumble dryer first thing.

Never iron anything - the closest I get is collars and cuffs of DDs school shirts which I give a once over with my hair straighteners when I do my hair in the morning (why iron the whole shirt when it's under a pinafore and jumper/cardigan?)

General cleaning gets done along the way - if I'm waiting for the kettle to boil for my cup of tea I'll give the kitchen surface a quick wipe down; as I finish a shower I give the walls a quick spray, rinse with the shower head then just a quick run over with a squeegee and the shower is clean with minimal effort. I use ad breaks to run the hoover round for a couple of minutes etc. We don't have a dishwasher so I hand wash everything. I try to wash up as we go but if I don't have time to fully wash up (e.g. running late for drop off in a morning) then I make sure anything is rinsed off so that when I do the washing up last thing at night it takes 5 minutes as I don't have to spend 10 minutes scrubbing at the hardened on pasta sauce from our lunch plates.

Just lower your standards. Hoover, dust, kitchen, bathroom once a week. Mop once a fortnight. Wash towels and bedsheets every fortnight, and unless you have BO or spilt something down yourself, most clothes can be worn a few times before washing. Especially jeans and jumpers! PJs once a week.
I don't get the obsession to constantly be smelling of washing powder and waste so much water, electricity and time. Especially because the people who call others disgusting are also the same people moaning that they spend 10 hours a week cleaning...

Thanks for all of your suggestions, really helpful to see how people manage it in different ways.

Although I think the award for most igenious idea for time saving has to be the ironing of collars with a hair straightener, love it!

Ingenious

When we both worked long hours, our child was dropped off early and brought home late, so In that sense keeping a clean house was easy. Now that I’m based full time at home, and the children actually ‘live’ here every day, it’s a whole different ball game!

I pay for:

• Ironing (although buy clothes primarily influenced by whether it will need ironing)
• Home delivered shopping saves so much time!
• Grass cutting - neighbours boy does it for cheap (uses my mower)

I do clothes washing / drying during week day evenings

Dishwasher is my favourite household item

I will spend couple of hours either on a Saturday OR Sunday cleaning / hoovering and no more ! Always start on downstairs so at least that will always be OK

Don’t wear shoes upstairs (floors keep lot cleaner)

Anything to take upstairs goes at bottom of stairs and vice versa

I’m out of the house 13-14hrs a day, we have a weekly cleaner, dishwasher, tumble dryer, don’t iron and food shop online

^exactly this

Also everyone cleans up after themselves so no one leaves crumbs on the side, plates in the sitting room or shit marks in the toilet.

I change my sheets once a fortnight. It is not disgusting. Perfectly normal

Also this.

Changed more often if they need it but once every two weeks works for me.

I don’t care about dust mostly, the kitchen floor doesn’t need to be spotless all of the time. Basically have lower standards.

Oh yes and also decluttered. Best thing I ever did in the house I think!

Kon-Marie your house, do a little every day, get food shopping delivered, keep on top of the laundry and iron only if you have to. I get up a bit earlier to prep our evening meal and use the slow cooker a lot. I don't mind doing a couple of hours on a Saturday morning but try and do most of the housework through the week.

Its the MA thats the problem. Ive just finished poatgrad studying and i now have loads of time after work to do housework so my weekends are free

I have asked you not to tag me. It is rude to continue to tag me when I have asked you not to. Basic consent.

Jesus @royaltrux give it a fucking rest
You have your standards and the rest of us in the real world survive on fortnightly (or less!) bed sheet changes.

Nag husband relentlessly, work your fucking arse off, become expert at scrubbing bathroom in 20mins while child sleeps, then relent, get cleaner 3xhours per week and lower standards (and try not to hate DH for being lazy fucker). That's how. I don't know how SAHM look after kids AND do housework. (A man would NEVER even consider trying to both. It'd be one or other). Any SAHM should expect the working partner to still chip in chore-wise imo or else provide enough for cleaner.

I didn’t do much during the summer weekends I was out and about.
Now the weathers getting darker I stayed home all day Saturday ( getting annoyed at the mess )
Then spend all day Sunday doing the clothes & kitchen and even those didn’t get fully finished.
Then by 6 I was knackered And flopped and was pissed off as I felt I did nothing fun all weekend but was wrecked after all the hours of scrubbing & annoyed I then didn’t have the energy to do a food shop.
I find when I clean I get in the worst of form

We (I) got a cleaner.

She used to be a vet nurse at the vet I used for my dogs, left and started a cleaning company. Bit the bullet a year ago, got a price, explained to OH how much it would help and I can hands down say it's the best decision I've made.

OHs cousin started a gardening company so he comes and does the grass every two weeks over summer and does weeding when needed.

All that stuff we felt bad for not doing / nagged the other about. Gone.

Gardener £10 a fortnight.
Cleaner £24 a fortnight.

We fit it in by not doing it very much. Who cares? I am not getting up 3 hours earlier or wasting a Saturday doing it. I have better things to do.

I get a cleaner in to do kitchen, bathrooms and laundry room (she is an absolute godsend).. I hardly ever iron (I have a fab tumble drier which steams shirts, so its pretty much unnecessary). We all muck in during the week, my teenager can cook, clean, hoover etc. I don't mind food shopping as I love to cook, and I have a Thermomix which makes it less of a chore. One thing that helped massively was when we emigrated a few years ago we got rid of probably 80% of our possessions. We've accumulated a lot of crap again but I don't like clutter so am a thrower outer rather than a hoarder, it definitely makes it easier to keep reasonable order if their isn't stuff everywhere.