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).

I know you say you don't think it makes financial sense, but it might make life:work balance sense, to get a cleaner. A 3 bed house with two adult occupants cannot get that dirty if you both tidy up after yourselves. Even 2 hours every other week would make a huge difference if you find it time consuming. My cleaner doesn't do out spare room unless I am expecting visitors. Online food orders to save schlepping to shops.
I run my washing machine overnight (which I know is a MN no-no, and don't care!), so that I can hang it in the morning and it is dry by evening. Not that 2 adults can generate anywhere near the amount of a family of 4.
Also, lower your standards.

I'm also in a position where my gross pay is less per hour than my cleaner charges but still it makes sense to have her come round once a fortnight, for two hours. For my 1 bedroom place that's sufficient. I just don't have the agility (right now) to give the shower the clean it deserves.

YANBU to think there is much more to life than this.

YABVU to spend so much of your life cleaning, and doing other household chores. Even more so when there aren't even any dc involved.

Prioritise doing something (or things) you enjoy. Whether that is sitting down and reading a book for an hour, or, (much better IMO) going out and joining some things where you are spending time enjoying yourself. After all, the more you are out of the house, the less you are messing it up. I genuinely can't understand how you are spending so much time on 'household tasks'

What scrubber have you got?

I never understand this MN ‘deep clean’ thing - it’s term that used to be reserved for the likes of operating theatres. Just do enough to keep the place looking more or less presentable, with a more thorough clean maybe once a month. A bit of dust never killed anybody, and I doubt anyone’s going to check that you’ve dusted or wiped the skirting boards.

I think YABU as I work full time (we both do) and have two kids and I don’t feel like this. We have a cleaner weekly and two robot vacuums but I also have incredibly high standards so clean a fair bit myself, and we haven’t always had one. It’s the laundry that does us in as our two boys are very sporty so really everything gets washed after being worn once. If I didn’t have kids, I’d have LOADS of spare time as we’d have barely any laundry and I wouldn’t spend my life clearing up crumbs.

I don’t understand why your washing is so creased; my husband does our ironing and it’s literally just uniforms and his shirts. I think you need to wash smaller loads, shake and hang more carefully. Decluttering would help as it’s far easier to clean. If you’re both out at work most of the time and it’s just you two then really you should be doing minimal housework!

Lower your standards!

Don’t spend all weekend doing housework - plan some fun stuff into your life.

Stop ironing!

I have a cleaner once a month.
she does the woodwork, windows, fridge, kitchen cupboards and oven … everything else I do.
she basically does the deep cleaning jobs

Just pay a cleaning company to do your "deep cleans" 2, 3 or 4 times a year.

I have all the time in the world these days but manage to keep a clean enough house on about 2 hours actual housework (aside from laundry and dishes) per week. My standards aren't high, but neither are they low.

I think Mr Furniture and i must just be slobs! We are in very similar circumstances - 2 adults in our fifties, no small children, 3 bed house, too many books, plants and bits of junk, etc. I absolutely do not spend hours and hours cleaning. We both give it a good blitz every so often, and then try to clean as we go. We don't iron much. DH wears uniform shirts and just gets them out of the machine and hangs them up on hangers to dry, and they are as crease-free as they need to be.

Wipe down surfaces as you go, keep the kitchen and bathrooms clean, and youre 90% there. Dont spend all weekend scrubbing, go out and have some fun. If nothing else, the dust will still be there when you get home.

I'm retired . Three of us here and I've not had the iron out for years . I take it out of the machine dry on a maiden and we don't look c reased ! You have my sympathy though , it was hell when my four kids were young , the mess and never ending drudgery of try I ng to keep the housework under control was awful 😖

I’ve lived in my house with 2 dc for 9!years and I’ve never deep cleaned anything. Some of my windows are dirty, but who cares?

I don’t iron. No one died from a slightly crumpled shirt.

I think you are doing stuff that doesn’t need doing. My mum does that and then claims she has too much to do. Lower your standards.

I work full time, lone parent with 2 teens, and I’ve hardly done any housework this weekend, except wiping surfaces after cooking etc.

Organised Mum method worked wonders for me, and I've just discovered the batch lady. I'd recommend both.

Definitely declutter, definitely tidy as you go.

How are you drying your clothes? If you hang stuff to dry on hangers and give it a good shake while it's wet then you can avoid most ironing.

For a lot of years I worked 50 hours per week in a very demanding job and was a single mother to three kids. I learned to cut down on weekend drudgery by doing half an hour in the evenings. So one night cleaning bathrooms, another living spaces etc. Also one wash load per day and minimal ironing. Online shopping for food. It did help.

Lower your standards.

You can do less cleaning and have a happier, if slightly grubbier, life.

It sounds like you are excusing your DH not doing much around the house. Just do your own laundry and ironing, your DH can take care of his own. Regardless of how hard he works during the week, he can spent an hour or two over the weekend on chores. Split the tasks that need doing. And maybe have a routine whereby you stick on a load of your own laundry once or twice during the week and maybe pick one room a week night to clean, rather than waiting until the weekend to lash into every room.

I’d get a cleaner, life is too short. Pay them to do it and go do something fun!

Stop ironing.
If you really need to eg shirts send those out to a cleaning service.

Use a cleaner if you are slow physically they will do 2x as much as you in one houur

If you can afford it get a cleaner. It doesn’t have to be weekly it can be fortnightly or monthly.

Whatever they charge it’s really worth it. You can then free up time for fun stuff and you’ll get your weekends back.

I think your standards are possibly higher than you realise. I’ve only cleaned the inside of my windows once in the 4 years I’ve lived in my house. I can’t say I ever ‘deep clean’ any rooms. Just a standard clean.

My kids are very young so I wouldn’t have the time. My DM used to spend the whole weekend cleaning, that’s just not the life I want.

@DBD1975 What is it that is taking up all your time? Ironing is awful. I made a conscious decision to avoid buying high-maintenance clothes. My dh occasionally wears shirts for work; I prefer to use a hand-held steamer (I got it from Lidl); and we only tend to do one shirt when needed. My dh went through a phase of many years that we had the ironing board set up ready in the spare room, and he would just iron himself a single shirt when he needed it. The steam function in a washing machine can also get rid of creases. I tend not to overfill the washing machine, and get the washing straight out when it is done, and pull / stretch the clothes straight when they are wet, and then hang them on coat hangers on an airer.

Doing less washing can also help! I know people that never re-wear clothes or re-use towels, so wash it all every day, but life is too short! Underwear change every day; but other things can possibly be worn more than once. Spot cleaning small bits of dirt is fine!

Having less stuff also helps - easier to tidy and clean if less stuff.

There must be something in the air. My friend and I had a similar conversation today as life is so monotonous.

I don’t see how 2 adults can make so much mess that it’s taking you all weekend to clean - even with having to have breaks every 15 minutes.
Are you both working from home or out of the house for work?

Id suggest the cleaner, even once a fortnight for 2 hours. I have one and I don’t spend any time during my weekend cleaning. Dh and I both work full time with 3dc, the cleaner comes once a week for 4 hours and means I don’t need to spend any time cleaning bathrooms or dusting. She literally is the glue that holds our family together and I’d let a lot of other things go before her if finances got tight.
During the week I put in maybe 15 minutes a day cleaning the kitchen sides, hoovering downstairs, plumping sofa cushions and returning random discarded items of clothing to the right child’s bedroom so that our weekends are free to do what we want with.
I’d urge you to reconsider the cleaner.