View Full Version : Housekeepers
For the most part I'm fairly frugal by nature. The areas where I'm willing to spend more money than I have to are all areas where I've decided that my life energy is worth expending. Nice dinners out once a week, nice wine with dinner at home a couple times a week, a couple of fairly expensive vacations per year, and our housekeeper because both SO and I really don't enjoy that chore. Beyond these four things I'm not a big spender. I rarely buy new clothes, I'm driving a 21 year old car that I inherited, I keep the thermostat as cold as SO will grudgingly tolerate, etc.
I mention our housekeeper because I'm curious what those of you who hire housekeepers, if there are any who do, pay. Our housekeeper teams up with her sister and they are here 1.5 - 2 hours every other week. The rate is $150/cleaning. They bring all their own supplies and tools and, frankly, do a fantastic job so I consider it life energy well spent. If I did it myself it would be quite a bit more life energy for an inferior result and the energy would not be spent happily.
When last I had a housekeeper here, ~10 years ago, it was $25/hour, and the quality of the work was extremely high.
Today if I hired one, it'd be $45/hour for very poor quality work.
ApatheticNoMore
4-3-23, 10:19pm
When I looked into it, it was like $100 a cleaning too. Woops really out of budget, not happening. Although the rates did vary a LOT but all were expensive. Not that there aren't things I would spend $100 for, my gym membership isn't that but it's not the cheapest, but it just can't be everything because I don't have money for it to be everything.
iris lilies
4-4-23, 5:38am
I haven’t had a housekeeper in years, but I do plan to hire twice a month cleaners once our Hermann house is further along. I don’t remember what we paid. Our house cleaners were our friends.
edited to add: both successive house cleaners we had were men.
Simplemind
4-4-23, 11:24pm
I had a company for awhile that was a team of three that came in and blitzed the house in about an hour and a half. They finally priced me out at $175. One of the gals that used to work for them is also the daughter of a gal I used to work with. She wanted to do it on her own and I gave her a chance. I was happier with the thought of one person who we would have a relationship with and the fact that she would be getting all the money. I told her to name her price and she said $20 an hour. I told her we would start with that and then reassess if that would be enough. It takes her about three hours and she uses all her own products. We have had several conversations because I want her to be paid what she feels she is worth. She is still holding at $20 an hour and I feel blessed.
iris lilies
4-5-23, 4:39pm
I just saw an announcement from a cleaning service in Hermann that they’ll do a two hour clean for $120. A three hour cleaning is $180.
this is probably a service and I could probably find an independent contractor who would do it cheaper.
$60/hour for Hermann seems high. I expect ours to be higher than other places just because the cost of living here is so high. The service we used before we found our current person was also charging $150 at the time for a 3 hour appointment. I assume they have raised their rate since then.
I think it's a lot of money to pay for getting one's house clean, but with my current knee issues, I can see how people would get to an age where someone else has to clean for them. For me, I don't have that money and prefer to do it myself. But it sounds like you get a lot out of having someone else do it, so it's nice you have the money to do it.
I've never had a housekeeper, although my MIL used to tell me I should, given my lack of skills in that area. I think if I had to do it over again, I would have. Here in this much smaller house I feel capable of keeping it relatively drop-in guest ready--at least a tad above the mortification level.
I've never had a housekeeper, although my MIL used to tell me I should, given my lack of skills in that area. I think if I had to do it over again, I would have. Here in this much smaller house I feel capable of keeping it relatively drop-in guest ready--at least a tad above the mortification level.
Since my surgery and now the knees, I have definitely been at the mortification level for about 6 months.
I like a clean house but do not relish cleaning. Having a small house (or mobile home) is in my future for just this reason. Thankfully, DH doesn't mind cleaning.
When I was single and lived alone I didn't need/want a housekeeper. I've always been a "place for every thing and every thing in it's place" kind of guy. At that time I lived in a small (250 sq foot) apartment, so my cleaning routine was simple. One evening every 2 weeks I'd do laundry and clean. The laundramat was just around the corner from my building so I'd put in 2-3 loads of wash, go home and clean the bathroom in the 30 minutes the wash took. Then I'd go put the wash in a bunch of dryers, go home and clean the kitchen. Then I'd bring the wash home and fold and put it away before vacuuming the living room. 1 1/2 hours later my two biggest chores were done and I was good for another two weeks.
Now I live with someone who is more of a "any flat spot is a good place to set this down" kind of guy. He's also not a "clean as you go" person like I am, so things just gradually get messier and dirtier over the course of the two weeks between cleanings. Then the night before the housekeeper comes he goes around and puts everything away, she comes and cleans, and we start the whole process over again. If we didn't have that deadline of "housekeeper is coming tomorrow" it would just get messier and dirtier for an indefinite period of time.
Teacher Terry
4-12-23, 11:22am
A few of my friends have housecleaners and it’s really expensive here. One pays 130 to clean a 1k sq ft house and she lives alone and is not messy or dirty. I had them once a month when I worked full time. Once retired I did it myself and now it’s really easy with my small place and just me.
I used to have a housekeeper when I was working and raising kids. But the house would get dirty so fast and I was out the money. I decided to "pay myself" to clean and put that money into a tax deferred annuity with my employer. It's worth six figures now and growing. I'm retired now and have not yet started taking distributions. But ironically, as I lose functionality due to arthritis and a bad back, I may eventually have to use some of that money to pay a housekeeper! I consider it a gift from my younger self to my older self.
iris lilies
6-21-23, 12:43pm
I used to have a housekeeper when I was working and raising kids. But the house would get dirty so fast and I was out the money. I decided to "pay myself" to clean and put that money into a tax deferred annuity with my employer. It's worth six figures now and growing. I'm retired now and have not yet started taking distributions. But ironically, as I lose functionality due to arthritis and a bad back, I may eventually have to use some of that money to pay a housekeeper! I consider it a gift from my younger self to my older self.
that is a good way to look at it a gift from your younger self to your older self.
even though my Hermann house is not large it is certainly large enough. And to be real, . I have four toilets, but I only clean three of them. One of them is in the basement and that is DH’s arena. Four toilets is a LOT.
that is a good way to look at it a gift from your younger self to your older self.
even though my Hermann house is not large it is certainly large enough. And to be real, . I have four toilets, but I only clean three of them. One of them is in the basement and that is DH’s arena. Four toilets is a LOT.
SO's and my first apartment had 3 toilets. It was a 2 bed/2 1/2 bath townhouse style place. Two in full bathrooms upstairs and one in a half bath under the stairs on the main floor. At the time neither of us made enough money to afford a housekeeper so I had to clean them all. When we moved into our third place a few years later and only had one small bathroom we learned that 1) we could share a bathroom just fine, and 2) only having one toilet to clean was AWESOME!* Now we once again have three toilets but we also have a housekeeper to deal with cleaning them. My bigger issue is that we've dropped a lot of money on one bathroom renovation and in the next year or two will drop a lot more money on a second one. We'll recoup some of that money when we sell but I have no idea if we'll get it all back. But at least we'll be enjoying the nice new bathrooms in the meantime.
*we also learned that one of our cats could jump up onto the shower curtain bar. It was quite a surprise when I walked into the bathroom and he was balanced up there somehow. I wish I could find the photo...
Sheesh, as a teenager I cleaned Grandma's house every Saturday morning for $7! Vacuumed, dusted, toilet, kitchen floor. And in summer I mowed her lawn.
I think Grandma had a deal....however she did teach me to crochet and embroider.
happystuff
6-23-23, 7:32am
My job is cleaning 1/2 of an elementary school... enough said.
catherine
6-24-23, 12:34pm
My job is cleaning 1/2 of an elementary school... enough said.
I'm curious, happy, does that make you a better housekeeper, or a worse one? Are you like the shoemaker whose kids have no shoes, or do you bring your masterful cleaning skills home with you?
happystuff
6-25-23, 9:08am
I'm curious, happy, does that make you a better housekeeper, or a worse one? Are you like the shoemaker whose kids have no shoes, or do you bring your masterful cleaning skills home with you?
Sad to say - worse. I'm so tired by the end of work that the last thing I want to do is mop my own floors! Don't get me wrong, I still try to keep the house clean (just this past Friday, as a matter of fact), but not as often as I probably should.
Short of hiring a housekeeper, one gift I have given myself is equipment that makes the jobs easier. For instance, instead of getting down on the floor and scrubbing it, I have a spin mop (Bissell) which is light, and I take it to the floor a couple times a week just to keep it looking good. (My DH is messy, doesn't pick up or wipe up spills.) I also have a lightweight vacuum (replaced my 40-yr old Kirby boat anchor) with lots of good attachments and adjustments for high-low-hard floor. It was a higher end one, (Riccor) but it will likely be the last one I have to buy (fingers crossed).
It also helps that we live all on one level now, too.
I am hiring a guy to come next week and clean our couches' upholstery. They are cream-colored and getting dingey.
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