[jrmg]

I thought the same until we started getting our house cleaned every two weeks.

It’s so freeing.

It feels well worth even a few hours of my work to pay for the time of the (so efficient) cleaners. So much better value than things most people don’t think twice about paying for (streaming services, faster Internet, a nice car, etc…)

[nlh]

I'll take it one step further - we have a 2-year-old toddler and recently I realized that I was spending a full, solid, real 1-1.5 hours per day doing the same kitchen & play area clean-up. Every day. No matter how hard I tried, the daily chaos of my wife & I working from home, preparing meals, and our family spending time in this part of the house meant it just needed this work.

I hired a lovely person recently who comes to the house for exactly that hour a day every day and now does this task for us. It's the most "luxury" labor service I've ever hired, and it, easily and without question, the best use of $$ I have ever spent on a service. I have an extra hour to hang with the family now and our kitchen & play area are now fully reset and spotless every night when we go to bed and every morning when we wake up.

It's not streaming service cheap, and I'm thankful that my business can generate enough $ to allow me to pay for this service, but man is it freeing and wonderful.

[SoftTalker]

The real cause is that you and your wife never learned how to keep house. I'm in the same boat. My house is cluttered. Not like hoarder bad but stuff just piles up. I've been a guest where the house is always neat and everything is put away. The hosts just never let anything get out of place. Everything they own has a place and it always goes back there immediately after its used. They maintain this organized well kept home almost effortlessly, because they were taught how to do it at a young age by parents who were the same way. Whereas for me, it would take me several dedicated hours a day to get everything picked up and put away.

[XorNot]

Did those people have young children?

[SoftTalker]

Some of them, yes. But you'd hardly know looking at their house.

[sntscy]

Those people are just talking the 1-1.5 hours that this person described and have spread it out rather than doing it at the end of the day.

[SoftTalker]

Yes and no. They somehow tidy the house as they are moving through it anwyay. So it doesn't amount to substituting that time for something else they would be doing. Or at least that's how it appears to me.

[bayarearefugee]

I can see the charm in hiring a cleaning person you trust, but I personally wouldn't extend that to paying a faceless corporation to send a robot to do it.

I'd much rather pay a nice human significantly more money than have it done by a stinking robot.