50+ Hour a Week Workers: Do You and Your Family Clean the House?

Yeah we clean it real good, once a year, usually around the holidays. Otherwise it is just enough to keep the health department away. :p

I do both. I actually clean houses for a living. Not because I have to, but, because I actually LOVE IT! But, I do find it harder now that I have returned to work to get my own household jobs done. I will say this, for those working moms I clean for, they absolutely love it the day I come and clean b/c it frees up their time so they can spend it with the kids instead of worrying about what needs to be done for the home.

We have someone come in 2x a month and do a clean and we all clean up the clutter, the kids clean their rooms, etc. My DH works long hours and when I worked FT I had a long commute. We clean inbetween and she doesn't do dishes or laundry.

Trick is, if you de-clutter, you will have less to clean....organize and strategize...there is not enough time in the day to do it all, so minimize the work at home if you have to work more outside...PS I do it myself and reinforce to my family to put back everything where they picked it up..they do not have a maid in house!

I hired someone, first every other week, then I increased to once a week. There is still plenty of picking up and cleaning to do in between, but at least you feel caught up once a week! It's so great to come home from work that day and the floors and bathrooms are clean.

We hired a cleaning lady 7 years ago when my son was born. The money is worth the time it gives me with my kids instead of spending all weekend cleaning. One of the best decisions we've made.

My kids are too young to really help.. but we have a lady who cleans every other week. it is soo worth it. Soon we are going to try and get a nanny in, and will have to stop getting the house cleaned but I really look forward to my house being clean for 5 mins every other week.

We hire a cleaner to come every other week. Sooo worth the money!

I'm a single mom. If I could afford to hire someone, I definitely would. But I can't. My son has 1 chore per day to help me with the housework (vacuum the living room, sweep the bathroom, etc) but he won't do them (even though he gets paid if he does). Rarely do I get to sit down and watch TV or read a book after he goes to bed because I spend the whole evening trying to get lunches ready for the next day, prep dinner and sometimes breakfast for the next day. I load and unload the dishwasher and sometimes get a chance to do one other chore, like sweep or vacuum and then it's bedtime for me.

The weekend is spent trying to catch up so that I can survive the next week as well as having quality time with my kid.

I value time with my kid over a clean house so my house is typically cluttered and usually in need of vacuuming, sweeping, and/or getting dishes done.

So, if I had my wishes, I'd totally hire someone.... Maybe the time will come when that can happen.... maybe.

Both. It's just the two of us (two dogs, three cats and a guinea pig too). My daughter is super helpful but I do have someone come in every other week for stuff I won't get to.

I work about 55 hrs a week and my hubby 40... we work this much to get ahead so to turn around and pay someone to clean for us seems silly... yes we have our messy days but inbetween time I clean and on days off I beg the hubby to help out. :)

We do it all ourselves, however if we had the extra cash I would hire someone in an instant.

I'm right there with you! We manage to do ourselves, but we pretty much loose a weekend day to do housekeeping :( I told my SO I want to get a house cleaner. He says he can help more than he is, so we're going to try that for a while, but I really think I'd like to just pay someone to get it done so we can enjoy the time we have together actually DOing things!

Good luck with the decision.

T.

My husband & I work full time and have a 6 and 4 year old. Once baby # 2 was on the way I said I wanted to try a housekeeper…..SOOOOOOOOOO happy we did. Mind you, I fired 2 company's before I found the woman we have been using for the last 2 years now. Pre-Kids, it would take me ~2-3 hours to clean the house top to bottom just the way I like it. There is no way I can get multiple rooms done now without someone asking for something or leaving something laying out. And I want to spend as much quality time with the kids on the weekends.

We have our whole house cleaned every other week and on the off week, I know have just the main floor done. I LOVE walking in every Thursday to a spic and span house.

We do have to do the pre-clean weekly where everyone has to put EVERYTHING away where it goes, but that is good too.

If I were you, I would absolutely try it. I swore I would never let anyone clean my house, but I was mistaken ;)

We hired a cleaner that comes every other week, but in Jan-March, I do the cleaning. We just found that skipping those months worked for our budget.

My son is 2.5. I think when he is older we will not have a cleaner, we will see.

I like having more time for him. And he goes crazy when the girls come to clean. He loves them and wants to follow them all around the house to help vacuum and wipe!