s/o s/o working moms - how much help do you hire?

[hillview]

housekeeper 3 times a week () she does laundry too
dog walker every day
nanny/babysitter who is a better housekeeper than kid minder every day (she does whatever laundry and dishes are not done)

ETA we redid our closets and I purge often so clutter is less of an issue -- paid off big time

[HonoluluMom]

I would love to hire someone to help with housework, but I can't afford it. So, I do everything.

I try not to let things sit or else the mess will just overwhelm me.

[TxCat]

Weekly housekeeper who was a referral from our nanny and is amazing. She finds projects that I haven't even thought of.

Full-time nanny. She also does the girls' laundry, folds all the laundry (I do mine and DH's and sometimes the girls', and leave it in the guest room to be folded). DH and I each put away our own laundry and the nanny puts away the girls' laundry. She also does light housekeeping and organizing.

Twice monthly yard work - mowing grass, cleaning up leaves, clearing walkways and driveway.

We found everyone via word of mouth.

[squimp]

I dont have any help, apart from a teenage babysitter who might come 1 night a month and babysit while DH and I go to dinner.

I do my own laundry, clean the house, take care of kids when school isnt in session. DH does his own laundry (trained him to do his own early on). He does alot of housework himself too.

I'd love to have a housekeeper come in once a week and do the things that dont always get done (dusting, cleaning walls, baseboards, windows) but its just not in the cards for me right now. Maybe later this year.

DH would never hire someone to do the lawn. he does all that himself. I guess it was just the way both of us were raised. He doesnt hire anyone to do anything. I take that back, he did finally hire someone to cut down 3 huge oak trees last fall, but originally he wanted to do it himself and I convinced him not too. LOL

We have this problem, too. I think it means we are fundamentally thrifty, which has been a good plan to date. Mentally, we are still in grad student mode. But it does affect quality of life where you have to spend big chunks of the weekend cleaning the house, mowing the yard, pruning, weeding, etc. I am trying to let go, but it is hard.

[boolady]

We have a cleaning lady who comes once every other week. That's it. DH enjoys doing the yard work/gardening, and our yard is quite small, and we are just in the habit of throwing in a load of laundry as soon as we walk in the door from work several nights per week. When I get home with DD, and go upstairs to change out of my work clothes, I bring a basket of dirty laundry down with me and start it immediately. It washes and dries or gets hung on a drying rack while we eat/do homework/DD showers/etc. We tend to fold it as soon as it comes out of the dryer, and DH is really good about putting his and DD's things away almost immediately. Sometimes, if we go to bed before the dryer is done, we fold it and put it away the next night.

Hillview mentioned purging, and I can't tell you the difference not having clutter has made to us. We have gotten pretty good at quickly reviewing mail to keep/recycle/shred the night it comes in, and at having a "home" for things in our house. Every morning, on his way to his car, DH takes any recyclables from the previous 24 hours out to the garage. The night before the cleaners come every other week, I go through any magazines and catalogs that may have accumulated on my nightstand or elsewhere, and we give the mail/bills pile an extra go-through and shred/recycle anything we've missed. We don't tend to hold onto lots of DD's routine schoolwork, and the things we do want to save go into a huge schoolwork portfolio we keep on our third floor. DH is actually quite neat, but has a tendency to stash things in an "out of sight, out of mind" kind of way that makes them impossible to find, so having a place for everything has reduced this, as well. It is very tough to be on top of everything, but I think being as organized as possible makes it less overwhelming.

[StantonHyde]

Housekeeper weekly. This really keeps the piles in check for me. I have to pick up stuff once a week. I used to have someone who did my laundry--she used to work at our daycare and she babysat for us. She was looking for extra money, so I paid her $10 an hour to fold and put away and iron. I would gladly pay 15 an hour! It used to cost about $40 every 2 weeks. My kids are now 9 and 12, so they fold and put away their own laundry. I use the term "fold" very loosely here. I have shown them how but they don't want to. At some point, having wrinkly clothes will be a problem to them. Until then, they can figure it out! (I do fold their shirts for them) DH does the lawn, but its not that big a deal--we just have grass in the back yard. And we both do snow removal. Some years, that's a lot and some years it is next to nothing. We live in a very snowy area and have a snow blower. It is actually faster to do it ourselves than to wait on a service that takes forever! It just wasn't worth it. I wish we would go back to the lawn service, though. Our lawn looks awful with DH taking care of it! (and I don't know squat about grass-flowers yes, grass-nope)

[twotimesblue]

I have a weekly housekeeper who I couldn't live without. She does the laundry, folds and puts it away in mine, DH and the kids' respective closets. She cleans the fridge and occasionally even organizes my pantry. DS1 rushes home from preschool and spends all afternoon helping her (she is so great with kids). My floors are sparkling after her visit. I pay her more than she asks for, make her lunch every week (if I am WOHM I will leave something) and she is always first in line for any gifts DH brings home from work - wine, hampers etc. I would go without a lot of things before letting her go. I never want to lose her!

[daisysmom]

We have a housekeeper that comes once or twice a week, depending on how things are. She is super expensive, but I honestly have never known how to clean well and we often have people from my husband's office or through volunteer work over to our house and I depend on our housekeeper so much. She will do laundry, but her rate is $35 an hour regardless of what she is doing and in my mind that is too expensive to fold our laundry, so I tend to hire a college age woman who baby sits for us occasionally to run errands for us and fold laundry (I pay her babysitting rate which is $16 an hour). I wash a load of laundry every night so she folds every 3-4 days or so.

As far as organizing... our former nanny decided to become a professional organizer after she was our nanny, which made me laugh because I would have loved to known that she had many organizing skills while she worked for us for 40+ hours a week for 3 years. I have honestly never found anyone to help me organize well - but I tend to do it on my own once or twice a season, to some avail.

We have a babysitter come at least once a week and most of the time twice for work dinners or charity related stuff.

And we have a lawn service who mows (twice a week during the growing season), leaves, bush trimming, etc. Frankly I loved doing yard work ourselves but my DH is rarely home when it is light out and the weekends are generally pretty busy with sports and trips.

I can understand the different philosophies on hiring out household things - my mother never had a housecleaner and my father has always done all the yard work. But we prioritize different things than they did, and this is just how it is. Not judging, but we couldn't make it work otherwise.

[basil]

I'm so jealous those who have awesome cleaning people! Where do you find them??? I am honestly not that picky, since I'm an awful housekeeper myself. Maybe we just have bad luck. We've tried care.com, word of mouth, friend of friend, etc.

The people who clean for the service do a really good job cleaning, but don't straighten and organize.

[boolady]

Our cleaning people don't straighten and organize, though we don't leave things out for them to straighten and organize, so they might. I wouldn't really want our cleaners trying to organize our mail or personal papers. I think you have to get your stuff how you want it, to a large extent, and then between you and them, make that your new status quo that you try to maintain.

ETA: If you're going to put your house up for sale, you can take the opportunity to purge then, and the benefits will definitely carry over once you've moved. I am not a "stuff" person, but DH and DD are, and we got rid of so much stuff either by donation or garbage when we decluttered to list our house for sale. It was great.