Have I been miserly with our cleaner?

[romanfriendsandcountrywomen]

We have a cleaner twice a week. 2 hours Monday, 3 hours Thursday. Pay her £80 a week.

She's here today (Monday ) but obviously won't be here Thursday. I've paid her £100 for the week- for her 2 hours today and the rest a Xmas bonus. DH says that's a bit tight.

Should I give here some more?

I give our cleaner a week’s extra wages at Xmas

i would do a week’s extra wages.

I doubt she was genuinely suggesting she cleans your house on Christmas Day and New Years Day.

Much more likely that she was making the point that it’s you cancelling and therefore you should still be paying her for those days.

It must be really hard for low paid people to lose entire days wages when Christmas is midweek.

I agree with your DH. You should be paying her for Thursday anyway. So she’s received a £20 Christmas bonus. If that’s the level you want to give then fine, but if you wanted to give a £68 bonus then you need to give her an extra £48.

I tend to give a week’s bonus to my cleaner on top of what she would normally have earned that week if it wasn’t Christmas.

We have a cleaner every two weeks and I give her a gift card with the same amount as we'd otherwise pay her as a gift, plus a box of biscuits or chocolates or candles.

I don't think there's anything wrong with what you're giving OP. As you've already discovered, she's not getting anything from your friend. There are other clients that may give her more, but you've given her something and it's not inconsequential, so I'm sure she'll be pleased.

Our cleaner comes on a Wednesday normally, every two weeks. This year, therefore, she was going to hit one of the bank holidays (New Year's Day in this case). She's managed to swap us onto another day instead, which was perfect, but if she couldn't, we'd have gone without and she wouldn't have expected to be paid. That's the risk of self-employment. You don't get paid for days you don't work. DH is self-employed and won't be paid for this week or next week because the company he contracts for is closed.

I doubt she was genuinely suggesting she cleans your house on Christmas Day and New Years Day.

Unfortunately she did want to work those days! Last week I asked her when was she free to come this week as the normal day is Wednesday and she said she could come Christmas Day Wednesday.

I understand they are on a low wage and happy to give her hours to make up for lost work. She's hard working but isn't a great cleaner and as slow as a snail so I don't feel compelled to give bonus / holiday pay. She's been with me for 3 months only.

Sounds good to me.

I gave my cleaner a £20 bonus. I only spend about £35 on each of my parents so maybe I’m tight. I was chuffed with the organic Prosecco my boss got me (I don’t actually drink Prosecco but it’s the thought that counts).

Our regular clean falls on Xmas day so I paid that (as I don’t want her here on 25th so I “cancelled”) and I gave her a one week bonus too.

I can afford it and she is lovely. So it was easy decide to do it that way.

Nothing remotely useful to add, except that a previous poster's "knobless oblige" in the place of "noblesse oblige" is perhaps the greatest typo I've ever seen on this site 😅 (unless it was intentional...?) either way, genuine lol

Do you pay cash?

I was always incredibly grateful to those customers that gave me extra at Xmas. Back then as a single parent it was my full time job, back breaking as it was - You have to go over an above to get a good reputation as a cleaner and more custom. So when customers cancelled over the Xmas break and made no provisions, it of course made things tight for me financially but it sounds like you’ve covered your cleaner OP and extra.

Yeah I stand by what I said. It’s 25% of one week of pay. Maybe if it was 25% of the month that would be better.

I gave my cleaner a box of chocs and a tenner. It's just a gesture!

I gave my cleaner £30 and a bottle of wine. She comes every two weeks though for two hours at £15 an hour.

I don't mind, I think a Xmas tip is part of the parcel of having a cleaner but she didn't even say thank you, which irks me a bit.

I gave mine £80 but she's not coming this week so I guess it's just over her normal wages for the week which is 70

If she is from Eastern Europe she might keep 6 Jan, not 25th december.

Mine is from Georgia but she said she is part Catholic so I think keeps both.

She is coming on tuesday instead of wednesday and back again on friday (her normal days are mon, wed, fri). When she does things like this it defninitely motivates me to give her a bigger bonus!

I wouldn't think of paying her if she went away.

I think a bonus should be roughly equivalent to weeks pay? or something like that.

Yes l do give £500 because as l say I'm disabled and she's a Godsend.. even fetching me shopping..always rings day before she's due to clean to ask if there is anything l need.. she's even phoned the ambulance for me a few times.
Luckily I'm very well off and can afford it.

I have 2 come in for an hour instead of 2 hours for one and gave each £10 and a bottle (one wine and one prosecco).

Neve do a Christmas bonus. Do buy a present though but nothing much. Couple of books one year, Costa voucher another etc

I got ours a nice bottle of gin

Good cleaners are like gold dust. I always gave mine extra at Christmas . I also paidnthem their usual rate when I or they went on holiday. I think they are employees.

Well I give my postie a bonus because he does what your binmen do, surely not that hard to see?

I'm clearly in the minority, because I gave mine nothing!

They do an OK job, but not amazing, and they are rarely here for the full 2 hours I pay for (I know when they come and go because of the Ring doorbell). I have mentioned this a few times, and it gets better for a couple of weeks and then slackens off again. There is always something they can do if they finish early.

They have also knocked 3 pictures off the wall this year, which needed new frames/frames being fixed. Nothing massively expensive, but an inconvenience and cost to me.

Should I change to different cleaners...? Possibly. But no cleaner is perfect (and I don't know anyone (locally) who is 100% satisfied). When I ask for recommendations, there's always a ...but...

Mine is reliable, gets an adequate job done, is friendly/personable, can be flexible with timings (in return for the same from us, which is fine), and the house is clean enough that I'm prepared to stick with the devil I know (as it were). But they're not cheap, and I don't feel inclined to give them a bonus at Christmas. I have put a fair bit of business their way (when people ask if I'd recommend them, I'm honest about what we like/what our niggles are, and I know they have 3 new clients this year directly from my recommendation).

If I added up the 10 mins a week I pay for but don't get, that would be a decent add on at Christmas.