Do you have a full-time house cleaner / do you know many people who do?

[Anonymous]

My husband makes $350k a year and he has this. Her name is…me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My husband makes $350k a year and he has this. Her name is…me.

Yes, but the paid staff doesn’t talk back (at least to your face)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My husband makes $350k a year and he has this. Her name is…me.

Yes, but the paid staff doesn’t talk back (at least to your face)

Haha. True. I’m sure he’d prefer that.

[Anonymous]

I live in a neighborhood where I guess HHI ranges from $250-500k. A handful of families have a nanny or au pair. A handful of families send their kids to private school because they are Catholic or the kid has special needs.

Pretty much everyone has weekly or 2x monthly cleaners. About 50% mow their own lawn. Only 1 family I know has a true “housekeeper” 20 hours a week, but both parents work in person 5 days a week.

[Anonymous]

Had one when living overseas. Pros and cons.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I live in a neighborhood where I guess HHI ranges from $250-500k. A handful of families have a nanny or au pair. A handful of families send their kids to private school because they are Catholic or the kid has special needs.

Pretty much everyone has weekly or 2x monthly cleaners. About 50% mow their own lawn. Only 1 family I know has a true “housekeeper” 20 hours a week, but both parents work in person 5 days a week.

This is exactly how I’d describe my neighborhood too.

[Anonymous]

My sibling has ft help: she cleans, cooks, does laundry, shops and run errands. My mom lives with my sibling and now that mom is older, the lady also helps my mom out: makes her lunch, accompanies her to errands, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
In Bethesda, I have met neighbors over the years who have had various foreign postings (many with the World Bank, IMF, or foreign embassies). They all seemed to kind of like living in developing countries because, even as middle class people, they could afford a lot of household help. It appears that there are plenty of people in those countries who were willing to work for modest wages as maids or gardeners or babysitters.

These neighbors kind of disliked living in the U.S. because they could no longer afford household help on middle-class salaries.

Upon reflection, it is a shame that people in these developing countries are so poor that they have to work as maids and gardeners for sub-standard wages. At least in the U.S. we have protections and minimum wages for people. They are not just destined to a life as a servant.

I know people with IMF and US Government who do that too. They can be lords and ladies of the manor in Africa or Asia instead of saving to make ends meet in DC.

[Anonymous]

We have a 1m HHI, both of us work full time. We have a weekly cleaning service but once a week also have a housekeeper come for the day to do things like organize closets, get rid of too small clothes, cut up fruit, meal prep for weekend, hem clothes, laundry, wrap presents for Christmas, etc... Pay about $25/hr. Well worth the money so less arguing about who is taking care of this or that, more energy on the weekends for the kids.

[Anonymous]

We have always had a house cleaner. Never always a nanny.

I consider a cleaner to be a very practical service that is not frivolous. Cleaning house is a lot of work. To do it right anyway. To do anything right and well you go to a professional. My home is important enough I want it to be clean and neat. I'll give up other things before a cleaner!

Culturally, everyone in Asia has a cleaner. Labor is cheaper so it's not a big deal. If you can go out dining more than once a wk, you can afford a cleaner. It's a question of culture/desire. I absolutely do not think only the upper class have a house cleaner. All my relatives in Asia have one!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a roster of tried, tested, quality and reasonably priced service providers, some of them from my own community (Indian American) - cleaners, chefs, caterers, beauticians, event decorators, servers, bartenders, landscapers, handymen, tailors, henna artists, priests, photographers, videographers, party planners, dog sitters, babysitters, tour guides, elder companions, taxi drivers, travel agents, attorneys, sales people, real estate agents etc.

We are DCUM middle class and even though my DH makes a decent amount of money, we are not wealthier because I decided to become a SAHM. I can cut off on expensive indulgences for myself, ie - no beauty parlor, no gym, no designer anything, no expensive car, no expensive house, no expensive private school for kids - but I spend money on outsourcing to the above service providers

All of this is way too excessive for me! I actually enjoy doing some of these things myself and don’t want to outsource every single aspect of my life so I can just hang out with my children (when I feel like it.)

I would prefer to spend that money on a good private school for the kids, buy a nice, comfortable (not huge) house in a good DC neighborhood and have extra money to go to the spa and travel on a regular basis. PP’s life sounds incredibly boring to me, probably just managing the staff all day.

LOL. But you do not have the money, or the good private school, or the nice comfortable cozy house in a good DC neighborhood or extra cash to go to the spa or travel. So all that you said is basically a bunch of sour grapes, no?

I outsource many chores so that I can hang out with my kids and my DH. You don't sound like you have kids. Or a social life. Or money. TBH.

NP but I doubt your DH and kids want to hang out with you 24/7. You sound lazy and fat with all of your “help”.

~ WOHM with plenty of luxuries and help but I’m not too good to wash the dishes at night or make my kids do their own laundry

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a roster of tried, tested, quality and reasonably priced service providers, some of them from my own community (Indian American) - cleaners, chefs, caterers, beauticians, event decorators, servers, bartenders, landscapers, handymen, tailors, henna artists, priests, photographers, videographers, party planners, dog sitters, babysitters, tour guides, elder companions, taxi drivers, travel agents, attorneys, sales people, real estate agents etc.

We are DCUM middle class and even though my DH makes a decent amount of money, we are not wealthier because I decided to become a SAHM. I can cut off on expensive indulgences for myself, ie - no beauty parlor, no gym, no designer anything, no expensive car, no expensive house, no expensive private school for kids - but I spend money on outsourcing to the above service providers

All of this is way too excessive for me! I actually enjoy doing some of these things myself and don’t want to outsource every single aspect of my life so I can just hang out with my children (when I feel like it.)

I would prefer to spend that money on a good private school for the kids, buy a nice, comfortable (not huge) house in a good DC neighborhood and have extra money to go to the spa and travel on a regular basis. PP’s life sounds incredibly boring to me, probably just managing the staff all day.

LOL. But you do not have the money, or the good private school, or the nice comfortable cozy house in a good DC neighborhood or extra cash to go to the spa or travel. So all that you said is basically a bunch of sour grapes, no?

I outsource many chores so that I can hang out with my kids and my DH. You don't sound like you have kids. Or a social life. Or money. TBH.

NP but I doubt your DH and kids want to hang out with you 24/7. You sound lazy and fat with all of your “help”.

~ WOHM with plenty of luxuries and help but I’m not too good to wash the dishes at night or make my kids do their own laundry

In reality everyone gets to select what Services they want to offload to make their life easier. For some it's cleaning/laundry, for others its a full time nanny, and others would rather do it all themselves and spend that on vacations. It's a personal choice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our nanny has stayed past the toddler years and is a full time household manager type. Like today she washed and organized everyones ski clothes, packed them away, re ordered replacements as needed, and also took one kid to a mid day orthodontist appointment. Everyday is different and i trust her to organize her duties as she sees fit, she works 4/5 shorter days or 3 long ones, whatever works for her and us. She cooks maybe 2 nights, does 90 percent of the laundry and cleaning, and also helps maintain our cars (like she took my car one day last week and got oil and filters done). Runs kids around, helps walk dogs, can run stuff to my elderly parents mid day on a whim, etc. It seems excessive but when i say there’s ALWAYS something to do, it rings true. I have 4 kids in 3 schools and 2 districts and DH and I work about 45/50 hours a week. Its a large expense for us (about 78k on a 490 combined salary) but our mortgage is very low (paid down significantly before i went in house) and i dont desire to level up or have nice vacations…not more than i desire the third adult!!! Shes a treasure and i respect and love her immensely.

This is basically what a SAHM of school aged children does and people give us such a hard time. I think it’s great you found this person PP!

With four kids in three schools, I absolutely believe there's always something for her to do!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our nanny has stayed past the toddler years and is a full time household manager type. Like today she washed and organized everyones ski clothes, packed them away, re ordered replacements as needed, and also took one kid to a mid day orthodontist appointment. Everyday is different and i trust her to organize her duties as she sees fit, she works 4/5 shorter days or 3 long ones, whatever works for her and us. She cooks maybe 2 nights, does 90 percent of the laundry and cleaning, and also helps maintain our cars (like she took my car one day last week and got oil and filters done). Runs kids around, helps walk dogs, can run stuff to my elderly parents mid day on a whim, etc. It seems excessive but when i say there’s ALWAYS something to do, it rings true. I have 4 kids in 3 schools and 2 districts and DH and I work about 45/50 hours a week. Its a large expense for us (about 78k on a 490 combined salary) but our mortgage is very low (paid down significantly before i went in house) and i dont desire to level up or have nice vacations…not more than i desire the third adult!!! Shes a treasure and i respect and love her immensely.

OP here. I wonder how the math works. The $490k combined salary is gross, I assume. Since the $78k for the household employee is not tax-deductible, you need to actually make about $140k gross in order to cover her salary. If you and your spouse do not earn about the same amount of money but either of you earns less than the other, the net lower salary can be only marginally higher than the gross salary of the household employee.

Personally, if I made only about let's say $50k gross per year more than what is needed to cover the household employee's salary, I would give up my job. Working 45/50 hours per week to net a little bit (in my example around $28k per year) above the amount needed to cover the household employee's weekly at most 30 hours does not seem to be a good deal to me.

Fair point but she might like her job and prefer that to organizing clothes and getting cars maintained. Also, she sounds like a lawyer with a hood in house gig, if she gives that up, not necessarily easy to get back in later. I know people who have kept a nanny on similarly for a while but they give it up at some point.

Yeah our hhi is significantly higher and I found paying for the nanny to be a big hit that I’m glad to not be paying for anymore. (But we have other expenseses/two houses/etc).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have a 1m HHI, both of us work full time. We have a weekly cleaning service but once a week also have a housekeeper come for the day to do things like organize closets, get rid of too small clothes, cut up fruit, meal prep for weekend, hem clothes, laundry, wrap presents for Christmas, etc... Pay about $25/hr. Well worth the money so less arguing about who is taking care of this or that, more energy on the weekends for the kids.

How did you find this person?