Neighbors pay people to do EVERYTHING! - Page 5

[savithny]

THis makes perfect sense in Frugality if you look at it from the other end.

People on MDC are always suggesting ways that women can stay home with their kids or start businesses where they can set their own hours and work while their kids are in school or while their DPs are watching the kids.

YOur post was FULL of ideas for businesses! Every one of those "silly" businesses was started by someone who needed more money and looked around, found a niche, marketed themselves, and is working hard to earn the money they need for their family!

[isign]

We have a 'lawn guy'. He just does lawns in our neighborhood, and this is the 2nd or 3rd summer he's done it. He's cheap $25, and I know that money helps him out. DH works 60 plus hours a week and I'd much rather him spend his downtime on something else.

I would also have someone to come in and do the heavy duty cleaning if I could afford it. I have 2 little ones - 25 and 11 months - and could really use the help!

[PJJ]

I agree

Originally Posted by wildmonkeys

I get that it is cheaper to pay for somethings. And yes, grocery delivery is actually reasonable and makes sense with an infant. My point was that it is funny that they pay people to do EVERYTHING...the one with no kids and no job has had THREE different people come and do stuff today and it is only 11:00 am.

Aside from the money, it almost seems like more work to coordinate all the workers than to do the work than to do it yourself, ykwim? When we have had people come and do something for us that we don't know how to do or don't have the tools for (tree removal comes to mind) it required several calls and coordination --- it seems like so much work to have 10 plus people come to your house every week.

Anyway, as I said, I am not judging them, I am just amazed at the sheer number of services they contract out. It would never occur to me to leave the dog poo in the yard until somebody else swung by to pick it up -lol

I love your name, btw.
Yes, it is time consuming calling all those people.
I think they are rich and may be somewhat lonely.
Glad you found a reasonable place in the DC area.

[MamaMonica]

When we can afford it, I'm hiring a housecleaner. I'm not lazy either, I just hate to clean and cleaning is a source of family stress. If a neutral party did it, it would stop the cleaning wars!

Some things are worth paying for, there is no shame in paying for help if you don't have the help you need in your support netwok. In our mobile society, so many people are left without extended family help and can't do it all themselves.

[ArtsyMomma]

For the last two years I've hired a teenage girl on and off to babysit and clean. She has been a real lifesaver! As a single mom, there were times when I was under so much stress the 3 hours she spent cleaning were well worth the money, even if I was dipping into the gas or fun money. I love that she could handle the 'big jobs' like shampooing the rugs if I had everything else done, or she would just clean and the house would look great when I walked in the door. It is money well spent. I'd love to have a regular housekeeper, it's not really in the budget though.

On the other hand, I'm a D.I.Y'er! My dad is a custom home builder so most household repairs I do on my own. Things that are too expensive, I call the landlord for. I enjoy lawncare, so if I had a lawn I'd like to do that myself.

[chanibell]

Well we pay someone to mow our yard. Its extra for weeds ( which no one does) It mostly started b/c I had heart surgery and couldn't do it and then my husband works many hrs so he doesn't have the time. Plus,we have a chihuahua and if the grass gets too tall the poor fellow starts leaping over the grass blades like a gazelle. I don't begrudge people if that's what they want to do. Although my neighbor who is 90 still cuts her grass. She told me if I want to live to be 90,I'll get out there,too LOL

[littleplum]

Originally Posted by wildmonkeys

Aside from the money, it almost seems like more work to coordinate all the workers than to do the work than to do it yourself, ykwim? When we have had people come and do something for us that we don't know how to do or don't have the tools for (tree removal comes to mind) it required several calls and coordination --- it seems like so much work to have 10 plus people come to your house every week.

But that was a one time event for you.

If they have these people come out on a regular basis, such as weekly or monthly, once it's set up the people just come. I used to get water delivered. Once I set up the initial service, they just came twice a month to pick up empties and leave new bottles.

[enkmom]

That's true. Our lawn service comes on Thursday mornings and has ever since we set up the service 15+ years ago. After the first summer, he asked us if we wanted him to come back next year, and we told him to just make it a standing appointment. If I were to have a pooper scooper, I would schedule that service for Wed. afternoon. Once you set up your services, you are finished.

[BMG580]

Originally Posted by SquishyKitty

I looked into Grocery Delivery awhile back; it's really not as expensive as you'd think. I despise grocery shopping with every fiber of my being, so I was all for it. We ended up staying overseas, but when I come back, it will be mine. Oh yes, it will be mine.

It would probably even out or cost less for me to do grocery delivery (I think the fee is $10) because I would be much more likely to plan ahead for meals, I would be forced to stick to my list and not make impulse purchases and I would be able to "shop" without my children who make grocery shopping a bit of a nightmare most of the time. I think that service is money very well spent!

[Montana Mom]

I would be aghast also, and a bit envious IF I were wealthy, I would hire someone to clean the house, do laundry, and cook meals for us (aka another ME! lol) and I would LOVE it.

[chiromamma]

Maybe they trade. We are having our bathroom re-tiled on trade.
I have someone clean my house on trade and another person does yard work on trade. I LOVE it and would pay for the services if we had the extra dough.
Last Wednesday I was working from home and I had all three of these folks here at once. I felt like such a diva as I was eating my rice and beans!

[p.s]

depends on what your per hour rate is worth. We don't hire alot of those kind of help .... b/c I am cheap. If I were really frugal, I would hire all those kinds of helpers, b/c our net hourly pay is multiple of what it would cost to hire out, i.e I work 1 h = could buy hours of another working.

Plus if everyone did everything buy themselves, then there would be no low earning jobs available.

Then people would be complaining about that.

[Mamatoto2]

In some cases, I just think that paying someone else to do it is cheaper than therapy costs or medical bills...house cleaning was a major source of conflict between DH and I before we finally decided to hire someone to clean the house twice/month. Lawn care caused DH endless anxiety in years past when he would spend every weekend stressing about how he would find the time to mow and what the neighbors must think (he works very long hours during the week, so no option to do it at the end of a work day)....then he herniated 2 discs last summer and was laid up in the house or hospital from June to Aug. I tried to keep up with it myself but between caring for DH and 2 young kids single-handedly it was nearly impossible to find 1-2 uninterrupted hours to mow the lawn, and it didn't do much good for my grass allergies either, so a lawn service was hired and I simply wouldn't let DH risk re-injuring himself again at this point to save that $.

Things like grocery shopping and cooking are a skill set of mine and I wouldn't want to farm these tasks out.That said, I've been on strict bed rest with pregnancy complications for over a week, and I may be here for 5 more months....if we could afford to have errands run, our kids shuttled around, our meals prepared, laundry done, child care attended to, home repairs/maintenance done, etc. (and if my kids weren't gluten/dairy free thus further complicating the bringing in meals thing,) I'd be throwing money at people left and right.

[LaffNowCryLater]

If they have the money, why not? I have been looking for a cleaning lady forever but haven't found one I'm comfortable with. We also don't do our own lawn and if I had a dog and with DH deployed, then I'd pay someone to pick up poop too

[wahlmn]

I say more power to them if they can afford to have the help! There are certain things around our house I would certainly love to spend more time on, but others I would still pay someone else to do (assuming I had the money) no matter how much free time I had.

My DH works 50+ hours a week on a slow week, and is out of town Sun-Fri every other week. So we only see him for a couple hours each evening (if we are lucky) and on the weekends. So during that time, we have so many family things, appointments and other obligations to cram in that lawn care and house cleaning fall pretty low on the list. We've started to have a lawn service come weekly to cut the lawn and edge the beds. We also have a service that treats our lawn for weeds. And a once a month cleaning lady. I'm a SAHM with a newborn, 2.5 year old and 4.5 year old. I don't have the time or energy to handle all of the above as well as cook and care for my kids solo a good portion of the time. If my neighbors are peeking out the window judging me for who comes to help us out, well then I'm not that worried about not being close with them!

[Deir]

Originally Posted by pammysue

Maybe they have personal assistants they pay to set up all the "workers."

I would absolutely pay for someone to come pick up my dogs poo. In fact I have taken cards from the pet store-but never followed up with them.

I am sure they do have personal assistants! 2 of my friends work partime as personal assistants for rich Main Line (think Philadelphia Story) housewives. Some thing happens when you make that much money- you are unable to function as a normal grown up! Yes- I think I am judging!!

[Smokering]

I read an interesting book called "More Work For Mother" recently which talked about how women today do, in some ways, more housework than they did 100 years ago. Why? Because back in the day, doing your own housework wasn't laden with moral baggage and women who could afford it were perfectly happy to farm out work. They had servants and cooks. The doctor and tailor came to them - so did the tutors and nanny a lot of the time. So did the groceries. The washing and plain sewing were "sent out". Gardeners did the gardening. And so on. It wasn't until after WW1 that the media made a concerted effort to portray housework as brimming with Madonna-like virtues, and imply that a woman who didn't personally starch her husband's shirt collars with her own two hands didn't really love him.

Now, I'm naturally inclined towards frugality and DIYness, and it confounds me a little to think of paying someone else to weed my garden or wash my clothes - but I have to say, that book gave me pause for thought. Really, there's no reason every woman would have the talent for housecleaning and more than every woman has the talent for sculpting or chemistry; and there's no shame in getting skilled professionals to do what we can't, or even what we simply dislike doing. It's all a bit arbitrary anyway, isn't it? I bake my own bread, but "hire" someone else (by proxy) to grind it; I do some of my own sewing, but none of the weaving that makes the cloth; I planted my own garden, but hired a guy to deliver the soil because I can't drive!

I should add that I kind of oversimplified the book's premise here. It's worth reading - very interesting.

[Pumpkin_Pie]

You bet I am hiring a cleaning person once I am making enough to afford one. I HATE cleaning my house. I am in the middle of a whole house clean/de-clutter and once it is done, I am going to keep it up as well as I can, but once I am making enough in my new job to hire someone, I am absolutely going to have a cleaning person come every two weeks or so to clean the bathrooms, sweep and mop the floors, dust and straighten things up. It would be worth it to me to forgo other luxuries to have these things just done for me.

[Bookworm715]

Originally Posted by mar123

When I was in college, I babysat in the afternoons for 2 families- one on Monday, Wed and the other on Tues/Thurs- they alternated Fridays. One family had 5 boys, the other had 3 kids. Both had infants when I started. The moms did not work outside the home, one dad was a doc, the other a lawyer. Some days I would stay home with the young ones and the mom would run the older ones, some days I drove them to lessons and the mom stayed home. Some days the moms would have me start dinner, some days I would help the older ones with homework (I was an education major) etc. Anyway, by hiring me, they kept their lives from being truly chaotic and in turn, they put me through college- I could never have done it without them. I also would work doing errands for the law firm or docs office every once in a while. The money was a Godsend, the experience in running a house, breaking up conflicts, and seeing all the things invovled in children was invaluable.

Also, the mom of 5 boys breastfed all of them openly from birth till about 2. It was my first real experience with breastfeeding-I would arrive about 2:30 and she would be sitting in the chair nursing while we had our meeting on whom was doing what that afternoon. She always looked so peaceful and serene and I thought, "That is for ME". I wrote her a letter a few years ago letting her know how she influenced me to breastfeed all of my kids.

Sometimes I think we judge too much when mothers get "outside help". I'm certainly guilty of this. But an arrangement like this sounds wonderful and like something that would be great for mom (to get a break and to spend more one on one time with the kids) as well as the kids (a less stressed mom, a nanny/friend to hang out with some nights). I'm jealous!

[Thalia]

Originally Posted by wildmonkeys

I don't care. I am not judgemental. This IS the FRUGALITY website where I thought the point was to discuss FRUGALITY. I am sorry, I am in a new neighborhood where I don't know anybody and I was feeling lonely and thought it was funny that there is a company called "Scoopers: Our Business is Picking Up". I thought some other frugal mothers might too.

I really didn't want to get anybody ruffled up or anything - I just thought it was funny and that given the usual tone of this page, I could enjoy a bit of nice cybersocialization.

Actually, this is the Frugality and Finances forum, so there is discussion about frugality but also about all things financial here. Just an FYI.

I guess it's kind of funny that there is a business out there like Scoopers, but honestly, one the main reasons I wouldn't have a dog at this point is that I live in the city and don't like picking up dog poop. Love dogs, hate dog poop. I guess I am probably this company's target customer. And that's the basis of EVERY service-based business. Doing something people don't like to do, don't know how to do, or don't want to spend time doing.