Household manager?

[Anonymous]

The more you do the less you are sitter or housekeeper or task taker and then more you are a house manager.

If you have to ask what’s laundry soup to nuts you are not managing and executing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have a housekeeper. They do essentially what is listed above.

+1

$22-30/hour, 3-4 hours a day, rotates around weekly things plus does daily things (tidy, clean, food, drive kids, check emails).

[Anonymous]

are these real numbers? I pay our nanny 21/hour and was looking to see if it make sense to have her find another nanny job or to hire a household manager, if they are trulky 150k-300k a year I might just train her lol

[Anonymous]

I had one for 6-12 hours a week and we paid her $40 an hour in Chicago.

The absolute best part about it for me is she tackled our long list of home maintenance and home improvement task backlog. She'd get 3 quotes for each task, make her recommendation for it, and manage them to the extent I wanted (could be at our house while they're here or just hand them off to me). She definitely saved us a lot of money with the multiple quotes which is time i'd never put into it.

She also helped with organization, cleaning out and dropping off donations, managing returns, wrapping xmas gifts, one off heavy cleaning tasks like our fridge or the air fryer, walked the dog on occasion, took our cars for maintenance and cleaning

It was all the stuff we never got to but would make our lives better / less overwhelming feeling

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I had one for 6-12 hours a week and we paid her $40 an hour in Chicago.

The absolute best part about it for me is she tackled our long list of home maintenance and home improvement task backlog. She'd get 3 quotes for each task, make her recommendation for it, and manage them to the extent I wanted (could be at our house while they're here or just hand them off to me). She definitely saved us a lot of money with the multiple quotes which is time i'd never put into it.

She also helped with organization, cleaning out and dropping off donations, managing returns, wrapping xmas gifts, one off heavy cleaning tasks like our fridge or the air fryer, walked the dog on occasion, took our cars for maintenance and cleaning

It was all the stuff we never got to but would make our lives better / less overwhelming feeling

Also she was a professional house manager who also ran a staffing agency so I'd assume her rates were the norm for her level of experience. I'd originally been looking for a college student just to help with the easy stuff (errands etc) but didn't realize the difference in what someone who is good at this can do. I know a lot of people have their nanny take on more household tasks but particularly if you're using them for house maintenance type things - the types of questions a nanny taking on a new role would ask a potential contractor versus an experienced house manager would ask (including things like options for different repairs, why they recommend one approach and another recommended another, whether they use subcontracts etc) are wildly different

[Anonymous]

My friend worked as a nanny for a rich family (like really rich) and recently became a household manager for one of the family's older relatives. No kids to manage. She's not "trained" but fell into this role. She's paid $80k + room, she pays for her own food. Her duties are managing household maintenance, repairs, car maintenance, cleaners, drivers. She helps manage the family schedule. The relative has a number of medical issues so she's managing the caretaker, insurance and appointments although she's not the caretaker herself.

She works about 4 hours a day but this family is willing to pay for almost everything to be outsourced, provided she finds the workers and manages them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My nanny has morphed into a household manager of sorts and she can have that role for a long time. She needed 40 hours, and we really only need help from 3-6 every day, so we created a roll that includes:

1. Meal prep or cooking depending on the night
2. Grocery shopping
3. Prepares kids' lunches for the next day
4. Kids' laundry
5. Run errands - things like birthday presents for kids sports equipment (get ice skates sharpened, bikes tuned, tennis rackets repaired, skis waxed before a vacation, pick up things we need that would otherwise take me forever).
6. Home organization
7. Helps with homework sometimes
8. Drives kids around to activities (we divide and conquer).
9. Meets with home repair people (I still order the services but she deals with them).
10. Random tasks, like this week she's wrapping Christmas presents and getting gifts ready for teachers.

Your nanny has become a family assistant, not a household manager.

News alert:
Household managers primarily manage a household staff.

[Anonymous]

Not all the nannies can be trained. We tried to have a driving nanny/household manager combo, and it's a disaster. The families she worked for before had little kids; we have teenagers who need to be driven places. She forgets the schedule, calls me at work weekly to ask, can't estimate how long things take, and never takes initiative. The only thing she's OK with is grocery shopping, but then she shops for herself, too, so it takes longer. I can believe that she's good with babies, where little is asked of her in terms of planning and execution, but as a household manager, she is of little help. My mental load just doubled, and I need to find someone else. Oh, we pay $25 cash for 4-5 hours a day, and then all the holidays, sick leave, and pay when we don't need her.

[Anonymous]

I can't imagine living like this. Im curious as to net worth here? My life savings is $3.8M and I've never had a house cleaning service, in fact I used to work for one!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not all the nannies can be trained. We tried to have a driving nanny/household manager combo, and it's a disaster. The families she worked for before had little kids; we have teenagers who need to be driven places. She forgets the schedule, calls me at work weekly to ask, can't estimate how long things take, and never takes initiative. The only thing she's OK with is grocery shopping, but then she shops for herself, too, so it takes longer. I can believe that she's good with babies, where little is asked of her in terms of planning and execution, but as a household manager, she is of little help. My mental load just doubled, and I need to find someone else. Oh, we pay $25 cash for 4-5 hours a day, and then all the holidays, sick leave, and pay when we don't need her.

Why would you think a nanny could be a good manager?

[Anonymous]

I love that people pay this, and think a SAHM is worthless.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was a household manager for 12 years and have been recruiting, screening, and placing them with families for 6+ years through my agency.

It depends if this will be a nanny/household manager hybrid role or strictly household manager, but in general the duties encompass everything to keep the home running and organized outside of actual deep cleaning (which is housekeepers/cleaning lady duties). Typical duties includes:
Errands
Organizational tasks (cleaning out fridge, pantry, closets, storage)
Booking appointments
Managing routine home and car maintanence
Groceries/stocking household items
Meal prep
Planning and booking (vacations, kids activities, vendors, contractors, etc)
Seasonal tasks (Christmas cards, gift shopping, wrapping, decorating, making sure kids have seasonally appropriate gear)
Vets/grooming appts/feeding/walking pets
Sorting and donating clothes/toys
Managing family/school calendars
Packing lunches/laying out clothes for the next day
Generally putting things back in their places
Laundry

Interesting. I could not fathom outsourcing most of this. What I can outsource happily is:

Shopping and prepping food and cleaning it up after prepping - ANYTHING to do with the acquiring and prepping of food
Cleaning - daily and deep

But the calendaring, cleaning out, organizing, seasonal stuff, pet stuff, most errands, kids clothes, car stuff, vacations - no way

[Anonymous]

^ and we are UHNW.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I love that people pay this, and think a SAHM is worthless.

In all honesty, most of us know that nearly all SAHMs are doing the hardest of all jobs. Kudos to them.

[Anonymous]

I would never have a Household Manager, that is so low-rent. My Majordomo handles all those pesky details, plus acts as my personal assistant and event planner.