What can I outsource?

[Merryoldgoat]

Ok. Brief background
DH, me and DS9 & DS4 at home (both children have ASD)
We both work in busy jobs, I’ve recently reduced hours to manage pick up/drop off better.

We have a cleaner.

We find ourselves burned out with all the ‘stuff’ - appointments, homework, laundry, cooking, shopping and meal planning, house needs decorating and maintenance etc - that we spend hardly any quality time together or with the boys.

What can we outsource or buy to claw back time?

By the weekend I’m exhausted and I hate that I have no time or energy to exercise or be a fun parent.

We’re no swimming in money but do have the ability to buy in more.

Do handymen paint and decorate too?

I’m worried about sending out laundry - my knickers are really old

Treat yourself to a few multipacks. Because you are worth it 😀

Yes some do, I would get in quick because with these storms and the clocks going forward they are going to be in demand.

@Faevern

Thank you for the information - I don’t qualify for those owing to income which is absolutely right - but someone else on here may find that useful so of course I wouldn’t mind you posting.

I have a housekeeper rather than a cleaner…she does 4 hours a week and in the last few weeks, apart from cleaning, she has changed sheets & towels, done laundry (including folding up & putting away), cleared out & cleaned a fridge, tidied clothes away, loaded & unloaded the dishwasher, etc etc. Just a godsend to have…

@Merryoldgoat

My cleaner is going to do an extra hour each week to see how that helps - should allow for changing beds and doing a cupboard/fridge.

That’s great, one thing off your list!

We have a handyman we use and he is paid by the hour (minimum 2hrs). We keep a running list then call him when it looks a few hrs worth (roughly 5/6 times a year). Last month her rehung some kitchen cupboard doors, tightened washers in the taps, rehung a dodgy towel rail and changed a curtain rail for £50.

I use Alexa for shopping lists and online shop.

If I make something freezable I make as much as I can, bulking out with more veg, tinned tomatoes etc.

I use Amazon subscribe and save for toilet paper, tissues, kitchen roll so we never run out.

We get washing and dishwasher tablets from smol

Sounds silly but over the years I have delegated more and more to DH. I don't care who our energy provider is or house insurance is with so I leave it to him to get the best price etc.

Is your cleaner self-employed?

If so, I’d sit with her and ask her what other tasks she’d be willing to do on m-top of cleaning, and what rate she’d set for those.

I had a cleaner who was amazing she was self-employed and very keen for extra hours (she lived on the same road as me so I think working at my house had the additional benefit of removing travel costs) so took on more of a housekeeper role for me.

Depending on what I needed at the time she would-
Clean
Tidy
Organise
Cook
Iron
Wash, dry, and put away laundry
Drop/collect dry-cleaning
Walk the dog
Light outdoor tasks
Do errands locally- post office, pick up bits at the corner shop, drop shoes to the menders etc.

At a time when DH was in hospital for several months, and I was traveling a lot with work, it really took the stress off.

She was incredible. She was self-employed so set her own hours and rates, and some weeks she wouldn’t be able to do extra activities, but it worked really well and suited us both.

She was also really flexible so would adjust her hours say to be there when I was expecting and online grocery shop, or expecting a tradesman.

Not cheap, but worth every single penny.

@Merryoldgoat

Do handymen paint and decorate too?

Ours doesn’t, but will touch up if we have the paint.

A good decorator is worth their weight in gold. Ours retires in July, we have just had all of downstairs freshened up to give us a few years to find a replacement.

What really helps me is being ruthless… bin/charity/hand down anything outgrown or no longer used.

There is a service near where I live that will do housekeeping jobs, cooking, even things like booking appointments, kind of like a personal assistant for a few hours as week. If your cleaner is happy to take on additional duties and you know you already like her then that seems like a good place to start.

Ok.

I have a mild stationery addiction so I’ve broken out a new notebook to get organised.

I’m going to list the stuff for decorator or handyman

Stuff to ask the cleaner to help with

Stuff to help food

That should be a good start.

I definitely need to can a load of clothes as well - a lot of dross in our wardrobes.

Max card and venue discounts aren't means tested.

Definitely pinching the spreadsheet match to Tesco (or wherever) idea - that is truly genius!

I think people have already said lots of things I would have, about laundry/ironing (our local laundrette does masses of service washes and has recently adding ironing, although my favourite ironing minimising trick, borrowed from a friend who always looks immaculate, is to be there with a bunch of hangers as the wash comes to an end and hang things up instantly), getting a gardener, regular handyman, housekeeper, etc.

And others have also mentioned making use of calendar reminders etc, mine tend to go into my gmail AND my Teams at the same time, so one keeps me on track with home stuff and the other with work (okay, sometimes there's a crossover).

The other thing I do is write down at the end of each day a set of tasks that I know I need to do the next day and email them to myself, then that's what I start with the next day. Obviously some things end up getting carried over, but I've found it really helpful to keep on track.

I also have weekly/monthly/quarterly/annual things I know I need to do that I stick on a physical calendar as well as online - recycling/rubbish; cleaning the fridge and chucking out gone-off food; clearout of clothes and broken items beyond repair; sorting the car MoT out - and that way nothing from that group of tasks comes as too much of a shock, and then I have a bit of headspace to deal with the more unexpected life things.

And then there are my bright red "To Do" folder which has urgent bills etc in and I go through once a day, and my "Filing" folder, which is where I stick things that I've done from the "To Do" folder until I manage to file them...

The bane of my life is the sorting box, though, which is variously sized depending on what's going on, and can have anything in it from random phone leads to the cat's current bag of Dreamies...

A friend has just started having a cleaner in a couple of hours a week and says it's making a huge difference, although they don't have kids she and her husband have incredibly busy jobs.

Oh I am a stationary freak too including pens, I love a nice pen and a new book, I was like this at school, I like lists too

If you're in a university city you might be able to advertise for a school pick-up/babysitter for your younger son amongst the older students. This is how I got my amazing ASD-friendly MSc student babysitter.

See if your cleaner can do the laundry, change beds and towels and have a general tidy up for you.

Could you get someone in every fortnight or so to batch cook for you?

You can definitely just get a handyman in and give them a list of anything DIY to crack on with

I have 4 notebooks on the go at work at the moment

To do
Projects
Team Development
‘Ideas’ and meeting notes

🤣

@Merryoldgoat

Ok.

I have a mild stationery addiction so I’ve broken out a new notebook to get organised.

I’m going to list the stuff for decorator or handyman

Stuff to ask the cleaner to help with

Stuff to help food

That should be a good start.

I definitely need to can a load of clothes as well - a lot of dross in our wardrobes.

A fine start!

In addition, I love a good list. I keep a running list in a notebook for home, allocate things to days etc. I also try not to read any school correspondence unless I can actually action it (this goes with for a lot of things actually - I had a friend who would only open the post if she could action there and then, including filing). So I immediately put any trips, or school events etc into my diary as soon as I read about them.

As I'm trying to teach my DD16, being able to let stuff drop out of your head by actioning them immediately is so much less stressful then letting everthing build up and take up so much headspace and energy in remembering and worrying.

I had a housekeeper when I was at the same parenting stage as you. She could drive which meant that if I was stuck she could do the school run. She came to me at 3pm and stayed until 6pm each afternoon - realise this is a luxury not everyone can afford but even if you have one two nights a week this time scale is helpful - I'll explain why. In that time she did the following

All the cleaning
All the laundry except sheets etc and she packed the sheets etc up for laundry service and checked them back in (her morning job was actually driving for said laundry service so she passed on her staff discount to me)
I arranged for my supermarket delivery to come whilst she was here so sometimes I unpacked and sometimes she did.

The biggest bonus for me was that if one child was struggling with homework or being stroppy over music practice I could send the other one into the room where she was ironing to play quietly and she could keep an eye on them whilst I dealt with the trouble maker - just having that extra pair of eyes between school and bathtime was a game changer for me. (If you can't get a housekeeper for those hours then think about a teenager coming in twice a week to help with homework or occupy one whilst you deal with the other).

Other things that helped - always having some COOK meals in the freezer that DC would eat.

More recently we have had boxes from Hello Fresh when we get a discount. We keep the recipe cards we like and then use these to meal plan. Put the order in online and when it arrives bag everything up into bags for each individual meal (just like they come in the box). For that extra half an hours work with the delivery it is as if we have a Hello Fresh box to draw on the rest of the week.

@Crepuscularshadows

I’m definitely planning on this once I know which setting he’ll be at longer term.

Luckily both boys don’t have any behavioural issues as such, it’s more language and communication based issues and (rigidity of thinking with older) - very fortunate not to have regular meltdowns or any physically difficult behaviour.

A couple more useful ideas

I painted a bit of my kitchen wall with blackboard paint - anything used up is chalked up there ready for online order (if you go to the supermarket just photograph it on your phone before you go)

Bath crayons were a god send when DC had spellings and tables to learn just made it part of the routine and they wrote them on the tiles in blue and marked the mistakes in red. After bath just wiped it off - making it a game not a struggle saved my sanity.

Definite yes to the handyman. I had a lengthy list of jobs that would have taken me days (and I’d have made a poor job of them). Handyman got them all done in a few hours, £120 - I’d have paid many times that gif the stress it lifted.

When you are looking for a handy man. Ask

Do you do carpentry, plumbing fixes, small electrical fixes, decorating.

If they say no to any of them, then ask if they have contacts of people who can do those jobs that they can bring in if something like that needs doing.

Then when you find someone who can manage the full range of jobs, or have contacts they can pull in to cover what they dont, then agree an hourly rate and set them loose with a very specific list of three or four things. See how they do and then keep going with more jobs if you are happy.

I’m actually feeling quite energised - might be the painkillers though… 🤔

A relative called and asked to have older boy for the afternoon which is an unexpected treat for all. She taking him to the toy shop so sorting his room might need to be expedited before he adds more tat… 😬