To think there must be more to life than working all week and then spending the weekend doing housework and chores?

[DBD1975]

Please don't get me wrong I watch the news and count my blessings.

I have a roof over my head, food on the table, running water and electricity and, whilst we have a very modest lifestyle, my partner and I can pay the bills and we aren't struggling to make ends meet (unlike a lot of people who are a lot less fortunate).

However, I have a very busy and pressurised job which takes up my time and energy during the week so household chores tend to get left until the weekend.

I have spent the majority of this weekend doing housework as shower room needed a deep clean as did the bathroom and kitchen. General tidying up in other rooms (small 3 bedroom house).

Loads of washing, sorting out the airing cupboard and now faced with a pile of ironing.

The drudgery just seems never ending as, due to some health issues, housework, chores and cooking take me longer to do.

My partner does his bit but works harder than me during the week and also has caring responsibilities for a parent so doesn't have a lot of time at the weekend.

Am I being unreasonable to think there must be more to life than this?

Genuinely interested as well in any labour saving hacks or electrical appliances which have taken the hard work out of housework for you.

My best purchase has been a robotic hoover which means the house gets hoovered every day which has made a huge difference. We couldn't justify the cost of a cleaner as when I last looked into this they wanted £20 an hour, which is roughly what I earn per hour (after tax).

Declutter all decor. Don't iron anything, don't fold, just chuck in drawers. Iron only uniforms, husband's shirts etc

Instead deep cleans often, wipe daily any visible dirt you see or immediately after spill, mess, etc

Sweep locally where you see crumbs or dirt instead hoovering all the time.

Do deeper cleans twice a month and if you want deep, deep, when you really have time

It's awful working FT with children. I did it for a few years and I feel that I missed out on so much with my DC. I'm part time now, I've cut down on outgoings but I do also feel I've saved a fair bit not working anyway. Less money on commuting and childcare, less spent on things I bought for convenience now I have time to shop around and plan and prepare meals. More importantly I enjoy my weekends with DC as I get the bulk of what needs doing done on my day off and I get to do some drop offs and picks up at school myself.

My husband taught me what his hack was before he met me: He just hoovers the whole place. Then goes with a wet well scrubbing sponge and scrubs only the stains that he sees, not wiping everything top to bottom - lol. When I met him, his place was actually ok

Thanks, I never understood people who don't iron. Our stuff comes out of the washing machine (which is very new) like screwed up dish rags, even on the gentlest of spins and with fabric softener. Consequently everything needs ironing.

I do clean up all of the crumbs/spills etc as I go as couldn't leave them.

Don't need to hoover at all other than the stairs as we have robotic hoovers.

Decluttering is a constant work in progress. I feel embarrassed every week as we always have so much more rubbish/recycling than our neighbours. Our house is not at all cluttered, other than my partner's office and I don't clean in there!

I know you say you can’t afford a cleaner, but how many of your free hours are you spending cleaning? It’s a false economy to waste your weekend when a cleaner could come in during the week and blitz most of the jobs much quicker. Especially if you’re still in the trenches with younger children.
I don’t have a cleaner any more sadly as she retired but when I did she was worth her weight in gold. She spent 3 hours on the kitchen, bathrooms, vacuuming and dusting and I just tidied up after myself in between. Kids are older now so they make less mess and can help clean it up.

I also found batch cooking really helpful to meal planning for the week.

Choose not to care about "deep cleaning". I've lived in house a decade now, with two kids. The only time paintwork gets wiped down is if I'm decorating it. I don't dust. I wipe round the bathroom while waiting for a bath to run , hob top while the kettle boils. Hoover about every two weeks or if someone is coming round. Who cares, it's just us here.

Also tumble dry and steam instead of ironing. I haven’t ironed anything for months and we don’t wear creased clothes.

The French call it “Metro Boulot Dodo” (Commute, Work, Sleep) and yes it sucks. I would live to still be able to afford a cleaner, and do more exploring, visiting around my city and trips overseas but I cannot afford too much fun!

Do you have children op?

Could you afford a cleaner?

No, just pets, I am close to retirement age but I am not financially in a position to retire.

Then surely if you're a couple, you can't be making that much mess or generating huge amounts of laundry...I have two DC and work full time and have had quite a bit of rest this weekend as well as doing all my chores. Do you have very high standards perhaps?

I don't think I have very high standards, when I visit other people's homes they always appear cleaner/tidier than mine.
I do think my physical health issues play a part as I suffer with chronic pain and it takes me longer to do chores and cooking due to the need to stop and sit down every 10 to 15 minutes.
Noticed how dirty the inside of the windows were today, another thing to add to the list!

Have low standards 😂
Some days I can only manage the basics (due to ill health) and I've had to learn to be ok with that.

I'm in my 50s, DC are adults. When they were young I was constantly cleaning. I look back on it now and think why? I'm obviously not saying live in a pig sty but you can't do everything. Time spent doing something you enjoy is really important for your MH. Whatever you clean will need doing again anyway! It never ends. Plus as DC get older there's less mess and you have more time, so it's not forever.

I plan meals that can either be cooked quickly, or just shoved in the oven or slow cooker etc and just left.

I also got an electric scrubber. It's great for things like cleaning the bath, tiles, stuff like that. Very low effort and does a great job of it.

Unless you're going to drip feed unusually high standsrds, a health issue, or a mansion, I think yabu.

I work FT with 2 kids and don't feel like this.

I have a cleaner. I know you said you couldn’t just the cost, but that’s the only thing that has really worked for us to properly save time.
other than that, a big declutter helps the house to feel nicer and tidying/cleaning as you go.

I think you lower your standards a bit - I never spent whole weekends cleaning! I usually cleaned round the bathroom and loos while the kids were in the bath, swept & washed the kitchen floor once on a weekend and hoovered carpeted areas and did a few loads of laundry. If your clothes are coming out badly creased, you probably are cramming too much in. If you hang things as soon as they come out of the washing machine, they should lose most of the creases. I only ironed school and work shirts, everything else was ok.

Cross posted and just saw your updates OP. Definitely get an electric scrubber if you don't have one. They come with loads of attachments and really make a lot of cleaning easier.

Even if a cleaner costs you the same as you earn per hour, it is still worth the investment as you’re buying time. Just see it this way, if you get a cleaner in for 4 hours a week, you’re buying your entire weekend back.

Yes perhaps your health issues play a part then..sorry to hear that.

Remember though, lots of people me clean manically before guests come over!

As for your windows.... Put your feet up and don't worry about it. No one is handing out medals for clean windows.

I‘m a big fan of The Organised Method for which you can get an app. You do a room a day which takes half an hour (less if you have a robotic hoover as you won’t need to do the floors section) plus a load of laundry a day and a quick bathroom clean. It’s not a deep clean but on Fridays you do a deep clean of a room and rotate through all the rooms over 8 weeks. The bathroom clean is just one or two things each time. So I always clean the loo plus I might do the sink one day and the shower another, mirrors and windows another day etc. There are guided cleans on the app. I just pick a guided clean for the room I’m
doing and switch off mentally whilst I follow the instructions for half an hour.

It’s just the two of us at home as well and the house is always clean and pretty tidy. If you need to do a blitz before you start the programme there’s a boot camp session you can do to get you into a good place before you start. There are also before and after work sessions where you split your clean into two and do 15 mins before you go to work and finish off when you get in. It works really well for us and our weekends are free to enjoy.

It may be what you earn per hour but a cleaner could clean much quicker than you and you could halves with your DH.

I’ve just seen that you struggle with chronic pain. So sorry to hear that. On the TOM app there are cleans split into ten minute chunks which might work for you. I do those if I’m working from home, so I might do ten mins before I sit down at my laptop in the morning, ten mins at lunch time and ten mins when I’ve finished for the day and hey presto that’s the cleaning done for the day!

Declutter hugely and outsource anything that you can. We both work full time. Every evening we do a 30 minute bedtime reset where one of us tidies, hoovers and wipes downstairs surfaces and the other does the same upstairs. We pay a cleaner fortnightly to do deep clean of kitchen and bathrooms. We pay a gardener and for a car valet monthly to do the garden and clean both cars. My husband does a weekly shop once a week while DSD is at her dance class. Like many on this thread I only iron shirts and school uniforms, but you can pay to send ironing out and have someone bring it back to you completed if ironing is a big chore. Ultimately you need to decide what you value most - we value time, so we pay to outsource more.

As long as things are passable and it's just you two it's all OK. Too many Mrs. Hinch types about, and advertising that makes even the best of us look less than perfect when slobbing on the sofa. Do one thing per weekend. And only one. Do the other bits in ten minutes after work. The rest can wait until forever.

I remember a friend of mine making me howl with laughter one time. She said she does the bare minimum of housework, and if someone calls to her house unexpectedly she grabs a cloth and cleaning spray and answers the door with these in her hands. That way she said, even if the house is minging, the visitors know she is about to clean it!