It is not about the jones, it is about marital harmony. Have had a bi-weekly cleaner my entire marriage. Would like to go to weekly but that is not in the budget.

Having a clean home takes a stress off of the table.

Anonymous wrote:If both parents work full time then it's necessary

For you, maybe. Not for everyone. I think its great to hire cleaners if you want to and can afford it, but a family cleaning up after themselves rather than paying someone else to do it is hardly necessary. Insisting that it is "necessary" and not a luxury just adds another thing we need to do to keep up with the joneses.

We do it biweekly at $125 each time. So $250 a month. HHI is 275k and I sah.

I had a cleaner even when I made $50k. For me, it's more important than cable or eating out.

Having a cleaning lady extended the marriage by five years or so. No more cleaning lady since divorce, I couldn't justify the expense, my time outside of work is free.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For us it was more about time than income. No cleaner when I was a SAHM since I figured cleaning was part of my job. DH's income was $140K. I went back to work FT @ $85K and getting an every-other-week cleaner was essential IMO. DH at first didn't want to. He swore he'd share housework equally. HAH! That lasted one month and then we got a cleaner. Cheaper than a divorce.

+1

This exactly. It's about the opportunity cost of time. I guess some people enjoy cleaning. I'm
Not one of them, neither is DH.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow--you people are crazy. This for us has been a marriage saver for years...once a week, about $60
(1bdr apt)...we've done this pretty much no matter what. Does it mean we've cut out going out to dinner or whatever? Yes, of course.

You two can't clean a 1 br apartment without help? You both doing surgical residency or something?

+1. My condo was spotless with about 2 hours of work a week.

What a person does for a living is irrelevant. I prefer not to spend two hours of my free time cleaning. I prefer to spend it making a nice dinner for my family, playing with my kid, going to the gym etc. That and my crew does abetted job than I would, in less time. How this is complicated or difficult to understand I don't know. We all make choices, I choose to spend money here.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not sure about disposable - but we were at 275k HHI and I felt I couldn't justify. Just bumped to 650k HHI and am now doing it every week at 100/week. It's so amazing I am tempted to ask them if for twice a week they'd do 75. They charged 150 when it wasn't weekly, maybe you can negotiate down for weekly? That's what I did.

Classic DCUM.

NP here: more work, steady income, known family, cleaner home so less work, bulk discount. Very reasonable to negotiate the rate down. Ignore the snark and jealous harpy.

You earn $650k/year and are nickle and diming your housecleaners. I have no issue with weekly cleaners (we have a weekly cleaner at 250k HHI) but I do have issues with trying to pay a sub-living wage.

maybe they have a small house?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow--you people are crazy. This for us has been a marriage saver for years...once a week, about $60
(1bdr apt)...we've done this pretty much no matter what. Does it mean we've cut out going out to dinner or whatever? Yes, of course.

You two can't clean a 1 br apartment without help? You both doing surgical residency or something?

+1. My condo was spotless with about 2 hours of work a week.

Weekly or bi-weekly will change your life. If your spending $3000 on stuff just cut out some of the stuff.

Anonymous wrote:Wow--you people are crazy. This for us has been a marriage saver for years...once a week, about $60
(1bdr apt)...we've done this pretty much no matter what. Does it mean we've cut out going out to dinner or whatever? Yes, of course.

You two can't clean a 1 br apartment without help? You both doing surgical residency or something?

Anonymous wrote:For us it was more about time than income. No cleaner when I was a SAHM since I figured cleaning was part of my job. DH's income was $140K. I went back to work FT @ $85K and getting an every-other-week cleaner was essential IMO. DH at first didn't want to. He swore he'd share housework equally. HAH! That lasted one month and then we got a cleaner. Cheaper than a divorce.

+1

Wow--you people are crazy. This for us has been a marriage saver for years...once a week, about $60
(1bdr apt)...we've done this pretty much no matter what. Does it mean we've cut out going out to dinner or whatever? Yes, of course.

When we lived in DC and made 400K a year, cleaner once every other week. We found that to be pretty sufficient pre-kids.

Moved out of DC to another city - still pretty expensive but lower COL and now with a toddler. Making around 450K now. We have someone come once a week, $60 a time. Would like to up to twice a week but can't justify it really! Once a week is an absolute must though.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not sure about disposable - but we were at 275k HHI and I felt I couldn't justify. Just bumped to 650k HHI and am now doing it every week at 100/week. It's so amazing I am tempted to ask them if for twice a week they'd do 75. They charged 150 when it wasn't weekly, maybe you can negotiate down for weekly? That's what I did.

Classic DCUM.

NP here: more work, steady income, known family, cleaner home so less work, bulk discount. Very reasonable to negotiate the rate down. Ignore the snark and jealous harpy.

exactly - many cleaners treat it like a "deep clean" when it's only once a month, but is significantly less work when it's weekly, so lower rate for more regularity is industry standard.