Good Morning DINKS. Let me ask you a question, who cleans your house? This past week I learned that two of my friends have Cleaning Ladies. More and more of my friends who are mostly childless, except for two of my friends who chose a different path in life, have started to hire Cleaning Ladies. I have to admit that I don’t really understand why childless couples have cleaning ladies, and I also don’t understand why anyone would want to be a Cleaning Lady. I understand that it is a job and Cleaning Ladies do make really great money, and they are paid in cash which is also great. But the thought of cleaning up other peoples dirt kind of grosses me out. However, the thought of someone else cleaning up my own dirt also kind of creeps me out too.
So either way I don’t see the point of DINKS having a Cleaning Lady. I definitely understand why couples with kids have Cleaning Ladies, because kids are messy. My childless friend pays her Cleaning Lady $30 per hour to clean her home and she is strictly limited to cleaning and light organizing. She does not do laundry or wash dishes. If we add in the tasks of cleaning clothes and washing dishes a Cleaning Lady can earn up to $50 per hour. We have to ask ourselves is $50 an hour worth the cost of never having to clean your house?
I am the first to admit that cleaning my bathroom and doing my laundry are not my favourite past times, but I can’t imagine the thought of someone else cleaning my bathroom or touching my underwear. My boyfriend and I are so paranoid about theft and vandalism that we would never leave a stranger in our home alone to clean. But if we have time to sit and home and do nothing but watch a Lady clean our home then we also have time to clean our own home. I am not sure if any of you ever worked at Mc Donald’s when you were younger but I did. The employee motto at Mc Donald’s is “If there is time to lean then there is time to clean.”
Let me ask you DINKS…Do you have a Cleaning Lady?
The Pros of Having a Cleaning Lady
- We can afford it.
- We can leave our mess for someone else to clean up.
- We can focus our time on our career.
- We can spend more time with our spouse.
The Cons of DINKS Having a Cleaning Lady
- We should have time to clean since we don’t have kids.
- How messy can only two people really be?
- Having a stranger in your personal space is creepy.
- I don’t trust anyone enough to leave them alone in my home.
- We are grown adults and we should be responsible enough to clean up after ourselves.
Photo by heschong
Kristina Tahnyak
Tahnya is a Certified Financial Planner and former Investment Advisor turned marketing and communications professional She holds a degree from Concordia University, is debt free and currently works in the field of digital marketing.
I don’t have a cleaning lady, since I can still manage this. Still, if my work schedule got even more crammed I’d happily pay someone to do this work for me, so that I can make more money. In the end TIME IS MONEY and, if my hour is worth more than her’s (which is the case anyway), I’d rather pay a fraction of my daily income to have someone do the house cleaning, that lose billable hours.
I don’t have a cleaner, and I wouldn’t have one in the near future. They’re expensive, and I’m pretty private – I don’t love the thought of somebody in my house. It’s also pointless. I’m not a full-time working mom with three kids at home all day. I’m not geriatric and I am fine to clean. I just have to make sure I do it in small bits, instead of leaving it for too long.
I understand why people hire cleaning people, since things get busy and it’s hard to catch up. But if I, who works full-time, commutes 10-14 hours per week, and goes to school full time, can clean my own house, why can’t other people?!
The other have of my DINK and I do not have a cleaning lady. He is borderline OCD about dusting/vacuuming and I’m pretty organized. I don’t think we’d ever get a cleaning lady, but last night was the first night I was home alone since being married – I could see why someone would want a maid.
We live in downtown Chicago and transport at the mercy of public transit during the work week. After working all day, going to the gym, making a Target run for essentials, and heating up leftovers in the microwave (lazy, since I usually cook!), I certainly didn’t want to clean the garbage disposal, feed the cats and sweep up the litter they track, and do the dishes. And that’s just a normal night without anything on the social calendar! Kid-less lives can be just as busy.
If we had the money, I’d totally hire a cleaning lady. They’re not terribly expensive where I live, and they could come like twice a month to do all the deep cleaning. I’d love it!
My husband and I have a cleaning lady. I’m kind of a neat freak, and my husband isn’t. Before we got a cleaning lady, our different ideas about what constitutes “messy” was just about the only thing we ever argued about. After 4 years of living together, I finally caved to my hubby’s requests for a cleaning lady – we can easily afford it, and it means we don’t argue about this silly thing. Our cleaning lady comes every two weeks and she is wonderful. Just to clarify, a cleaning lady and a housekeeper are not the same thing. Before she comes, we put everything away and straighten up the entire house. She comes to clean the bathroom, clean our hardwood floors, dust, vacuum, mop, disinfect, etc. Conversely a housekeeper might put your things away and keep your house straight.
For us, having a cleaning lady honestly means we take better care of our home and our furnishings. We consider her to be a kind of investment to ensure that we take extra care to maintain our house. And without kids, its a luxury we choose to pay for. We’ve never regretted it or the expense since we hired her more than a year ago.
For those of you who do have a cleaning lady do you stay home while she comes over or do you go out?
My cleaning lady comes to my apartment when my husband and I are at work. That was her request – she works faster when we aren’t there, so she can have more clients. We interviewed several people, and she came with a dozen impeccable recommendations. She has been extremely respectful of private spaces – closets, drawers, the desk.
She doesn’t have a set of keys. We live in a condo building with a concierge desk, so I leave my keys at the desk for her to pick up on arrival, and she returns them when she is done. This is more about convenience than trust, though.
I am way to OCD to have someone else clean for me, I’d just end up following behind them redoing everything. However, my stepmom has a cleaning crew…yes, crew. My dad and her live in the house we grew up in and it’s massive, with an extra apartment over the garage. All the kids are grown and gone, so I don’t know why she doesn’t take the time to clean it herself. But it’s a big job, so I understand why she needs help.
Also, she stays at home while they clean. They are not allowed in her bedroom or bathroom, so while they work she cleans that area and does laundry.
I have a cleaning lady and have had one for the past three years. They have never been strangers though. One of my best friends lost her job three years ago and was unemployed for a while and I paid her to clean my house $50 bi-weekly. I did it as a way to help her out financially and help me out. After she was unable to do it I cleaned my own house until my aunt moved to the same city and worked part-time and needed extra cash (she is one year younger than I am). So I pay her the same amount. I do work full-time and have started going back to school while my husband travels and is generally only home on the weekend.
I don’t have a set time or day that she comes, but it is as she is available. She does normal things around the house (vacuuming, mopping, dusting, bathrooms, etc.) She does do our laundry as far as towels and guest room bedding is concerned (after those rare over night visits from friends or family). I do keep my house up, but I trust my aunt. She has cleaned while my husband was here on a few occasions, but generally is alone. We also have a master loft bedroom and they do not go up there. That is our personal space and is off limits. Our house is generally not messy, but it is nice to have her help out twice a month. If she stopped wanting to clean the house I would do it myself though. I don’t know if I could hire a company or stranger to come in and clean it.
I find this article a little…weird…those questions especially. Those of us with advanced degrees and LITTLE time at home, have just as must need for a cleaner, especially of our spouse (or partner) is a slob (and btw HAS time, but wastes it watching TV) to clean the house. It’s my sanity at risk here…especially as the breadwinner. He’s an adult, and I cannot “teach” a grown man to clean up after himself.
In addition, I have many single friends who hire a cleaner, and they’re the only one living in their house/apt!! I will say that cleaning, cooking, and laundry, and managing the finances–it’s a lot for me, and we are DINKS (70/30 rather than 50/50 in income ratio–I’m the 70). And we have a LOT of laundry (due to him as well). So everyone’s situation is different, and it’s not that we have more time just because we don’t have kids! We don’t and we still don’t have time, and he doesn’t help like he should with a lot of things unless I nag him, and I’m done with that–I’m not going to be a leaky faucet with him. I’m DEFINITELY shopping around for a cleaner…and writing it in the budget.
We have a cleaning lady that comes in once a month. It is true that we can do it ourselves and we did do it ourselves for many years but laziness began to settle and the stress of having to redo his cleaning and how we would push it back pretty often, which lead to cleaning more. It was too much stress for me. Once a month two people come in and I pay them $130 and I no longer have to do bathrooms or ovens. I can just straighten up when people are over and live my life happy without worrying about cleaning. I think it’s worth the stress free life. If we were ever struggling for money the cleaner would be the first thing I cut lol. Realistically though it’s the laziness that has caused this outcome because it’s not necessary. We don’t have kids and we work from home everyday. I just don’t want to clean anymore if I don’t have to.