Reply to All my take home pay would go to the nanny….

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Well, you just have to evolve your life and make it more simple if you choose to work.

When my kids were elementary or younger, we had "mommy kiddo" time while doing groceries, doing the dishes, watering the plants and folding the laundry. It taught them necessary life skills and we talked about their day and friends.

Now my kids will be starting HS and younger MS. They both have part time summer camps and we both are WFH but back to back meetings. They completely do the dishes, prepare lunch for us. They in fact even cleaned up our pantry (just because they had free time on their hands!). They still see friends every day for 3 hours at their pool and play x-box 4-5 times a week + Tennis + Piano so spending 30-40 mins every day is not a really big deal for them. Plus they chat and catch up while doing the work together. We do have housekeepers to come and clean every two weeks and do a lot of fresh salads, simple lunches like sandwiches. 2-3 times takeouts a week. Some frozen food when we are too tired to cook

Ask your elementary kids to help out with simple tasks.. and outsource quite a lot.

The life that you are imagining with full time household help (Nanny doesn't cut it) is not what middle class families have at least not in US. Move to another country like India.[/quote]

DP but this is lovely. [/quote]

Thank you! I am grateful knowing that running a household is not "just" my responsibility but my kids and DHs as well. I have always believed and let my kids and DH know that our house is not a "free boarding and lodging" place. Everyone has to contribute in their way. Even when my older son was 3.5 and I had a newborn, my older kid helped getting me diapers, wash the baby rattler when it got dirty. More like developing a mindset that this is "our" home, "we all" are responsible. My DH also works really long hours and does travel quite a bit for work, so getting the kids to own household chores with a full time WOH(pre-covid) job was critical. We have no family support system here, although we did have nannies for both the kids till they were ~18 months, and it worked great.

I actually went over the household help costs with them at one time (sometime in elementary school), and showed them a compound savings calculator. $x is what we can save if we don't spend on additional help that can go towards their college tuition, vacations and EC. We do outsource within reason as I mentioned earlier, bi-weekly housecleaners, lawn moving service, frequent takeouts, occasional prepared meals from grocery store, handyman (we are not DIY folks) and save ~30% of gross income for a while now (+ 401K match)

That said, not everything is perfect, I did forget kids dental appointments last month (calendar issues), my closet is a big mess and once school starts my high schooler will have very little time to help with house hold chores, but then less dishes to wash as the kids eat lunch at school. We make it work without one of us quitting our job.    [/quote]

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