How much do you spend on a cleaner a month?

[Dilemma4ever]

My friend gets a cleaner in twice a week - 4 hours each time - and ends up spending £600 a month on the cleaner (in London)

You know what, you’re right. I’ll sack her tomorrow. That’ll be much better for everyone.

What, your partner does nothing at all in the house??

I don’t have a cleaner; I don’t need one. Most of the year it’s just me and my husband and we can keep on top of everything.

I would estimate that it takes us 2 hours over the week to clean the whole (5-bed) house - I’m including changing beds and doing laundry in that, but not the daily post-dinner clear-up.

We can be efficient because we work from home most of the time, so doing a load of laundry in the morning, putting it in the dryer at mid-morning coffee, and quickly folding it at lunch time, etc. if we had to do everything at the weekend, I suppose it would take 3 hours? We also have a Roomba. My house is always clean, but I suppose some things don’t get done very often, like the windows.

I have a question for those who are paying for 4+ hours per week - what does the cleaner do? Are they extremely thorough and regularly doing the jobs some of us do only occasionally? Are they tidying up? Do you have really big houses?

Not a judgey question, I’m just interested.

We have 4 hours although it’s fine by 2 cleaners over 2 hours. It’s a big house over 3 floors & 6 bedrooms. DH and I tidy up the night before which means they have full cleaning time. They clean 2 bathrooms and 3 bedrooms, 2 living rooms, kitchen, the 3 hallways and 2 lots of stairs.

That seems sensible! Do they ever do the windows or skirting boards - or is that included in the weekly clean?

Depending on whether it’s a four or a five week calendar month, your friend’s cleaner is on £37.50 per hour or £30 per hour.

Seems steep to me, but I’m not in London.

£200/£250 depending on whether it’s a 4 or 5 week month.

I employed them while I was going through active cancer treatment and have got a bit too used to them to cancel. In fairness I can’t think of anything better to spend my money on at the moment.

@MyDogHumpsThings 3 hours twice a week. She mops the hard floors, vacuums, cleans three bathrooms and one toilet and polishes the mirrors. Dusts, and keeps on top of skirtings and paintwork. The kitchen is kept immaculate by me and the house is always tidy. She also does two hours of ironing. 3500ish square feet.

I do the washing, dishwashering, tidying, cooking, wipe down the kitchen daily.

£210 - she does 3hrs a week.

They rotate the rooms for skirting boards (so they don’t get all get done weekly )but no they don’t clean the windows in that time. DH does the windows and cleans the oven.

We are v similar to your friend. Best money I spend in terms of improving our lives and we have a lovely cleaner who has been cleaning for us for a decade.

£40 a week for 2 hrs, so £173 a month overall. Worth every penny. I find cleaning mind numbingly boring, DH doesn’t see the things that need cleaning, we both work full time. Obviously we do the ‘keeping on top of things’ during the week - wiping down surfaces and the sink, chucking bleach down the loo, running the vacuum about, etc. But she does the proper cleaning - bathrooms, changing the beds, dusting, mopping, all the other bits I really don’t want to do.

She is a star and is worth every penny we pay her. There are a lot of things I’d happily cut out far sooner than her services. I tidy before she gets here so that she can concentrate on actually making the house clean rather than having to tidy up as well - this way we maximise the value to us. She used to do 3 hrs a week but had to cut her hours back and I’d rather have something than nothing from her!

£17 an hour. Three hours every two weeks. £51 a visit. Outer London.
This works out roughly the same per hour as the OP's friend pays.

Aye, a fool and his money are soon parted. £600 per month on cleaning is eye watering. As someone else said it’s a free workout. I could easily afford it but wouldn’t pay someone that to dust, hoover and shine.

£600/ month = £7200/year.
52 weeks/year = £138/week
8 hours/week = £17/hour

Seems entirely reasonable to me, especially in London.

I think cleaning is beneath me!!

Not really, I have MS and a stroke. I live alone in a 3 bed, I don't cook, infact I've never sat in the front room. My cleaner comes bi weekly for £35. Monthly = £70.

Outsourcing means freeing up time that can be spent elsewhere. For me personally, weekends are spent with children and partner rather than spending a few hours deep cleaning the house. I like a very neat and clean home so it’s either I spend a couple of hours every week doing it which would eat into my time with the kids or outsource it.

About £250-£300 a month. She does approx 4 hours a week.

I am shit at cleaning, she is wonderful. We can easily afford it and value the time/better results.

Yeah that’s not a cleaning job. House should be sparkling when you walk in after they’re done and if not sack them.

£51 a week for 2 cleaners to do the whole house. I’m not sure how long it takes them but it’s amazing and the best money I’ve ever spent.

It's not giving money away.!! It's paying for a service... Like you pay a garage for an MOT or a nursery to look care for your kid...

It depends what the employer's hourly rate is and how much spare time they have. I spend about 90 mins per day on domestic stuff and work three long days per week. It was five long days until very recently.

Big house - I'd have spent all weekend cleaning on top of a full on professional job.

I don't want to be rude, but there is no way that I would find my house to be clean enough if I only did two hours a week. I have a three bed house and I never feel it's clean enough, which is why I have a cleaner.

£7200 per annum!!

Why does it bother you what others spend their money on? Do you also judge people who pay for gym memberships, fancy restaurants, lots of new clothes, or trips to the hairdresser? Are you puritanical in general or do you just object to people outsourcing cleaning?