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).

Yes, I think it must help having fresh air circulating around the house every night. We sleep with the windows wide open and our internal doors wide open, so the whole house gets refreshed over night. I hate the smell of stale air, even in an otherwise clean house.

I agree with much of whats already been said with regard to minimising stuff & getting a bit of a week day routine going.

But i'd also ask - if all these chores were removed - what would you like to do at weekends to make them more enjoyable?

I suspect you might not have concrete plans & thats why housework is filling up time.

Have a good think about what you enjoy, what would make life more fulfilling. Start prioritising these things and the balance of your life will improve

Split the cost of the cleaner between you & your husband

Link to electric scrubber for those that asked
Scrubber

YANBU. I used to think the exact same thing. I don't think there are any easy answers. Several PPs have suggested ways of reducing the workload, which is obviously good. I am wondering if you can find a slot in the week to do something just for yourself? A Pilates or yoga class maybe? The good thing about this is that as well as improving your strength, flexibility and posture, these are very good at teaching mindfulness (so being in the moment).

I have a chronic health condition and I'm now too unwell to work so I have the opposite problem to you now - I have all the time in the world but not the energy to get the chores done. It is very frustrating. I have been taught all sorts of techniques to avoid getting stressed and depressed and a lot of it is what you learn in yoga and Pilates. I do a few short meditations every day using the Headspqce app (highly recommend it!), try to focus on what I can do rather than what I can't, and write a journal about 5pm every day (takes 5 mins) I ask myself 3 key questions- what have I done today? What do I need to/want to do tomorrow? How did I feel about the day? The journal helps me focus on the most important task and also helps me to see I am getting a lot done.

Do a few chores every day along with your partner. Given that you are in pain, I would try to spread it out and both of you do a bit before and after work and only briefly at weekends. We had one of us cooking while the other one would clean a room. That meant we got through sitting room, bedrooms, hallway and most of kitchen easily while cooking. Kitchen got finished off after tea, with shower room cleaned better on weekends.

Keep the weekend clear of chores. We do laundry, cooking, washing up, clean the shower room on a weekend and occasionally do bigger diy then but not as a norm. It takes up very little time on a weekend to do that and has to fit around whatever else we want to do.

If its dh who needs ironed shirts could you outsource it to him

Get a cleaner who also irons.

Its actually worth timing some of the “deep clean” jobs. ie, cleaning the shower, I spray it, go and make a cuppa and then clean the shower when I am in it. Inside windows - 5 mins a piece, just do a couple at a time.
Skirtings, long thin brush attachment on the hoover.
Ironing, in front of tv late afternoon.
Decluttering helps, as does having space under furniture to push a hoover nozzle.

Do one big job each Saturday max 20 mins and a quick fly through everything else.
Clean as you go means it never gets too bad anyway.

I have a chronic health condition that causes pain so have a cleaner for 2 hours a week. She irons as well but if she didn't then I'd iron less and just hang stuff on hangers out of the dryer.
I dont even work full time because of my health but still feel the cleaner is worth paying for. What about having someone every other week. Combined with your robot hoover and spot cleaning ot would probably massively help.

Yes, exactly this. At the moment, you're working and then coming home and cleaning. If some of the hours you spend at work can pay for a few hours a week of free time, surely that will make all the difference to you?

There must be other things you pay people to do that works out more per hour than you earn. You can't look at life like that.

It's also not just the hours you spend physically cleaning that you could take off your plate, but also the mental load that comes along with it. For every hour I spend cleaning I spend another hour procrastinating from it, being annoyed that it has to be done.

And also, I think if you can afford a cleaner, it's great as well because it helps someone else, giving them a few hours work to help with their family life. It's just a win win win in every way you look at it.

I'm sure you'd be happy spending £40 on a takeaway that costs you 2 hours wages and takes 10 minutes to eat, wouldn't you? Think about how much more you'd get out of spending those two hours on someone else cleaning.

YANBU thinking there's more to life. YABU by not doing what's in your power and grabbing it.

Not everyone can afford a cleaner. You CAN. A better life is in your reach, it isn't for everyone.

If you both work from home can you not do 10 minute blasts during your working day, I mean you are allowed a lunch break or to go for a wee.

Load the washing machine the night before, turn it on when you make coffee, get it out when done and hung or tumbled. One load a day should be manageable. I mean you can wear work clothes more than once surely, if people are only going to see them on Zoom?

Can you split the cost of a clean with partner? Pay an hour each every couple of weeks? Just to do the bigger deep clean jobs that take you hours.

You are both in the house, both have pockets of time during the day, you need a plan which involves teamwork basically. Why are you doing a whole weekend was your partner doing anything contributing to the domestic chores during this time?

Can you organise so you play to your strengths, so if you find things physically demanding he can do most of the physically demanding tasks and you can take on more of the admin roles, and lighter duties?

Getting a cleaner is game changing and if you can afford it worth it. They work hard and deserve the pay IME.

Declutter where possible, improve storage options etc

YANBU. I hate spending the time I am not working cleaning or doing any sort of housework. You should re-consider getting a cleaner - there’s every chance it takes you twice as long as it would take someone who does it for a living. Totally worth it for the time back, even if you would be paying them the same wage as you earn and of course your DH would be paying half too. My cleaner cleans the kitchens and bathrooms, dusts and hoovers and changes the bedding every week. She’ll even stick a wash on before she leaves. That’s a lot of chores off DH and my weekend task list!

Other than that, I do a few things to keep time spent on chores down. I mostly buy clothes which don’t require ironing and I never bother ironing sheets etc. I put everything in the dishwasher, even - shock horror - knives and pans.

And the main thing is that I try to limit tidying by doing it as I go along. I have a “never leave a room empty-handed” rule. There is almost always something in the wrong room, so whenever I leave one, I take it with me. Stops water glasses being left on the bedside table, or toys in the living room, or packages being left in the hallway. It is a small thing and it has massively improved how tidy the house is and feels.

This is good advice, I’m the same I think, do housework/chores for something to do at the weekend

Thanks lots of good advice which I have taken on board but just wanted to say we don't do takeaways (gave them up several years ago when partner needed to lose weight for health reasons). In addition we rarely eat out so guess I can justify a cleaner! 😂

This 100% - wfh makes you so much more sensitive to any dirt or clutter (well it does me anyway) and when I realised that it did help me understand whey I was getting so depressed by it all.

Well I also realised today while gettng ready for work, that because of my internal thermostat awry I feel the cold really badly which means lots of layers, all the time, all year round. So at the moment I wear a vest, then thermal top over that, then shirt for work over that, scarves every day, gloves. Most of my gloves are leather or suede but fabric ones do get washed, not very often but they often get grubby. So 3 tops a day, I dont wear that day after day, then 2 pairs of work trousers a week, 5 pairs of work socks a week, 5 knickers a week, thats a whole load in itself.

Also, to be delicate, as people age, there is an odour that occurs, its normal and natural but I am hyper sensitive to it so his collars round his clothes do smell even though he washes every day. Ive been buying the persimmon soap and we wash with bio now but you have to stay on top of it and Im concious of myself too, apparently as you age you also cant smell it as much on yourself or others so Im staving it off as much as I can

I dont wash things after every where, jumpers as you say I will wear more than a few times. Clothes do need washing though to be put back in shape, knees in joggers or trousers for example. I do a lot of spicy cooking so my loungewear always has eau du garlic about it, which is not so nice if you're trying to relax of an evening.

Yes I dont have synthetic clothing (only my work wear) and Ive got a habit of putting things folded up in wash bags as I have a lot of wool and so they tend to make a wash on their own, otherwise its the wrong settings so they cant be washed with normal bedding which is cotton and linen, so thats another separate load when I wash them.

Ive just realised too that the wash Ive just put on, is the king duvet, king sheet and 2 pillowslips, thats one load. The other load is the other 2 pillowslips of the king bed and then the brushed cotton single bed, so slightly thicker sheet, pillow cases and duvet cover, thats another separate wash. It wouldnt have fit in together. 2 washes just with the bedding tonight.

We keep the windows open all year as well and shower daily (he bathes daily) but not sure what that has to do with washing loads!!

Because both of us that said that, said we often don’t change bed sheets every week. I often leave it a fortnight.

I wear lots of layers, often a vest, top and then jumper. I still don’t wash those every day, especially if I’ve not sweated.

I don’t care what my joggers for the house look like and only wash them when they are falling down 😂.

By all means wash as much as you like, but you do wash things far more often than me and a lot of other people. I’ve got gloves that I’ve never washed! And they are at least 5 years old.

I am washing as much as I like!! Im generally pretty slovenly with that, wearing jumpers as I say several times, jeans a few times. I dont think washing bedding weekly is a lot, its fairly standard to me

I was just wondering how a household only does 2 washes a week and Im still not convinced this isnt exaggeration. On the weeks you do change your bedding for example, you must therefore have more than 2 loads. And I asked about tea towels, cant remember if it was you who answered about not washing them everyday, no of course they're not washed every day, but they take up room each week within a load, along with other towels

Anyway, its drudgery whether its done once or several times a week thats the point. Although what I find boring and drudgery is actually the putting away of the things

I do more than two loads a week, but I have two teens as well. And the 16 year old seems to think something is dirty if he wears it for 5 mins!

DP does one load a week as he lives alone. When doing bedding I think he does two.

We are all primates clinging to a fairly unremarkable rock, orbiting an unremarkable star, hurtling through an mostly empty void.
Like all animal life, our major biological imperative is to reproduce and perpetuate the species, and provided that happens an individuals happiness is not really a concern.
Just a few generations ago we would be scratching a living off the land in a lifetime of endless toil for a meagre subsistence lifestyle.

When I started wfh, it meant I had a lot more time in the day.

No travel time to get to work.
No travel time to get home.
No 'trapped time' at lunch in the staffroom at work.

So, instead of emptying / loading the dishwasher in the staffroom, our own dishwasher get loaded / emptied whilst waiting for the kettle to boil.

Instead of commuting to work, I started earlier (having put a wash in maybe), then took 10 or 15mins to hang it out around 10am, meaning it's not sitting in the machine until I got in at 6pm

Or, another day, whilst having lunch, I could peel veg / prep dinner / put stuff in the slow cooker or prepped stuff in fridge or whatever.

Plus, as others have said, you are much less likely to have to dress up smartly at home as you might going in to an office - again, less time spent getting ready and less time laundering and (in OP's case) ironing clothes etc.

So, when wfh, you have both far more time and to some extent, a bit less work.

Load dishwasher/do dishes at night before you go to bed. Sweep kitchen floor and wipe down surfaces. If you’ve used the oven, wipe it out while it’s still warm. Put in load of washing on economy wash.

Get up. Transfer washing to drier or hang on line, while you make tea. Unload dishwasher and put away. Have shower, wipe down shower, wash basin and taps. Drink tea and get dressed. Hoover. Empty drier, fold clothes and put in basket. Get people to put away their own clothes.

This works for us, and by doing little bits, you keep on top of stuff. Kitchen and bathroom floors get washed at the weekend, and all flat surfaces wiped down.

Honestly.. I know you've discounted getting a cleaner but I think you should seriously reconsider. The joy of coming home to a clean house is unparalleled. You could try and book just two hours and get them to do the downstairs, hallway and bathroom only (and not clean the bedrooms). But, personally, I think it's absolutely worth it. Or have them visit fortnightly.

One other hack that'll change your life - batch cooking. Not just a week's worth of food. Batch cook an entire month's worth of meals. Carefully consider which meals you want to make - curries, lasagne, cottage pie, lamb tagine etc - and spend an entire day in the kitchen cooking and labelling each meal. It will save you SO MUCH TIME. Plus, you have delicious, home-cooked ready meals whenever you're hungry, which also reduces the temptation of ordering take out. Have a look on YouTube for batch cook chefs for meal inspo.