Cleaning Lady Day

Monday, February 23rd, 2009

Today is a great day in the Delfau household–it’s this month’s cleaning lady day!  Maybe it’s the small things in life, but we look forward to this day each month as if it was a big event.

You might be thinking, if she’s writing these posts about saving money, how can she endorse having a cleaning lady?  What an expense! 

It is not cheap to have cleaning services for your home, particularly if you choose to use a company that is licensed and insured, as we do.   Here are the whys and hows to building cleaning services into your budget, even if it is tight:

Whys

• It makes you clean up. There is the old question about “why should you have to clean up for the cleaning people?” We all get messy.  In our house, we are not super messy, but like any busy family, things do pile up from time to time.  Having someone coming in to clean makes us straighten up and put things away on a regular basis, before it gets completely out of control.
• Chores that get put aside get done.  I actually like cleaning my house, believe it or not.  And I do the upkeep between visits.  However, after 3 knee surgeries, regularly scrubbing bathroom floors requires a fair amount of Advil, so it gets skipped in favor of the Swiffer mop, which really doesn’t do the same job.
• It is a huge time saver. We have a team of 2 ladies that comes once a month; it takes them about 2 1/2 hours to get through our house, including washing the floors.  If it were me alone doing this, it would be 5 straight working hours per month in addition to my regular household upkeep–that means 5 working hours with no phone interruptions, no children interruptions, and no work interruptions.  For my busy life, that’s impossible.  And I can take care of more business clients if I am not tied up cleaning my house.

So how did we build it into our budget?

• Monthly, rather than biweekly services.  Since I do the “maintaining” during the month (vacuuming, dusting, countertops, etc.), we can have services once per month.  Twice a month is too much of a strain on our budget, but the once a month fits well. 
• Cutting other services/expenses. We decided we would rather skip a dinner and lunch in a restaurant once per month and spend the money on cleaning services instead.  We also cut yardwork help and do our fall and spring cleanup ourselves–I would rather rake and gather leaves on a spring or fall day than not have my house cleaned.

If you are considering hiring someone to clean your home (or if you are not thrilled with the folks you have at the present), try using www.servicemagic.com to find a cleaning service.  Since they screen people for licensing and insurance, you’ll have a head start.  Also, you can read comments from others about the company before you call.

How do you feel about cleaning services?

Copyright 2008-2009 Kristin Delfau, author of Turbo-Mom's Guide to Saving Money Without Wasting Time a womens' personal finance book, and Aji Publishing.

Tags: budgeting, house cleaning, top 10
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