Feeling Too Guilty to Get a Cleaning Lady

If I could afford it and my husband gave me the green light, I would so have someone else clean my house, even if it was just once a month. There's just so many other rewarding ways I would rather spend my time. Nobody ever lies on their death bed wishing they had spent more time cleaning their house. My cousin has been a SAHM for the past 14 years, she keeps up with the regular day-to-day stuff but still has someone come in every 2 weeks for the deep cleaning she just isn't into doing.

Look at it this way - you would be providing someone else with a job and some much needed income for themselves.

Remember that you can pay a cleaning person "per appointment".

So, try once. See how it goes! If you still feel bad, you don't have to do it twice.

If you want a cleaning lady, then hire one. You can decide that she comes once a week, once a month or as needed. My cleaning lady doesn't detail my home, but she gives it a good once-over 2x a month to help me out. I am a WAHM and we have had this arrangement since I was FT.

i don't, but i'd do it in a heartbeat if my husband were on board with it and it fit in the budget.
don't be silly! do it. some people indulge in a massage, or an evening with margaritas. some do it by having time to read a book because the housework is in the bag for the day. we all have our ways of indulging ourselves (or should.)
khairete
S. (who takes herself out to lunch about once a week, all alone, with a book.....bliss)

I think you need to completely disregard whether you stay at home or work out of the home. A mess is a mess.

Your only consideration should be whether you can afford a cleaning lady, as you are correct in that it is a luxury.

Afford does not mean able to pay the cleaner - afford means you have no other debt or otherwise that should be receiving those payments instead of a cleaning lady.

For example - are you debt free except for your house? No credit card debt especially? If you are debt free and you can honestly afford to spend the money, by all means go for it. But if you have two car payments, credit card debt and a house payment that is more than 1/4 of your monthly income, no way!

The only time guilt should be a factor is if you had made a credit card mess and were using the money to instead of pay of the card to pay a cleaning lady. I suppose I would feel guilty, too, if my kids were off at school all day and I had 4-5 hours to clean and simply didn't, but that doesn't sound like what is going on here.

Hubby and I are both attorneys and we definitely "make enough" to have a cleaning lady. I gave mine up about 8 months ago because we still aren't out of student loan debt from our law degrees. Once we are, THEN I deserve a cleaning lady. =)

I am not going to lie, it was the best money I had ever spent. Shows how serious I am about NO DEBT!

GOOD LUCK!

Do you cut your own hair? Do you make EVERY SINGLE THING from scratch? Do you change your own oil in your car?

You see where I am going with this.

It's not possible for one person to do EVERY. SINGLE. THING. Delegating is one of the strengths of a successful home manager. Moms of well-run houses know that you don't do it all yourself. You do it, by making sure it gets done.

I'd hire a cleaning lady to come every other week. Determine what you want to do and what you want them to do. Then, you supervise and make sure they are doing it.

Don't sweat it. AT. ALL.

I stay at home and have a cleaning lady twice a week. I have 3 small kids and I don't have time to clean like she does. It takes her 7 hours to clean my house every other week. I do clean, but I don't have time to scrub floors and all that. If I had 7 hours to do it myself, I would. So I say get your cleaning lady and don't feel bad about it. Im not one to spend money foolishly but I believe its worth it while I don't have the time.

I am a SAHM and I love my cleaning lady! She only comes once a month, but it is such a big help to me. My husband and I each get a weekly allowance to spend on whatever we want. I choose to spend some of mine on the cleaning lady instead of eating out or getting a manicure. No guilt whatsoever!

I am sooooooo hiring a cleaning lady! I am a mom at home with three baby boys who are active and MESSY!!! I have a busy life and I would rather live it than clean every spare minute! I am hiring someone once per month to vacuum, scrub restrooms, dust, you know the stuff I have a hard time getting to! I can straighten and keep up with laundry (sometimes!) but I find the deeper cleaning gets missed way too often, I feel no guilt!! Go for it, especially if your husband agrees, it took me years to get mine on board!
****ok, so after I wrote this I decided that 2x per month was WAY better! So I upped it with no guilt baby!**** :)

If you can afford a cleaning lady then by all means go for it!

My mother works from home and my father is retired and they still have a cleaning lady!

Being a Stay-at-home-mom is full-time work.

The only other option would be to get a mother's helper to watch your kids while you clean. A younger teen could do that for less than the cost of a cleaning lady.

Either way, there's no shame in asking for help! If I could get a cleaning lady I would!

I have always felt like SAHM's priority is kids, shopping and cooking. Everything else that needs to be done in the house is "shared" with those that live there. Luckily I have a husband who agrees with me. He did ALL our laundry until the kids were old enough to do their own. He also does all the floors. We have a landscaper that does the yard (2x per year since we have rocks and bushes in AZ) and we did have a housekeeper for several months before we moved over the summer because we started hosting friends from church every week and wanted to make sure the house was clean enough. So if you feel like it would help you and hubs says he's good with it, then do it. I'm for anything that will help relieve some stress. Good luck.

Who says you're supposed to be cleaning your house yourself? Sure - a lot of people do, but that's because they can't afford to hire someone. You hire someone to change your car's oil, right? And clean out your air ducts, and install DirectTV, etc, etc, etc. Those are all things you technically COULD be doing too... but you don't feel guilty hiring someone for those tasks. So embrace this. If it gives you more time to spend with your children or husband, it's a good thing.

I am a stay at home mom with three kids. We are busy! I tidy up everyday with general house keeping, but have a cleaning lady that comes once a week to thoroughly clean the kitchen and bathrooms. It is wonderful coming home to a clean house! I say if you can afford it and your husband supports it then give it a try.

DO NOT FEEL GUILTY.
there ahhhhh

I stay at home, and we have a cleaning lady come in once a month. No guilt AT ALL.

Oh heavens. Get over the guilt. You are NOT supposed to be superwoman!! You have enough to do that takes up 25 hours of your day. Just hire someone and help your FAMILY.

I have one. When the boys were younger (0-5) she was a godsend because I was tracking them! Now that they are in school, it's less of a necessity, but I am still volunteering in their school, running two Cub Scout Dens, etc. so I still have her. She comes every other week, and the boys help in between (two boys, three bathrooms, you get the picture...). Most weeks, it's the only time my kitchen floor gets mopped! :-)
BTW - the deal with DH was he got to keep the kid (who is now 20+) doing the lawn if I got to keep the cleaning lady. Same cost...

If you can afford it and your husband encourages it - then go for it!

Sometimes, in our own home, we can't see the forest for the trees. I could go to someone else's home and clean no problem. But I'm attached to my own stuff, and it's easy to get distracted.

It just might be the jump-start that you need! I would not feel guilty unless I can't afford it.

I'm assuming that hiring this sort of help is in your budget.

Look at it this way: as a homemaker you have certain responsibilities - certain things that must be done. If you were a manager or business owner, you would handle such responsibilities by 1) doing them yourself, or 2) hiring somebody else to do it. Right?

So if you have someone to help you with the housecleaning part of your multi-faceted job, you're just using an acceptable business practice.

I started getting help with the cleaning when my children were little, whenever I could afford it and find someone reliable. The children all are grown up now, but I still get the help. Anyone who can do in two hours what I couldn't do in two days is worth hiring! And there's such peace of mind for me in knowing the house will be clean, no matter what else I have to do.

Don't feel guilty - just get one that comes once every other week. It will be the best thing that you do for yourself.

Seriously, try it once and you'll never stop.

years ago, I used to have someone come and clean just once a month. I would clean weekly still, but that once a month was awesome! I loved having a break from cleaning once in a while. You don't have to do it all the time. If you feel better about it then maybe just do every other week or once a month. If your husband is ok with it, then I'd go for it!

I so get you. We can afford it but hubby looks at my strange when I mention it. To him, it's all just part of my job, and since he can't hire out parts of his job, whit should we hire out for mine?

I also can't bring myself to spend the money. I'm frugal, and can think of so many other ways to spend the money. I also like having pocket money for silly craft store purchases. We blew 50 this morning on silly stuff, and with a cleaning lady, we won't have that fun money.

I would say if you have no debt/fit it in your budget then go for it. Take a look at how long it takes to clean the house each week. Would it be cheaper to hire someone to clean the house or hire someone to watch the kids? I used to have a high school student come over one night a week so I could clean which was more affordable then hiring someone. Once we where more financially sound we hired a cleaning person to come in and clean every other week.

Do you have just the one child? If that's the case, you could get him/her to help a bit. Or do you have a huge house so it's just too much? I think I'd be ok with it if we really had a lot of spare cash. No debt, college savings plan very well funded, retirement also well on track etc. If that wasn't the case, maybe I'd try to save on something else. Go out to eat less often to make up for the expense. Or maybe just once a month would be more easily justified. Get some of the big stuff that's hard to do with a child around done.

If your husband is saying "go ahead", then go ahead.

I personally would rather do my own cleaning, but only because one does have to tidy up each room before the cleaner can actually clean. I just can't see myself getting that organized to have them all tidied up at once! :)

Get a super clean once every 3 months, then you can maintain from there. :)