£22 per hour for cleaning - REALLY?!

[DorotheaShottery]

I was thinking the other day "Dot - you've had enough of this cleaning lark - get yourself a cleaner!"

I put some feelers out on FB and it appears the going rate is £20-£22 per hour!!

Is that normal in the not-SE-not-Cheshire parts of the UK? AIBU to think it's ridiculous?

'Crazily high minimum wage'? 😂

Have you ever had to live on it??

It's the maximum I've ever lived on. And I was working pre minimum wage as well

I have a perfectly good life

I am self employed and charge a lot more an hour than I pay my cleaner so it makes financial sense for me

An 20 something Australian colleague was saying the other day that the crazy thing in the UK is that people in their 40s and 50s expect to be able to do 40 hour low skilled low paid jobs and support a family off that, but that's not how it works in Australia or other countries

Ah just what the UK needs! A 20 year old Aussie telling us where we're going wrong 😂

But also there's the aspect of basic economics of supply and demand. Where people "have" money, then you get "demand pull" inflation. So if people have more money in their pockets, businesses know that they can get away with increasing prices. We saw similar with Gordon Brown's tax credits which was partly responsible for high increases in home rentals as landlords could increase rents as they knew that the target tenants could pay more. It becomes a vicious spiral - higher wages leads to more money in pockets, leads to higher prices, leads to need for higher wages. Of course, at the same time, higher wages mean businesses need to increase prices to cover, so then you have basic economics of supply-push inflation too!

Compared to the UK, the Australian economy has generally been more successful for most of the last few decades. So, it's actually quite reasonable for Aussies of any age, to think the way they do things down under is better than the way we do things.

There are several ways in which the UK is copying/emulating the Australian economy, such as how we're finally copying them in terms of pensions etc. Our government also looks to "copy" Aus in other areas too such as laws/regulations.

Sorry for confusion. I'm not the cleaner. That's what I pay. That is the going rate in my area though. Just booked a new cleaner for my MIlL as she's recovering from surgery and it was £17 also. Different company.

We have friends, with young adult children in Australia, and a restaurant was paying a waitress AUD$27 per hour, a few years ago. Great opportunity to build the work ethic and team player mentality. Valuable on a young person's CV, but if you don't move on and up, that experience traps and defines you.

My DC26, is currently on a NMW apprenticeship in the SE, living in Guildford, sharing a house. The wage that comes in covers half the rent; then there is council tax, and utilities, and a person needs to eat too. It leaves a tissue paper thin amount for everything else. So they nibble at their savings every month for any fun spends. And we help out with the rent, every month.

Don't feel too sorry too soon. DC is part of the inheritocracy, and is about to buy a house with money inherited from GPs, plus a slug from BoMaD, in an area which will offer better long term career opportunities. It is a very long game.

.So, it's actually quite reasonable for Aussies of any age, to think the way they do things down under is better than the way we do things.

But the 20 year old Aussie is wrong to think NLW is too high. The problem is that wages have stagnated whilst costs have soared.

Depends on the job I guess. I'm thinking of low paying jobs, as the argument is about cleaners supposedly making a mint. If you work at the checkout in Asda you get minimum wage and paid holiday, and you don't come back to 2000 customers waiting for you to scan their stuff 😆

Do you tell your mechanic what they’re allowed to charge?

If you can’t afford it, there is an alternative.

I can't fix my car myself but I can clean my house.

It's not a question of being able to afford it or not - it's whether I think £22 per hour to have someone clean my house is value for money. And I don't. Others think it is.

This isn’t sustainable though at population level, is it? How can we say it’s ok to work full time (in whatever industry and at whatever age) and not be able to afford your housing, food, and fuel costs?

I suspect you’re in the minority there…

It’s not supposed to be ‘value for money’, it’s a luxury for people who can afford it and would rather spend their time on other things.

Would you want to spend 3 hours cleaning someone else’s house for £45 (minus petrol and expenses)? I know I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t even do it for £66. Cleaning up other people’s filth is a hard job and I don’t blame them for wanting reasonable pay. Especially if living in an expensive area where bills are high.

I don’t think you’d find many 20-somethings willing to clean other people’s houses, especially not for minimum wage. They’d rather work in a shop/bar/restaurant. All the cleaners I’ve known have been older women in the 40-70 bracket.

Exactly. And what about all those people who won’t inherit?

So dont have a cleaner its not compulsory
But again a self employed cleaner can charge whatever they want
A client either agree,s to pay the rate set by the cleaner or they dont

My friends 19 year old DD runs her own cleaning busibess

Because I managed my money and am not materialistic . Had a couple of friends the same.

It depends how good they are at cleaning.

if you work at ALDI you get £13 an hour for a 35 hour week you get 13 x 35 x 52 =22750 a year benefits 28 days paid holiday mostly only SSP and 3% employer pension contribution
lets say the cleaner wants exactly the same after expenses and to take 28 days holiday and we'll allow 2 sicks days making 30
first we add 3% pension contributions so that makes 22,750 into 23432value
so with 30 days off she works 46 weeks
expenses liability insurance is about £75 a year, business use on a car will increase it by roughly £75 a year, say just £10 extra in fuel per week and £10 in cleaning products so working 46 weeks that is 920 many households don't have dusters mop heads brushes steam mop marigold gloves etc the cleaner may need to buy a hoover as many clients hoover would not necessarily be adequate say £300 a year so now expenses add up to 1370 so cleaner now needs to gross 24,800
lets assume this cleaner can get almost perfect 3 x 2 hour slots per day and spends 5 hours a week on a mixture of admin travelling between clients and buying supplies sending invoices chasing up payments and doing own tax returns
she has 30 billable hours per week for 46 weeks of the year from 15 weekly clients so
24,800 /30/46 = £17.97 an hour
just to get exactly the minimum wage this also assumes she is only sick 2 days per year, no client ever cancels her when on holiday or sick most people do not pay their cleaners when they are away so she will inevitably get less than the minimum wage so to allow for maybe getting sick more than 2 days a year and clients on average cancelling her 2 or 3 weeks a year a loss of approx another 3 weeks of work, being realistic it is not likely she will find another client for work for the 2 weeks in August Ms Smith doesn't want her between 11-1pm on Tuesday
so the actual reality it is more like 43 weeks of actual work
so now she needs to charge 24800 / 30/ 43 which is £19.22 this is very very close to the frequently quoted figure of needing £20 an hour self employed needs to charge to end up with the minimum wage

Many self employed people will have bigger expenses, a gardener will need power tools often petrol as many clients will not have an outside electric socket, their insurance will be higher and if the take away grass cutting and hedge trimming the council will charge them to dump it

Excellent post @Cottagecheeseisnotcheese

That’s great. But for a lot of people it’s not as straightforward as that, just saying.

Yeah and for a lot it could've been. I stayed in the same fat rather than taking out bigger mortgage for bigger house, never had a car on finance or credit card. Didn't feel the need to be coughing up on clothes every few weeks. Did all this from a young age

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