What % of your disposable income is your cleaner?

[roses2]

My cleaner has just gone back to her home country and I’m debating whether or not to replace her.

I’ve worked out I am paying her 25% of my disposable income after bills etc which seems quite high. The rest of my disposable income goes into our savings with the odd treat like a takeaway once every 3 months or a long haul holiday once every 5 years (we have a small annual holiday to the Mediterranean each summer to see MIL).

What % your leftover income are you paying your cleaner and at what point does it stop being worthwhile? I think I am close to reaching that point.

I just got a eufy to clean the floors and then I do the rest. I found that cleaners often only did a surface clean anyway which if I keep on top of things I can do as I go. The costs have risen and I totally understand why cleaners have put their prices but I just cannot justify the expense now.

I got rid of our cleaner about 3 years ago. It was £33 a week so have saved. 1.7K each year. This has paid for 6 weekends away since then that I wouldn't have been able to afford to go on. I've just accepted that the house is a little bit dirtier. Also, when i'm doing the cleaning, I see it as exercise!

I think it depends on your own time.
We had a cleaner when I worked a long commute (5-6 hour round trip) and DH picked up the kids and sorted dinners etc. I was spending my full weekend cleaning and laundry etc so we opted for a cleaner.

Now I WFH and can keep on top of laundry, light housework during my lunch breaks. Qe got a robot vacuum to go around every day and then I just do a heavy hoover once a week. I have more time so don't see the value in a cleaner.

What are you doing now with the time saved by having a cleaner.

Having a regular cleaner but a takeaway once every three months (if that'd something you truly enjoy) is very skewed.

5%.

0.5%. If it was anything close to 25% then I’d see it as a luxury I couldn’t afford.

We can easily afford but it but recently got robot hoovers and i realised that at pushing 20 quid an hour/250-300 quid a month mine really doesn't feel worth it any more.

About 5% for two hours a week. More than worth it because she’s brilliant and I know the kitchen and bathrooms have had a really good clean every week.

Thanks everyone’s feedback has been really helpful. I was second guessing myself because so many people seem to have cleaners but until my lady left recently I never sat down and looked at the numbers as a % of my disposable income. And yes I’d much rather clean myself and use the money to treat myself than pay a cleaner!

Ours is 6% of our disposable income, after savings. There’s no way I’d spend 25% on a cleaner.

Mine was only a small percentage of my disposable income, but I stopped her when she put her rates up to £20 an hour. At my stage in life it just seemed very expensive for something I could easily fit in myself. When my children were younger and DH and I both worked full-time in the office, I would have sacrificed a lot more to keep the cleaner. But now DC are older teens and I WFH, I just didn't want to spend that kind of money

If by disposal income you mean net income after any other potential taxes, then we're not anywhere near 25%, more like 3%.

If you mean income after mandatory bills (mortgage, nursery fees, energy etc), then it's about 10%.

Are you saying that you had a cleaner out of peer pressure?! 🤣

I've never calculated it. I have mobility issues and she's invaluable.

less than 1%. I also have a eufy though which both washes and vacuums and it removes the need for as many hours of cleaning.

2% for fortnightly cleaning.

1.5-2%

1.6% currently, it would have been a heck of a lot more a few years ago, we’ve had a cleaner long before we became higher earners. I see it as buying time so it’s been worth it to me for a long time, although 25% is very large.

No we had a cleaner when DH was working and I was doing the bulk of the chores. He got made redundant and is now pulling his weight more which means I have the time to clean.

I kept the cleaner in the hope he would find another job soon because she really was fantastic but he hasn't and she is leaving the country so this feels like a natural end point.

At the point of taking her on, it was probably 5% of our joint disposable income but with DH being out of work for > 12 months it is 25% of whatever I have left after bills.

He got made redundant and is now pulling his weight more which means I have the time to clean.
There is something very wrong in this sentence OP. I hope you see it when it's written down like this.

The value of a cleaner (or gardener or someone who irons) is based on what you would not be doing if having to clean/garden etc. If it gives you rare family time back or reduces your stress or pain levels then 25% might be worth it for some people. If it gives you an extra 2 hours free time when you already have 50 hours free time then it's not got value.

The rage bait posts seem to get worse. Well done OP. Good one

Mine is £36 per week although she often doesn’t do all the school holidays as childcare is tricky as a single mum and sometimes goes away for a week term time with her partner when her children are with their dad or grandparents. She changes the beds as well as thoroughly cleans every room in a 4 bedroom house (the box room is my office so no bed in there). It’s a life saver because I’m also a single parent (youngest is 16) and I have to travel for work a fair bit. The odd missed week doesn’t matter because I’m very tidy and the house is very clean thanks to her.

I echo all the posters saying get a robot hoover. My cleaner was 500 a month but now I have a robot hoover upstairs and down it leaves me more time to do the other stuff. It’s been a game changer for me. Mine was about £300 so well worth the money.

Which one do you have?

What’s that supposed to mean?? My post was a genuine question.