OP here, thank you all for the tips! I love a lot of them. I do need to be more organized with my chores. I will write down a plan and stick to it (I've written out plans before, I just haven't stuck to it yet). Good to know it can be done

FWIW we have a 3 bedroom (plus small office) house, it's definitely bigger than anything I've lived in before, but it's not huge, 1700sqft I think.

I use a cleaning lady who works for a cleaning service but does not clean my house as an employee of the cleaning service.

Anonymous wrote:If someone's house is too much for that family to clean on their own, that's too much house.

We have a home appropriately sized for us. We don't need a 2,500+ sq home. We have a schedule for different days (bathrooms on Mon, vacuuming on Fri, etc). We all pitch in. There's no way I'm paying maids to take care of my home for me.

Not OP, but keep in mind that she said her kids are 2 and 5. Its kinda hard for the 2 y/o to be in their scrubbing the bathroom. As her kids get older I can see OP having her kids help out and things will be more managable but this is a tough age right now in terms of having the kids help

I work outside of the home FT and our home looks ok, not pristine but ok.

I have a Roomba, without it I wouldn't be able to do it.

I wake up at 5-5:30 and do chores then before everyone wakes up.

Bathrooms are done a little bit here and a little bit there.

I take a day off each month to do a deeper cleaning.

My house isn't perfect, but these are some of my tricks. I work outside the home FT.

I try to cook (or at least prep) in batches. It reduces the amount of stuff I need to wash, wipe down, etc. For example, during nap time these weekend I made 2 dinners, and washed. diced prepped a bunch of veggies (ie, onions, peppers, butternut squash) for dinners the rest of the week. I used the the same cutting board and knife.

I clean the sink and toilet while the kids are in the tub.

I bought a cordless stick vacuum that charges in the corner of the dining room and use it to clean up constantly through our the day. It's especially great for under the table crumbs.

OP, there is also a difference between being clean and being organized. Cleaning the bathroom and kitchen is a bit different than putting toys away in the playroom. some strategies that help:

1) Lower your standards. It's pretty difficult for your playroom to be magazine ready if the kids are playing in it all day.
2) Purge old toys regularly, or rotate 1/2 the toys out and put the rest in storage, under beds, etc. Organize the rest into accessible but neat storage bins or containers
3) Run the dishwasher once a day (at night) and empty it in the morning. Easier to remember and follow.
4) Do laundry at night or fold while you are watching TV with them.
5) Do a "three song clean up", where your kids get involved in putting things away for three songs worth of straightening
6) make sure your kids are putting toys away as part of their play time.
7) focus on 1-2 projects at a time. Write them down and then cross them off your list. don't try to organize the whole house at once.
8) once they go to bed, spend 10-15 minutes straightening each night in the main rooms (living or family room, kitchen/front door). it will help you feel organized for the morning, and better able to relax at night. Then you are free to do what you want!

Clean lightly everyday. You can run a swiffer or vacuum in a couple minutes anytime, wipe down the bathroom surfaces, and pick one area to get a little extra attention. The kitchen must be done as you go. Before we sat down to eat, my mom always had the dishes soaking in the sink and counter tops clear. Washing took a few minutes after dinner and that was that.

Purge purge purge. The less there is to put away or clean around, the easier it is to keep clean.

Anonymous wrote:If someone's house is too much for that family to clean on their own, that's too much house.

We have a home appropriately sized for us. We don't need a 2,500+ sq home. We have a schedule for different days (bathrooms on Mon, vacuuming on Fri, etc). We all pitch in. There's no way I'm paying maids to take care of my home for me.

+1 I don't want strangers having access to my house while I'm not there.

You do a little bit every day. It takes two minutes to run a Clorox wipe over the sink and toilet during the week. If you have a decent vacuum and don't live in a McMansion it takes 10-15 minutes to clean the floors - pick a night of the week to do it or do it every Saturday morning. You do laundry throughout the week. I throw a load in when I get up in the morning, toss in the dryer before I head out the door, and fold it in the evening after the kids have gone to bed. It goes without saying that you clean up after yourself as you go in the kitchen. Just like the bathroom it takes two minutes to Clorox wipe the counters after loading the dishes and another two to wipe off the stove. Pick a night to dust - get a machine washable microfiber duster and take 15 minutes to go over the furniture.

Also, accept that your whole house will never be white glove clean at one time. But if you CAYG, it will never be disgusting either.

If someone's house is too much for that family to clean on their own, that's too much house.

We have a home appropriately sized for us. We don't need a 2,500+ sq home. We have a schedule for different days (bathrooms on Mon, vacuuming on Fri, etc). We all pitch in. There's no way I'm paying maids to take care of my home for me.

I am a WOHM and its so tough to get the cleaning done since I dont get home til 7pm every evening and have to lay with the toddler until he falls asleep. Then on the weekends I want to spend time with him so I dont like plopping him in front of the TV as a distraction.

The best piece of advice I can give you is to try to clean as you go. For example if you are making dinner and you use the cutting board, or strainer, or measuring cups clean them up right away and set them on the dish rack to dry. By the time dinners done you'll find that you would have washed up most of the untensils and dishes already and all thats left to do is wipe down the counters etc.

Another piece of advice I can give is get into the mindset of putting things back where you get them from and also try to teach your children to do the same. Everything has a place and it should go back in "its place" when done using.

Third piece of advice I can give is clean in 5 or 10 minutes "bursts". What ever you see that needs to be tackled take 5 or 10 min here or there to clean it and put it away.

Last piece of advice try focusing on one room at a time. If its the play room that needs to be put together tackle that. Once youre done move to the kitchen, bathroom, etc.

I hope this is helpful. I can't afford a cleaner either so I know how you feel. Good luck OP!

Mostly, I clean as I go. So, throughout the day, I put the dishes in the dishwasher, not let them pile up in the sink. If I have enough for a load, I run it and empty it before dinner so it's empty for the dinner dishes and I don't have a sink full of dishes when I wake up. I try to do the laundry/folding during naptime since it's quiet and I can sit down in front of the TV and fold it all mindlessly. But on big clean days, I use the TV to distract my kid and just get to it. I don't see anything wrong with that. I did that yesterday. Turned on some Christmas movies, went to town on the bathrooms and the kitchen, got the laundry sorted and started.

The thing about being a SAHM is you ARE spending a lot of hours with your kids each week. So it's really not going to kill them if for two or three hours once a week you leave them to their own devices to clean. Really, I see this being a bigger issue for the WOHMs who don't want to use valuable weekend quality time with their kids to clean, but also can't afford a cleaning service. Your kids can entertain themselves 20-30 minutes a day for you to get little chores out of the way, trust me.

"If" in the title, not "I"--of course.

I am a SAHM (also work part time at night, but only 10+hours a week) with two kids (2.5/5) so we are home a LOT which means more time to get the house messed up. We don't eat out a lot, which means I cook a lot which means the kitchen is always needing attention. We can't afford a cleaning service, and I feel like since I am a SAHM I "should" be able to get it all done anyway, but if I work hard at keeping the house clean (not even spotless, just clean) then I'm never spending any time with my kids, or I'm plopping them in front of the TV so I can get the kitchen done without them trashing the playroom. Yes, they help clean up the toys, they help with little chores like setting the table and clearing their dishes when they can, etc, but I feel like I'm cleaning all the time for the house to look just mediocre.

HELP! How do you do it?????