S/o outsourcing cleaning as a relationship fix

[Anonymous]

7 things I do every day as part of maintainence of the household. It helps to keep a clean house remain presentable until the next visit by the cleaners.
1) Straighten/make beds
2) Recycling/Take out trash
3) Do dishes
4) Do laundry
5) Daily cooking
6) Spot cleaning the bathrooms
7) Cleaning kitchen counters, wiping dining table and sweeping the kitchen floor

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The conflict is that you are both hungry, but neither of you wants to prepare food.
You could solve it by your method of talking and talking about why each of you don’t want to cook, why the other person should cook, and eventually come to a resolution.
Or, you could solve it my way, and just order takeout.

Both ways solve the proble

The other thing you can do is create a conflict where there isn’t one and insist that everyone needs to have a meal prepared at home every day, so either he can cook half the time, or you can do it all of the time and resent the hell out of him. Frankly, this is the path I see a lot of women take.

I guess the way I see it is that a house has to be cleaned (much like you have to eat). A husband saying, I know the house has to be cleaned but I'm not going to clean it so it's your problem to deal with, and the wife then having to be the one to either (1) clean it or (2) hire a maid I think is crap. The husband saying, I know the house has to be cleaned and I don't want to clean it so either (1) you can clean it or (2) we can hire a maid is not a problem. Because then the wife can decide what she wants to do. But it seems like in many of the posts (and not all in this thread, so it's not fair of me to assume that you've read those as well), the husband seemed to think that cleaning the house was a problem that was entirely the wife's. I guess in my mind there is no conflict if both parties agree that they will support the other's choice regarding the house. We have a maid so I've never felt like there is conflict in our relationship about cleaning, but perhaps I misinterpreted what the poster was saying.

Does the couple in your example have separate finances? I don’t really see the difference between “hire a maid,” and “we can hire a maid.”
I guess that the difference is in what happens when your housekeeper is on vacation or if she quits, but i have never seen a post where people are complaining that their spouse isn’t helping when the housekeeper is out of town.
Most posts are women getting this tunnel that *they* have to do everything (because their mothers did), and not widening their view enough to see other possible solutions. .

I didn't make a distinction between "hire a maid" and "we hire a maid." I made a distinction between "this is your problem, wife" and "here is my suggested solution to the cleaning problem."

I do see what you are saying here, but even if that’s the case, I still think hiring a housekeeper (or getting more takeout, sending out laundry, hiring a mowing service, etc), will fix the underlying relationship issue.
My husband was like this when he got his first high paying job. I was pregnant with our third child, and when we moved for his job, I picked up part time work. He thought that the house stuff should all fall to me, and that he was too important to have to fold laundry.
I ended up hiring a housekeeper, and cooking, laundry, grocery shopping, etc became her job. And we split what was leftover.
Now, 10 years later, he would never consider this stuff my job. It’s the housekeeper’s job. I have my own paid job and children to parent.

When we moved again, he hired a cleaning company to come twice a week and helped out with laundry until we found another regular housekeeper.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The conflict is that you are both hungry, but neither of you wants to prepare food.
You could solve it by your method of talking and talking about why each of you don’t want to cook, why the other person should cook, and eventually come to a resolution.
Or, you could solve it my way, and just order takeout.

Both ways solve the proble

The other thing you can do is create a conflict where there isn’t one and insist that everyone needs to have a meal prepared at home every day, so either he can cook half the time, or you can do it all of the time and resent the hell out of him. Frankly, this is the path I see a lot of women take.

I guess the way I see it is that a house has to be cleaned (much like you have to eat). A husband saying, I know the house has to be cleaned but I'm not going to clean it so it's your problem to deal with, and the wife then having to be the one to either (1) clean it or (2) hire a maid I think is crap. The husband saying, I know the house has to be cleaned and I don't want to clean it so either (1) you can clean it or (2) we can hire a maid is not a problem. Because then the wife can decide what she wants to do. But it seems like in many of the posts (and not all in this thread, so it's not fair of me to assume that you've read those as well), the husband seemed to think that cleaning the house was a problem that was entirely the wife's. I guess in my mind there is no conflict if both parties agree that they will support the other's choice regarding the house. We have a maid so I've never felt like there is conflict in our relationship about cleaning, but perhaps I misinterpreted what the poster was saying.

Does the couple in your example have separate finances? I don’t really see the difference between “hire a maid,” and “we can hire a maid.”
I guess that the difference is in what happens when your housekeeper is on vacation or if she quits, but i have never seen a post where people are complaining that their spouse isn’t helping when the housekeeper is out of town.
Most posts are women getting this tunnel that *they* have to do everything (because their mothers did), and not widening their view enough to see other possible solutions. .

DP, and one who really agrees with the overarching point made above of how you can frame these problems in ways that harm your marriage and ways that help your marriage. I really agreed with that and think its true. But PP is also making a good point, which is when the decision making/mental load falls entirely on the woman.

A lot of what happens in these type of situations isn't an actual conscious decision. It isn't a DH saying "I don't want to clean a bathroom ever" and a wife saying "I also don't want to clean bathrooms" and then having to 'fix' that conflict. What happens is that the DH just doesn't do it, and the DW brings it up and he will clean it for a couple weeks and then she's in the position where she's the one who has to bring it up. And she's the one who has to suggest hiring the cleaning service. And then she's the one who has to find the cleaning service. And she's the one who has to pay the cleaning service. And that all adds up in its own way, and since the decision making on whether and who and how to pay all falls on her, then it feels more like she is making a choice about whether to do more work herself (via cleaning) or whether to spend the family's money (cleaning lady). The DH is not an active presence here (not always of course).

When you want to order food you say, 'hey I don't want to cook, do you want to or should we order' and he says 'we should order' and she says, 'ok what do you want' and there is a back and forth there. They ARE solving that problem together in a way that does not happen for 'chores' as that is a much larger and more complicated umbrella.

Both partners need to meet in the middle. The mental load partner needs to be ok with letting things go, and the along for the ride partner needs to intentionally make choices that make them more involved in the family.

After we had our second kid, I was really struggling with keeping up, and my husband one day, unprompted, was like, "I'm going to take over the laundry permanently." He saw that I was struggling, he identified a large chore that I particularly struggled with and that he didn't mind doing, and he took it over ENTIRELY. He does my laundry too. He orders replacement tide pods. He manages the folding and distribution part. He owns the entirety of that chore. I didn't have to assign it to him. And that taking a proactive step I think strengthened our marriage like 10 times over. It set a tone from that day forward that he was paying attention. And while I still carry most of the mental load, he is always trying not to be someone I am also having to manage, he takes kids to doctors appointments, he remembers to pick up milk, he remembers to bring in extra clothes/diapers to daycare when they are due. And so yes, on my end, I don't get mad at him when he drops a ball here and there, because on his end, on the whole, he is actively (and effectively) trying and helping all the time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My feeling about it is this. I love my spouse and I love our life together. Outsourcing the cleaning does two things. It gets rid of conflict and it improves quality of life because neither of us likes to do it. Yes there are things to be done, but when the big stuff is out of the equation there is a lot less on your plate and it’s not as important to keep score.

I guess some people will divorce over cleaning of cleaning can be the straw that breaks the camels back. And I’m sure for some the cost of outsourcing is a deterrent. But living in conflict, therapy and divorce are so much more expensive.

So I totally get this. I've had a maid for as long as I've had a salary because I hate cleaning and will do anything to avoid it. I keep a super neat house and am good at cleaning things that are used on a regular basis and I'll vacuum, but I'd rather do just about anything than clean a bathroom, even one that's not gross. So improving quality of life I am all for.

But the getting rid of conflict thing confuses me. Last March, when everything went crazy, we stopped having our maid come. This was for several months until we decided it was ok to start up again and she felt comfortable, so for those months it was just my husband and I doing all the cleaning. He actually did more than I did because I was busy with some other things. So I know he'd step up and do it if we didn't have anyone. Paying someone to avoid being annoyed with him seems to me to be putting a bandaid over a bullet hole?

Eh. If it’s not a conflict for you, then it’s not a conflict for you. Personally, I don’t see why married people would fight about money or sex. But for some people, those things are an issue. For us, it’s chores.
I’m sure there is some kind of conflict in your marriage.

We work to resolve our conflicts. We are fundamentally different people and therefore obviously react to things differently, but then we use our words to explain how we feel and we understand what the other person is saying and we move on. So no, we don't have any kind of outstanding conflict in our marriage. We don't fight about money because we've discussed how each person feels about it and we came up with a joint plan for how to address it. Same with sex, although obviously that's a much less calculating and transactional kind of resolution. We don't feel the same way about either of those things but by learning how the other person feels and respecting their position, we have some to a place where we're both happy. Hence why I think hiring cleaners doesn't actually solve the underlying issues you have.

But it does. The underlying issue is that the laundry needs to get done and dinner needs made.
If you and your husband were both hungry, but neither of you wanted to cook, so you just ordered food, would you call that “not solving the underlying conflict in your relationship?”
What if you did that five days a week, and you each cook one of the other days?
-One way to frame this is that neither of you wants to cook much, so you eat out a lot.
-Another way to say it is that the most he is willing to cook is one day a week, and you aren’t willing to do more than half of the cooking, so you each cook one day a week and order out the rest.
- Another way to look at it is to say that he is a man child who doesn’t do his share of the cooking, so you have to order out.
- Another way to look at it (and this is what is the most socially ingrained), is to say that you aren’t *really* being a good mother when you get takeout that often, so you are going to cook 6 days/week while your husband only cooks once a week.

The last two ways of thinking about the problem are destructive to your marriage in a way that the first two are not.

Obviously, there is another layer of getting takeout means that important financial goals aren’t being reached.

No, I wouldn't, because we're both on the same page and neither one of us want to cook, so where's the conflict?

The conflict is that you are both hungry, but neither of you wants to prepare food.
You could solve it by your method of talking and talking about why each of you don’t want to cook, why the other person should cook, and eventually come to a resolution.
Or, you could solve it my way, and just order takeout.

Both ways solve the problem.


The other thing you can do is create a conflict where there isn’t one and insist that everyone needs to have a meal prepared at home every day, so either he can cook half the time, or you can do it all of the time and resent the hell out of him. Frankly, this is the path I see a lot of women take.

How do you solve the daily cleaning issues, like cleaning the kitchen after a meal? I guess in your example if you're ordering takeout for every meal, it's just a matter of throwing the containers out. But what about a situation in which you actually use your kitchen? I'm fine with dividing labor, and I do more laundry than my husband and he handles the dogs more than I do, so if one spouse handles cooking and cleaning because the other does laundry and yard work, for example, that's not a problem. But it seemed to me in OP's post that her husband was refusing to do anything. (Granted, I think OP should make her kids clean their bathrooms, but that's a different issue). So my problem is with husbands that see anything around the house as the wife's problem to solve, and I think that's a jerk move.

My housekeeper makes the meal earlier in the day, puts it in the fridge, and cleans the kitchen. She also does the laundry while she is there. After dinner, we just rinse off the plates we used and put them in the dishwasher.
Her husband does the mowing and weeding.

Thank you for chiming in from the 1%. I'm sure your story will be really helpful for so many people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:7 things I do every day as part of maintainence of the household. It helps to keep a clean house remain presentable until the next visit by the cleaners.
1) Straighten/make beds
2) Recycling/Take out trash
3) Do dishes
4) Do laundry
5) Daily cooking
6) Spot cleaning the bathrooms
7) Cleaning kitchen counters, wiping dining table and sweeping the kitchen floor

You take out your trash and recycling every day? Maybe you have more family members than I do but we're not at a daily rate for that.

Even more amazingly, you clean your bathrooms every day? Are you referring to washing the spit out toothpaste from the sink basin, or like wiping down the toilet or something?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The conflict is that you are both hungry, but neither of you wants to prepare food.
You could solve it by your method of talking and talking about why each of you don’t want to cook, why the other person should cook, and eventually come to a resolution.
Or, you could solve it my way, and just order takeout.

Both ways solve the proble

The other thing you can do is create a conflict where there isn’t one and insist that everyone needs to have a meal prepared at home every day, so either he can cook half the time, or you can do it all of the time and resent the hell out of him. Frankly, this is the path I see a lot of women take.

I guess the way I see it is that a house has to be cleaned (much like you have to eat). A husband saying, I know the house has to be cleaned but I'm not going to clean it so it's your problem to deal with, and the wife then having to be the one to either (1) clean it or (2) hire a maid I think is crap. The husband saying, I know the house has to be cleaned and I don't want to clean it so either (1) you can clean it or (2) we can hire a maid is not a problem. Because then the wife can decide what she wants to do. But it seems like in many of the posts (and not all in this thread, so it's not fair of me to assume that you've read those as well), the husband seemed to think that cleaning the house was a problem that was entirely the wife's. I guess in my mind there is no conflict if both parties agree that they will support the other's choice regarding the house. We have a maid so I've never felt like there is conflict in our relationship about cleaning, but perhaps I misinterpreted what the poster was saying.

Does the couple in your example have separate finances? I don’t really see the difference between “hire a maid,” and “we can hire a maid.”
I guess that the difference is in what happens when your housekeeper is on vacation or if she quits, but i have never seen a post where people are complaining that their spouse isn’t helping when the housekeeper is out of town.
Most posts are women getting this tunnel that *they* have to do everything (because their mothers did), and not widening their view enough to see other possible solutions. .

I didn't make a distinction between "hire a maid" and "we hire a maid." I made a distinction between "this is your problem, wife" and "here is my suggested solution to the cleaning problem."

I do see what you are saying here, but even if that’s the case, I still think hiring a housekeeper (or getting more takeout, sending out laundry, hiring a mowing service, etc), will fix the underlying relationship issue.
My husband was like this when he got his first high paying job. I was pregnant with our third child, and when we moved for his job, I picked up part time work. He thought that the house stuff should all fall to me, and that he was too important to have to fold laundry.
I ended up hiring a housekeeper, and cooking, laundry, grocery shopping, etc became her job. And we split what was leftover.
Now, 10 years later, he would never consider this stuff my job. It’s the housekeeper’s job. I have my own paid job and children to parent.

When we moved again, he hired a cleaning company to come twice a week and helped out with laundry until we found another regular housekeeper.

Your husband sounds like an a$$. I guess at least he got better over time, but the fact that he considered it your job and he was too important to do it speaks volumes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:7 things I do every day as part of maintainence of the household. It helps to keep a clean house remain presentable until the next visit by the cleaners.
1) Straighten/make beds
2) Recycling/Take out trash
3) Do dishes
4) Do laundry
5) Daily cooking
6) Spot cleaning the bathrooms
7) Cleaning kitchen counters, wiping dining table and sweeping the kitchen floor

You take out your trash and recycling every day? Maybe you have more family members than I do but we're not at a daily rate for that.

Even more amazingly, you clean your bathrooms every day? Are you referring to washing the spit out toothpaste from the sink basin, or like wiping down the toilet or something?

Not the PP but I also spot clean the bathrooms pretty much daily. Not the 'big clean' where you do everything but if I see spots on the mirror, I grab the windex. If I see a messy toilet bowl, I give it a quick clean. If the floor has hairs, I grab the swiffer. I don't do all of these things every day but doing a small 2-3 minute task every day means there's less to do on the weekends. Just clean as you go about your day and things seem more manageable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My feeling about it is this. I love my spouse and I love our life together. Outsourcing the cleaning does two things. It gets rid of conflict and it improves quality of life because neither of us likes to do it. Yes there are things to be done, but when the big stuff is out of the equation there is a lot less on your plate and it’s not as important to keep score.

I guess some people will divorce over cleaning of cleaning can be the straw that breaks the camels back. And I’m sure for some the cost of outsourcing is a deterrent. But living in conflict, therapy and divorce are so much more expensive.

So I totally get this. I've had a maid for as long as I've had a salary because I hate cleaning and will do anything to avoid it. I keep a super neat house and am good at cleaning things that are used on a regular basis and I'll vacuum, but I'd rather do just about anything than clean a bathroom, even one that's not gross. So improving quality of life I am all for.

But the getting rid of conflict thing confuses me. Last March, when everything went crazy, we stopped having our maid come. This was for several months until we decided it was ok to start up again and she felt comfortable, so for those months it was just my husband and I doing all the cleaning. He actually did more than I did because I was busy with some other things. So I know he'd step up and do it if we didn't have anyone. Paying someone to avoid being annoyed with him seems to me to be putting a bandaid over a bullet hole?

Eh. If it’s not a conflict for you, then it’s not a conflict for you. Personally, I don’t see why married people would fight about money or sex. But for some people, those things are an issue. For us, it’s chores.
I’m sure there is some kind of conflict in your marriage.

We work to resolve our conflicts. We are fundamentally different people and therefore obviously react to things differently, but then we use our words to explain how we feel and we understand what the other person is saying and we move on. So no, we don't have any kind of outstanding conflict in our marriage. We don't fight about money because we've discussed how each person feels about it and we came up with a joint plan for how to address it. Same with sex, although obviously that's a much less calculating and transactional kind of resolution. We don't feel the same way about either of those things but by learning how the other person feels and respecting their position, we have some to a place where we're both happy. Hence why I think hiring cleaners doesn't actually solve the underlying issues you have.

But it does. The underlying issue is that the laundry needs to get done and dinner needs made.
If you and your husband were both hungry, but neither of you wanted to cook, so you just ordered food, would you call that “not solving the underlying conflict in your relationship?”
What if you did that five days a week, and you each cook one of the other days?
-One way to frame this is that neither of you wants to cook much, so you eat out a lot.
-Another way to say it is that the most he is willing to cook is one day a week, and you aren’t willing to do more than half of the cooking, so you each cook one day a week and order out the rest.
- Another way to look at it is to say that he is a man child who doesn’t do his share of the cooking, so you have to order out.
- Another way to look at it (and this is what is the most socially ingrained), is to say that you aren’t *really* being a good mother when you get takeout that often, so you are going to cook 6 days/week while your husband only cooks once a week.

The last two ways of thinking about the problem are destructive to your marriage in a way that the first two are not.

Obviously, there is another layer of getting takeout means that important financial goals aren’t being reached.

No, I wouldn't, because we're both on the same page and neither one of us want to cook, so where's the conflict?

The conflict is that you are both hungry, but neither of you wants to prepare food.
You could solve it by your method of talking and talking about why each of you don’t want to cook, why the other person should cook, and eventually come to a resolution.
Or, you could solve it my way, and just order takeout.

Both ways solve the problem.


The other thing you can do is create a conflict where there isn’t one and insist that everyone needs to have a meal prepared at home every day, so either he can cook half the time, or you can do it all of the time and resent the hell out of him. Frankly, this is the path I see a lot of women take.

How do you solve the daily cleaning issues, like cleaning the kitchen after a meal? I guess in your example if you're ordering takeout for every meal, it's just a matter of throwing the containers out. But what about a situation in which you actually use your kitchen? I'm fine with dividing labor, and I do more laundry than my husband and he handles the dogs more than I do, so if one spouse handles cooking and cleaning because the other does laundry and yard work, for example, that's not a problem. But it seemed to me in OP's post that her husband was refusing to do anything. (Granted, I think OP should make her kids clean their bathrooms, but that's a different issue). So my problem is with husbands that see anything around the house as the wife's problem to solve, and I think that's a jerk move.

My housekeeper makes the meal earlier in the day, puts it in the fridge, and cleans the kitchen. She also does the laundry while she is there. After dinner, we just rinse off the plates we used and put them in the dishwasher.
Her husband does the mowing and weeding.

Thank you for chiming in from the 1%. I'm sure your story will be really helpful for so many people.

Meh. It’s cheaper than takeout and the laundry also gets done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My feeling about it is this. I love my spouse and I love our life together. Outsourcing the cleaning does two things. It gets rid of conflict and it improves quality of life because neither of us likes to do it. Yes there are things to be done, but when the big stuff is out of the equation there is a lot less on your plate and it’s not as important to keep score.

I guess some people will divorce over cleaning of cleaning can be the straw that breaks the camels back. And I’m sure for some the cost of outsourcing is a deterrent. But living in conflict, therapy and divorce are so much more expensive.

So I totally get this. I've had a maid for as long as I've had a salary because I hate cleaning and will do anything to avoid it. I keep a super neat house and am good at cleaning things that are used on a regular basis and I'll vacuum, but I'd rather do just about anything than clean a bathroom, even one that's not gross. So improving quality of life I am all for.

But the getting rid of conflict thing confuses me. Last March, when everything went crazy, we stopped having our maid come. This was for several months until we decided it was ok to start up again and she felt comfortable, so for those months it was just my husband and I doing all the cleaning. He actually did more than I did because I was busy with some other things. So I know he'd step up and do it if we didn't have anyone. Paying someone to avoid being annoyed with him seems to me to be putting a bandaid over a bullet hole?

Eh. If it’s not a conflict for you, then it’s not a conflict for you. Personally, I don’t see why married people would fight about money or sex. But for some people, those things are an issue. For us, it’s chores.
I’m sure there is some kind of conflict in your marriage.

We work to resolve our conflicts. We are fundamentally different people and therefore obviously react to things differently, but then we use our words to explain how we feel and we understand what the other person is saying and we move on. So no, we don't have any kind of outstanding conflict in our marriage. We don't fight about money because we've discussed how each person feels about it and we came up with a joint plan for how to address it. Same with sex, although obviously that's a much less calculating and transactional kind of resolution. We don't feel the same way about either of those things but by learning how the other person feels and respecting their position, we have some to a place where we're both happy. Hence why I think hiring cleaners doesn't actually solve the underlying issues you have.

But it does. The underlying issue is that the laundry needs to get done and dinner needs made.
If you and your husband were both hungry, but neither of you wanted to cook, so you just ordered food, would you call that “not solving the underlying conflict in your relationship?”
What if you did that five days a week, and you each cook one of the other days?
-One way to frame this is that neither of you wants to cook much, so you eat out a lot.
-Another way to say it is that the most he is willing to cook is one day a week, and you aren’t willing to do more than half of the cooking, so you each cook one day a week and order out the rest.
- Another way to look at it is to say that he is a man child who doesn’t do his share of the cooking, so you have to order out.
- Another way to look at it (and this is what is the most socially ingrained), is to say that you aren’t *really* being a good mother when you get takeout that often, so you are going to cook 6 days/week while your husband only cooks once a week.

The last two ways of thinking about the problem are destructive to your marriage in a way that the first two are not.

Obviously, there is another layer of getting takeout means that important financial goals aren’t being reached.

No, I wouldn't, because we're both on the same page and neither one of us want to cook, so where's the conflict?

The conflict is that you are both hungry, but neither of you wants to prepare food.
You could solve it by your method of talking and talking about why each of you don’t want to cook, why the other person should cook, and eventually come to a resolution.
Or, you could solve it my way, and just order takeout.

Both ways solve the problem.


The other thing you can do is create a conflict where there isn’t one and insist that everyone needs to have a meal prepared at home every day, so either he can cook half the time, or you can do it all of the time and resent the hell out of him. Frankly, this is the path I see a lot of women take.

How do you solve the daily cleaning issues, like cleaning the kitchen after a meal? I guess in your example if you're ordering takeout for every meal, it's just a matter of throwing the containers out. But what about a situation in which you actually use your kitchen? I'm fine with dividing labor, and I do more laundry than my husband and he handles the dogs more than I do, so if one spouse handles cooking and cleaning because the other does laundry and yard work, for example, that's not a problem. But it seemed to me in OP's post that her husband was refusing to do anything. (Granted, I think OP should make her kids clean their bathrooms, but that's a different issue). So my problem is with husbands that see anything around the house as the wife's problem to solve, and I think that's a jerk move.

My housekeeper makes the meal earlier in the day, puts it in the fridge, and cleans the kitchen. She also does the laundry while she is there. After dinner, we just rinse off the plates we used and put them in the dishwasher.
Her husband does the mowing and weeding.

Thank you for chiming in from the 1%. I'm sure your story will be really helpful for so many people.

This is a forum where people act like a HHI of $150k/yr is barely getting by and comment that $500k “doesn’t go as far as you would think.”
Yes. I think a suggestion that you spend $200/wk hiring out your cooking and dinner clean-up would be helpful in this context.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:7 things I do every day as part of maintainence of the household. It helps to keep a clean house remain presentable until the next visit by the cleaners.
1) Straighten/make beds
2) Recycling/Take out trash
3) Do dishes
4) Do laundry
5) Daily cooking
6) Spot cleaning the bathrooms
7) Cleaning kitchen counters, wiping dining table and sweeping the kitchen floor

You take out your trash and recycling every day? Maybe you have more family members than I do but we're not at a daily rate for that.

Even more amazingly, you clean your bathrooms every day? Are you referring to washing the spit out toothpaste from the sink basin, or like wiping down the toilet or something?

Not the PP but I also spot clean the bathrooms pretty much daily. Not the 'big clean' where you do everything but if I see spots on the mirror, I grab the windex. If I see a messy toilet bowl, I give it a quick clean. If the floor has hairs, I grab the swiffer. I don't do all of these things every day but doing a small 2-3 minute task every day means there's less to do on the weekends. Just clean as you go about your day and things seem more manageable.

+1

I do this as well. I keep supplies in every bathroom and just spot clean as I see it. Only takes a minute.