To ask if you’re a higher earner, what do you outsource to give you more time?

[butterpears]

I have the opportunity to take on more consultancy work, which is quite lucrative as I am in a very specific field. I have done a smaller amount of this in the past. If I do it I will realistically need to outsource as much as possible to free up time. The costs of this would be more than worth it in terms of what I can earn.

My thoughts so far are to get a cleaner (we had one in the past but not recently), get my hair blowdried once a week (I have difficult hair that takes ages). My DH does most of the cooking and food shopping, I do most of the laundry and life admin. I’m struggling to think of more that I could outsource because I tend to have a fairly frugal mindset.

What do you outsource if you can use the freed up time to bring in more money?

Gardener. Cleaner. Online food shop. I don’t iron or have kids at home so laundry isn’t really an issue.

You could advertise for a cleaner/housekeeper. They can do loads of useful things:ironing, cooking, tidying, posting things, sorting things out, running errands. If you had them for a day a week they would get loads done.
The next most useful thing might be a odd job person for fixing household things which break but if you have a newer house this might not be any use.

so one teen, no pets, a dh that organises everything food related and you enjoy gardening

so… just get yourself a cleaner for a few hours a week

and “life admin” 🙄

Not much. I don't like the idea of someone else in my home (cleaner), and laundry my husband deals with. We have a window cleaner once a month and we pay someone to cut the lawns once a fortnight. My dyslexic DS has a private tutor once a week.

Life admin covers things like banking, DC school related stuff, household energy providers, collating all the stuff each year for our accountant, health appointments, prescriptions. DH has dyslexia so just not his strong suit. I could automate/ get delivery for prescriptions?

The accountant doesn’t seem to save me much work. I used to do our tax returns (we both have main jobs plus some consultancy) but have started with an accountant this past year. But I still have to give him all of our invoices, expenses etc so it almost takes me more time. This is definitely a time sucking thing for me but genuinely I cannot give this one to DH.

we don’t need you to define life admin op

because we ALL have it and often much more than you mention

Honestly why even comment? I don’t have just one teen and they have dyslexia. I do have pets. And as outlined above do a huge amount of life admin. Good for you if this doesn’t exist.

We use Pharmacy2U for prescriptions, which certainly saves some time but looking at your list there I imagine the accountancy stuff is the real time consumer.

It's unfortunate that even having an accountant on hand isn't saving you much time!

Thank you.

doesn’t exist

i’m a single working parent with two children

just get yourself a cleaner and deactivate mumsnet
sorted

Ah, the ‘just direct debit’ response. I haven’t found a solution for life admin, so I just delegate the other stuff.

My DC need me to be on top of their newly diagnosed chronic condition, chasing, booking and attending the GP appointments around school/work, sorting out the muddled prescriptions etc. Similarly I haven’t found a way to delegate making social arrangements, booking parents evening slots before they all go, finding and buying obscure books needed for school, booking tickets for things we want to see or that the DC are in, ensuring I and DC have regular hair cuts and dentist check ups, shopping around each year so the insurance / electricity etc don’t just auto renew expensively, buying presents for birthdays and Christmas. And so on.

I was looking for other high earners to share ideas. You don’t seem to have any.

Im not a high earner but when i upped my working days from 2 to 3 we got a cleaner for 2 hours a week, she only does the main rooms that guests would see

some rooms i only clean once a month or if if we are having guests as they are otherwise unused, dh does all the bathrooms

We have a gardener, only shirts get ironed here so 10/15 minutes a week max so i do those

online food shop, cars cleaned and valeted at a garage when we remember

depending on hours/money i think that a housekeeper for you would be a good idea

Thank you. This is EXACTLY what I was referring to and I can’t believe some people think it doesn’t exist.

I’d love my cleaner to iron and change the beds. She’s semi retired and happy with the hours she works. I’ll definitely add this in to a new contract once she retires.

I tried a local ironing service but wasn’t massive happy with the results so we currently do that but I’d outsource it in a heartbeat.

we think it exists

we think it exists for the vast majority

You need a virtual assistant for the life admin. You can brief them what needs doing (they'll even look at travel insurance/house insurance etc).

Thing is briefing them properly will take time, almost as much time as doing it yourself (at least the first time) BUT if you keep the relationship going over months and years you will see the benefit of time.

Hand all the thinking and planning to a VA.

Also I think you need a housekeeper not a cleaner. The difference is in the name!

Not a high earner BTW - just someone aware of the potential of VAs to be used to support life admin.

Find a local one as meeting will be important.

@CherryBlossomFestival

This is my exact issue. AI can't help either it seems. I have built all that stuff into my routine - I spend 15mins every lunch hour and any dead time while waiting in queues, kids pick ups etc to do this.

I have set up the reminders app and my outlook calendar as a widget on my phone so it's on the first screen that I see.

It's the only way I can manage it and still fall behind sometimes.

The OP didn’t say it doesn’t exist for other people, though. She just said she can afford to outsource stuff, so does anyone have any ideas as to how she could do that.
We are high earners so we pay other people to do stuff that we could do ourselves but don’t want to. It puts money back into the economy, and allows us to earn more and therefore pay more tax.
As the OP says, you don’t seem to have any useful advice for her so no real need to comment.

MIL had an almost FT housekeeper.

We had a cleaner, when I retired I kept her on for two years as I hate housework but she changed jobs and I haven’t replaced her. I still miss her. Get a cleaner for sure, we also had a gardener sometimes.

When it comes to life admin, I think some people let it take up a lot of headspace. This is not a reflection on how well they do it just that they let it sit there as a burden.

My mantra in life has always been as long as no one is going to die what does it matter. When I was young I worked in a clinical role in the NHS, I actually could have killed someone with a mistake, drawn up wrong drugs or something of that nature. At work in my second career if something went a bit awry I would always say we are not nurses no one has died so it’s ok. I’m very much yes whatever mate.

That is just our own personality but if somehow you can get your head around life admin being less of a burden in your head it will really assist you.

When I was a high earner, I had a cleaner and also used a laundry service once a week. I don't have a car so I also used black cabs to get around if I was in a hurry.

Get a cleaner who will do the laundry too so you're not outsourcing to 2 services. Get shopping delivered. Have more stuff like gousto or hello fresh

i have advice

i have a gardener, cleaner, someone to sew uniform labels and car valeted

i suggested off mumsnet and get a cleaner

Oh by the way. A virtual assistant is a REAL person. Not AI or anything. 😆

I use a VA for work.

They are virtual because not personal. They might have 30/40 clients.

They generally work from home and are self employed.