Working Mom Ready to get a Housekeeper/Cook

[Anonymous]

I am a working mom like the Op of the megathread from last month and am ready to pull the trigger on a house keeper/ cook like a lot of posters suggested. Any one here have experience with this? What do you have them do each day for 6-7 hours? Do you have a schedule or list of tasks for them to do each day?

[Anonymous]

I'm a single adoptive mom and had a live in nanny who then became our housekeeper/cook once my child was school age and then fewer hours, but still housekeeping during high school years. She came in AM and helped with morning routine. I mostly did drop off, but for a few years she drove car pool. She had her own schedule for the weekly routine of house cleaning and laundry and it always worked well. She did food shopping and prepped vegetables, etc. but I mostly did the actual cooking for the evening meals, but when there was enough time she prepared the full mean in advance. My DD had many appointments and she took her to the routine ones. When I traveled for work, she stayed over. She was normally less than full time for our family because she had a few other families in the neighborhood who she did some part time nanny or light cleaning work. She was really gifted with and loved infants/toddlers, so wanted to have a part time nanny job to keep that as a part of her work life, but also wanted to stay with us. If worked out perfectly and I could not have been a working mom without her. It was always a huge financial stretch, but it was essential. Highly recommend if you can find the right person and afford.

[Anonymous]

Like PP mine has her own schedule. You have to think in terms of outcome: is everything getting done? You can’t think in terms of “am i getting my money’s worth for exactly 7 hours.”

[Anonymous]

I used a book: “A housekeeper is Cheaper than a Divorce.”
It’s old, and the tax stuff and financials are dated, but the advice on hiring is still sound.

I will warn you that if you hire someone and just plan to have them manage their own time, you are going to either be very unhappy or you are going to have to pay more for someone with experience.

[Anonymous]

Start with making a list of what you want someone to do and approximately how much time it will take, then put in an ad hiring someone for that amount of time.

For example, if you want her to do the grocery shopping, make dinner 5 days a week, and clean the kitchen, then you need to allow, weekly:
0.5 hours to commute to and from grocery store
1 hour to shop
0.5 hours to put groceries away
3 hours to make 5 dinners
2.5 hours to clean kitchen/wash cookware x 5

That’s 7.5 hours.

If you also want her to spot clean the bathrooms daily, do the laundry, make beds, water plants, sweep the walk, etc. then add in time for that. Personally, I did the deep cleaning myself. I felt weird about asking someone else to clean my bathrooms. But I asked her to keep the kitchen clean, vacuum the main areas of the house, etc.

I would also allow a few hours a week for things that just come up. There is always something that takes extra time.

[Anonymous]

We have someone 36 hours a week. From 7-9, she is getting kids out the door and to school. She runs errands — grocery, target, dry cleaning, car servicing, etc. She cooks and preps meals. She does the kid’s laundry. She keeps the kitchen clean and occasionally vacuums the living room.

Honestly, she isn’t super efficient and I could likely find someone that could do all of it in 25 hours. But she is super reliable and trustworthy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have someone 36 hours a week. From 7-9, she is getting kids out the door and to school. She runs errands — grocery, target, dry cleaning, car servicing, etc. She cooks and preps meals. She does the kid’s laundry. She keeps the kitchen clean and occasionally vacuums the living room.

Honestly, she isn’t super efficient and I could likely find someone that could do all of it in 25 hours. But she is super reliable and trustworthy.

Does she drive the kids to school? If so, does she use your car or hers?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have someone 36 hours a week. From 7-9, she is getting kids out the door and to school. She runs errands — grocery, target, dry cleaning, car servicing, etc. She cooks and preps meals. She does the kid’s laundry. She keeps the kitchen clean and occasionally vacuums the living room.

Honestly, she isn’t super efficient and I could likely find someone that could do all of it in 25 hours. But she is super reliable and trustworthy.

Does she drive the kids to school? If so, does she use your car or hers?

We keep a third car for the sitters, etc so she drives our car.