Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We made around $160k last year and cannot afford a cleaning lady.

Ditto, exactly. That would be a huge extravagance in our house.

We spend $2400 a year on a cleaning service. How often do you get takeout or eat out?

Not this PP, but one with a similar HHI who cannot afford a cleaning service. We eat out 1-2x a month. That's $1200/year. And I would rather have that nice treat than have a cleaning service for my small apartment.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:$230K and no cleaning lady. We did have one at $100-150K - the kids were young and, with two working parents, it was tough to keep up. I am glad we did it during that time - it was a splurge that was worth it. Now the kids are preteens/teens and both create less mess and assist with household chores, so it's not necessary to have one.

do any of you scrub the floors, or just kinda sweep and mop it? I find people who don't have cleaning services don't really put in the elbow grease necessary to have a truly clean house.

I'm one of the PPs. I absolutely get on my hands and knees and scrub. That's one of the main reasons why I fired the service. I scrub and buff the floors. My whole house it hardwood or tile. I cannot do it all at once, but I do a couple of areas at night during the week.

Me too! I think my house is truly clean, a much deeper clean than a cleaning lady. But cleaning doesn't bother me. I spend maybe 15-30 minutes on it a day.

I'm busy from 6 am until 8 pm with getting kids off to school, commuting and working. I do not want to spend 15 or 30 minutes daily on it. It would cut into my time to relax, talk to DH or girlfriends or read a book.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We made around $160k last year and cannot afford a cleaning lady.

Ditto, exactly. That would be a huge extravagance in our house.

We spend $2400 a year on a cleaning service. How often do you get takeout or eat out?

HHI 300K and we don't have a cleaning service, though I think it would be worth it to hire someone to come in before holidays and hosting out of town guests. But on the few occasions when I have hired a service for move in/move out cleaning, I find that they do not clean 'deeply' enough; like PP said, everything appeared/smelled clean but floors definitely weren't scrubbed (this is also an issue in a lot of hotels I have visited).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:$230K and no cleaning lady. We did have one at $100-150K - the kids were young and, with two working parents, it was tough to keep up. I am glad we did it during that time - it was a splurge that was worth it. Now the kids are preteens/teens and both create less mess and assist with household chores, so it's not necessary to have one.

do any of you scrub the floors, or just kinda sweep and mop it? I find people who don't have cleaning services don't really put in the elbow grease necessary to have a truly clean house.

I'm one of the PPs. I absolutely get on my hands and knees and scrub. That's one of the main reasons why I fired the service. I scrub and buff the floors. My whole house it hardwood or tile. I cannot do it all at once, but I do a couple of areas at night during the week.

Me too! I think my house is truly clean, a much deeper clean than a cleaning lady. But cleaning doesn't bother me. I spend maybe 15-30 minutes on it a day.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:$230K and no cleaning lady. We did have one at $100-150K - the kids were young and, with two working parents, it was tough to keep up. I am glad we did it during that time - it was a splurge that was worth it. Now the kids are preteens/teens and both create less mess and assist with household chores, so it's not necessary to have one.

do any of you scrub the floors, or just kinda sweep and mop it? I find people who don't have cleaning services don't really put in the elbow grease necessary to have a truly clean house.

I'm one of the PPs. I absolutely get on my hands and knees and scrub. That's one of the main reasons why I fired the service. I scrub and buff the floors. My whole house it hardwood or tile. I cannot do it all at once, but I do a couple of areas at night during the week.

Anonymous wrote:I doubt your cleaning service gets down on their hands and knees to scrub either, hon.

Remember that chapter of "Nickled and Dimed" where the author worked for a cleaning service? They were shooting for the appearance of clean, not actually-clean.

I'm one of the PPs now without a cleaning lady. This is exactly why. Spraying Bona on my floors and pushing it around with a mop only pushes the dirt into the crevices of the hard wood. Get down and give your floors a swipe with a wet rag after your cleaning people have left. Pretty sure you will see dirt.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We made around $160k last year and cannot afford a cleaning lady.

Ditto, exactly. That would be a huge extravagance in our house.

Same here. But my house gets so dirty after 2 days that waiting 2 weeks for the cleaning people wouldn't make sense. I wipe the floors down almost every day and do a quick clean of the bathroom every 3 days. It kind of reminds me of waxing your mustache. In order for it to work, you have to walk around with a mustache for a week. To me, the point is to live in a house that I never feel is completely filthy.

Anonymous wrote:We made around $160k last year and cannot afford a cleaning lady.

Ditto, exactly. That would be a huge extravagance in our house.

We are around $240 HHI and have one every other week. Two working parents, so I'd spend all my weekends cleaning without them. I stayed home for a little while and cleaned myself but as soon as I went back to work, I hired back the cleaning crew.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:$230K and no cleaning lady. We did have one at $100-150K - the kids were young and, with two working parents, it was tough to keep up. I am glad we did it during that time - it was a splurge that was worth it. Now the kids are preteens/teens and both create less mess and assist with household chores, so it's not necessary to have one.

do any of you scrub the floors, or just kinda sweep and mop it? I find people who don't have cleaning services don't really put in the elbow grease necessary to have a truly clean house.

I used to get down on my hands and knees to scrub the floors. But now I just use one of those mister mops - they make the job super fast and easy. So instead of having my floor thoroughly scrubbed once a week or every other week, my floors are mopped as needed throughout the week so they pretty stay clean all the time.

HHI 100-180 (depending on whether we're both working). We've had the same cleaning crew for about 8 years (recommended by a colleague). Love them. They come once a week. They are marriage savers. Plus we decided that at this income,we'd rather not spend our time cleaning but being together/with friends etc.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:$230K and no cleaning lady. We did have one at $100-150K - the kids were young and, with two working parents, it was tough to keep up. I am glad we did it during that time - it was a splurge that was worth it. Now the kids are preteens/teens and both create less mess and assist with household chores, so it's not necessary to have one.

do any of you scrub the floors, or just kinda sweep and mop it? I find people who don't have cleaning services don't really put in the elbow grease necessary to have a truly clean house.

Truly clean homes are bad for your health. People are not meant to live in a sterile environment.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:$230K and no cleaning lady. We did have one at $100-150K - the kids were young and, with two working parents, it was tough to keep up. I am glad we did it during that time - it was a splurge that was worth it. Now the kids are preteens/teens and both create less mess and assist with household chores, so it's not necessary to have one.

do any of you scrub the floors, or just kinda sweep and mop it? I find people who don't have cleaning services don't really put in the elbow grease necessary to have a truly clean house.

Not sure why my post is being singled out but my house is cleaner now then when we paid for a cleaner. Part of the reason is, as mentioned, my kids being older and creating less mess, and part of it is because they help clean.

We (as a family) dust and scrub down the house once a week - with 4 people helping it is very quick. And I believe making my kids help with the cleaning makes them cleaner in general - if they are messy, they will eventually be the ones to clean it up. Someone (H, kids or I) sweep every day, and vacuum, mop and wipe down bathroom about 3 times a week. Maybe a cleaning crew would have my house in better shape than I do right now (again because kids are cleaner) but if I compare my house 10 years ago with messy kids and a cleaning lady and my house today, it is definitely cleaner today. Someone could drop by my house for a surprise visit and while the house my not be perfectly in order, it would be clean.

FWIW, when kids are in college, we will get a cleaner again.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:$230K and no cleaning lady. We did have one at $100-150K - the kids were young and, with two working parents, it was tough to keep up. I am glad we did it during that time - it was a splurge that was worth it. Now the kids are preteens/teens and both create less mess and assist with household chores, so it's not necessary to have one.

do any of you scrub the floors, or just kinda sweep and mop it? I find people who don't have cleaning services don't really put in the elbow grease necessary to have a truly clean house.

Not PP, but I have my cleaning service come on a day I work from home (mostly so
I can keep my 80 pound dog in the office with me since he can be intimidating to non-dog people). Sometimes I go downstairs to grab a drink of water and notice they always take all the rugs off the kitchen floor and thoroughly mop. The sink, toilets, etc. in the bathroom are deep scrubbed and the cleaning ladies have those super efficient HEPA vacuum cleaners that they wear like a backpack. I vacuum in between their visits, but even my fairly $$ vacuum cleaner doesn't seem to do as good a job as the professional grade ones.

While I try to wipe up messes and clean here and there as needed, I agree that people who clean their own homes never really do as complete a job as a full team of 4.