To ask if money gets tight will you cancel your cleaner??

[Tootsey11]

I am a cleaner, and with prices of everything rising, I'm wondering if or when the cancellations will start coming.

Will you prioritise a clean house and cut back on other things?

At the moment I am not short of work, but may need to increase the hourly rate for my furtherest away clients. I'm holding back as I'm worried about pricing myself out. I charge between £10 and £11/hour. There are people in my area advertising cleaning for £8/£9 an hour.

If you have a cleaner, will you keep them on or needs must and get rid

My husband was made redundant in early 2000s. Cleaner was the first luxury to go, sorry

Our cleaner is definitely pretty high up our list or priorities as she means that we can focus on family time and massively improves our mental health.

The price going up would definitely make me reconsider. In fact my window cleaner put his price up this week and I've cancelled.

I fully understand why the price needs to go up, but I have only limited resources and need to look at the value to me as well as the income to them. In that instance I couldn't justify it anymore. Mind you, the fact that he's not actually very good did make the decision easier!

For domestic cleaning, when I was a FT professional mum of young children I'd have done everything I could to keep hold of the cleaner. Now I have more time it, it would be easier to let her go, so personal circumstances will play a part too.

I definitely would cancel the cleaner, but I don’t prioritise a clean house. Other people might think differently.

Definitely not! She’s amazing!

I'd have to cancel myself 😂

There are things I’d give up before my cleaner. I hope it doesn’t come to that.

FWIW I think there are lots of "luxuries" offered by low paid SE people that will take a hit in the coming months. Things like dog walkers, nail technicians, cleaning, gardening, hairdressers

No, I love my cleaner. Would definitely cut back other things first.

@the80sweregreat

I'd have to cancel myself 😂

That's an idea, can I stop cleaning too?

I have physical constraints that make my cleaner less of a luxury than the random person. I will make other cuts before I drop the cleaner completely.

I would give up lots of other things first.

So far I think its a 60/40 split in favour of cleaners.

I think the best thing for me is to cram in as much work as possible while it's there.

My cleaner put her prices up recently and we have kept her on and it appears all her other clients have too as she is still fully booked (I asked about availability for for a friend a couple of weeks ago)

As prices of fuel and food go up there will be a point when we need to consider getting rid of the cleaner but there are other areas I would prefer to cut back first before deciding to manage without a cleaner

We have a cleaner in two days a week but have unfortunately had to halve her hours to just one day. We have provided good notice and will also put the word out to see if we can help find extra hours for her.
It's sadly a luxury that we need to cut back on a little.

Depends what kind of financial situation people are in to start with and how good you are/how much they value the service you provide, I should think. For example, DH and I have a decent buffer to absorb price rises before we need to start thinking about cutting back (I appreciate we're very lucky). However, our cleaners aren't very good and have just raised their prices again, despite already being among the most expensive in the area by a significant margin. I'll probably cancel them because, whilst I was happy to rub along and clean the bits they miss on our current rate, I'm not paying more at an economically tricky time for a sub-standard service. I will look for another cleaner, though, because I still really value the time that having a cleaner frees up for us as we both work quite long hours and have a small child. If we got to a point where we needed to make cutbacks then a cleaner would be among the last things to go for us unless one of us lost our jobs (but in that case childcare would be the first thing to go).

Having said all this about price rises, you do sound like you're charging low rates to me - lowest around here is £15 an hour and our current cleaners have just gone up to almost £21 an hour. I appreciate it depends on area, but I wouldn't feel awkward about talking to your customers about the possibility of raising your prices a bit - cost of everything has rocketed and your rates need to keep up with that, means you can gauge their response before making any firm decisions, too.

Never.

I don’t have a cleaner but it would be the first thing to go if money was tight. I’ve cancelled all the household appliances insurances today, Sod’s law it will all go wrong now!

I’d make other cuts first for 2 reasons

Firstly, it makes a real difference to me to have them, I’m happier, calmer, better in a clean and tidy environment. I value that.

Secondly, I know how tough it’ll be on a low income given cost rises and I don’t want to reduce the income of someone who needs it more than me

If we need to unfortunately the cleaner will have t go or be cut back on hours. She's amazing and I would give her notice but it's not an essential unfortunately. Same as nails, massage, highlights.

Our previous cleaners I would give up as they have not been great, however if we found a really good cleaner I would be less likely to give them up.

I think more people will really look at services provided and be more inclinded to give up anything they can do to an equal level or thereabouts.

Despite everything I'm looking for a cleaner! I'd rather give up getting my hair done... Although hopefully it won't come to that!

I think I would give up wine before I gave up our cleaner

My eye lash extensions, waxing and my back treatment with an osteopath will go first. Then my cleaner. Then takeaways.