how much income do u need to have a full time MAID?

[LEX]

I discussed the idea of having a maid with my spouse. We came to the conclusion that this indicates that you have too much stuff and not enough self discipline (basic sense of personal management) for ER. 8)

To ER, at least for us, is to live with less stuff and institutional obligations and have more personal options in exchange.

[Martha]

I have always enjoyed house cleaning and organization. My fantasy was to retire from my job and then become the cleaning person for my DH's rental properties. The tenants wouldn't know me so if they asked me a question, I could just pretend not to speak English. "Beklager, jeg snakker ikke engelsk." And I would putter around with the vacuum cleaner. But he sold the properties before I had the opportunity.

[Jarhead*]

Originally Posted by yakers

Where would you put the help?

We make $150K+ and have a $500K+ house in Southern California. Its all of 1,000 sq ft, 2 bd 1 BA. Where would the help fit?
Fortunately we had 2 boys

Left (escaped) from So. Calif. in 1987.

Possible solution:

Move to Texas, buy yourself a 4,000 sq foot home.
The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders have an annual try-out, attend them.
Interview the "rejects".
You now have a live-in maid.

[yakers]

Originally Posted by Martha

I have always enjoyed house cleaning and organization.* My fantasy was to retire from my job and then become the cleaning person .

Martha!!!!! Someone who WANTS to clean! No wonders your husband is still married.

For wife & I cleaning is about as wanted as a visit to the dentist.

[astromeria]

I don't know anyone personally with live-in help, but I do know one family with daily help--the husband, a high-tech VP, made a huge wad (like $30M) in the heydays. Most of the upper-middle-class folks I know have someone to clean once every week or 2, whether they are working, SAHMs, or retired. Many middle-class folks have a house-cleaner every week or 2 as well. I only know a few rich people personally, and they mostly have twice a week help, sometimes that person also cooks, or maybe they get prepared food delivered or they pick it up themselves.

We have someone come in once every 4-6 weeks for 3-4 hours to do the things I hate (wash the floors, scrub the showers, do the heavy vacuuming--move furniture and do the upholstery, clean the porches, wash the windows, deal with the hard-to-clean steel stove and the refrigerator, wash the baseboards...).

I've never had anyone do the laundry--it's one of the domestic chores that I enjoy (mmm, fresh, fluffy laundry!). I don't mind light weekly dusting with a feather duster or light twice-weekly vacuuming with my battery-operated handheld either. And I kind of enjoy light cleaning in the bath and kitchen--it sure beats working for a living. And I love setting up the guest room and bath for houseguests...relaundering the bedding and towels, making sure reading materials and bathroom supplies are stocked up and attractively arranged. Now picking up, especially dealing with paperwork...I hate that. I get DH to do most of it!

[Spanky]

I agree with LEX. Keeping your stuffs to a minimum and having a smaller house are ways to obviate the need for a maid and to simplify your life.

[maddythebeagle]

My fantasy was to retire from my job and then become the cleaning person for my DH's rental properties.

is your dh "borrowing" your screen name again? this sounds more a like a male fantasy?

[greg]

Originally Posted by maddythebeagle

is your dh "borrowing" your screen name again? this sounds more a like a male fantasy?

No, she is real . In fact, we worked on her language skills one nite while watching HGTV. I told her that if she worked for me, she could only say "Me no speakee English, go see landlord." Or "Marklar."

And she's even better than that! When she helps me cleans apartments she finds wonderful little useful things that people have left behind (So that we spend less money at Target) that I might have thrown away in anger at the tenant. We have a number of cooking utensils that I use almost daily.

--Greg

[Martha]

Way before all the shows on HGTV etc. about staging your house for sale, I had the same idea and thought that I might be able to start a business where I would help people get ready to sell their house. Basically, all I thought was necessary was some serious house cleaning and editing of furniture. I figured we always got good prices for our homes because we meticulously cleaned before any showing and excess stuff was removed.

But I was too lazy and never followed up. Now everyone seems to be doing it.

[farmerEd]

Originally Posted by astromeria

We have someone come in once every 4-6 weeks for 3-4 hours to do the things I hate (wash the floors, scrub the showers, do the heavy vacuuming--move furniture and do the upholstery, clean the porches, wash the windows, deal with the hard-to-clean steel stove and the refrigerator, wash the baseboards...).

Just curious...for those of you with help, what are they costing you per hour?

[LOL!]

We pay $55 per visit for a maid service. They come every other week. Usually 2 people take about 3 hours to clean the 4 br, 3.5 ba, 3000 sq ft home.

[Outtahere]

We have a small house, she comes every two weeks, does bathrooms, floors, kitchen, changes beds, vacumes and if we want she'll take the dog out... she doesn't charge by the hour it's $40 for our house... she has others and charges according to the size..dunno how she figures it but it works for me. If things got tough for any reason that would be the first thing to go, I consider it my luxury like some women have their nails done every two weeks.

[FlowGirl]

I think the cultural differences are there. I'm reminded of an episode of "King of the Hill" where Peggy hires their Asian neighbor's mother as a fulltime maid and Hank, very uncomfortable with the idea, says something like "I don't even like it when they pick up my tray for me at the cafeteria."

[Honkie]

Originally Posted by farmerEd

Just curious...for those of you with help, what are they costing you per hour?

I haven't calculated it per hour, but here is the breakdown, in US$,* for our full time help.

Salary: 5140
Insurances: 100
Levy to Government: 925 pm
Medical and Dental Plan: 100 pm
Other Fees and Charges: 500
Private Phone Line: 108

Total Annual Direct Costs: 6873 pa

Indirect Costs:
Private bedroom and e-suite bath
All meals and drinks and non-personal domestic provisions.
Local day to day travelling expenses
Seasonal Gifts and Presents

[retire@40]

There is something about having a maid or any other servant that I just don't like.

It might be a privacy thing, since I don't want strangers going through my house, especially when I'm not there. And I don't want them moving my stuff around. I want things exactly where they are, even if they may not be in their "natural" place.

It might be because I feel bad about these low-skilled mostly uneducated people having to stoop so low as to clean other people's crap. I know nobody is forcing them, they are being paid to do it, and if it were not for what they do, they may not have a job at all, but there is still an uneasyness about it.

Plus, I and my wife were brought up that we should do as much for ourselves by ourselves as possible.

With more free time on our hands, cleaning the house is just part of normal living. When you have a 2 or 3 bedroom house, it just takes a few minutes a day to keep it clean anyway.

[Outtahere]

Retire@40, I couldn't agree more!

Did I mention that the woman I have come in every two weeks is my stepsister? I won't go into why she does this but it's her thing. Both myself and her sister have her clean our houses, my sister has her clean her salon, most of her other customers are friends or friends of friends. She also knows once I quit working we won't need her except to watch the dog while we're gone.

I can honestly say if she wasn't my a family member I wouldn't have someone cleaning here. They say charity begins at home, I'm doing my part.

[Enuff2Eat]

retire@40

i agree with you. there is an unease feeling about having someone picking up and cleaning after myself, especially i have lived in the US for more than 20 years and so used to with picking up after myself. *everyone around me lives like that.

Back in the old country, we never ever treat the helps bad (as far as i can remember) they were always eat, argue, fight, play balls with us.... i saw them as "big sisters", they became an intergral part of the family. *However, if i really really have to guess. *My parents income were at least 10-15 times more the helps, where as in US it's hard to accomplish that level.

my 2 cents

enuff

[lazyday]

Maybe this says something about what class I am, but I've run into three nannies, but don't know of anyone who has live in help.
Also had a girlfriend once who cleaned houses for a living. She liked the independance, owning her own business. She didn't hire anyone, so had complete control. Didn't have to work nearly the hours most people do.
Her own place was a bloody mess.

I was under the impression that two of the nannies I met were being paid next to nothing, but I could be wrong. Am still in touch with friend of one of them, may ask if she knows, sometime.
The other one had her travel to America paid for by the family she lived with. I think she had a room in the house, food, and use of a car, but very little pay, unless I misunderstood or just assumed.

Maybe (some) nannies mostly look after the kids and don't do much cleaning, and therefore don't get much more than room&board?

[Nords]

Originally Posted by farmerEd

Just curious...for those of you with help, what are they costing you per hour?

Housecleaners are great. But not having to clean the house is even better.

In our housecleaner days, 1994-2002, we started in San Diego with $40/week cash to a little old lady from Tijuana. (To this day I regret not adopting her.) Back in Hawaii we paid $60/week cash to a great single mom who will one day dethrone Martha Stewart. She sold her business to a psychotic lunatic who was always doing what she wanted (instead of what we wanted) and kept dragging us into her soap-opera life.

We began to resent the weekly intrusion and my engineer's cost/benefits instincts kicked in. Instead of replacing the housecleaner, we decided to see if we could just stop cleaning the house. You only have to clean the place if you bring the dirt inside and if you let it get messy, so we try to eliminate those problems instead of cleaning up after them.

For example, my mother had always declared Thursday to be "strip your bed and launder your linens" day, a tradition which continued unquestioned in my mind for another 35 years. It turns out that you can wear out your linens with excessive laundering far faster than you can by sleeping in them for more than a week between washes. The same thing with vacuuming three times a week and all of the other "manufacturer's recommendations". Sanitation & hygiene don't become an issue even if you slice the frequency in half, let alone a third.

We learned a lot from "Speed Cleaning". We have enough silverware & dishes (Goodwill) that we only need to run the dishwasher once or twice a week (when it's crammed full). We don't scrub pots anymore, we soak them. We don't dry hand-washed dishes anymore, we let them air-dry.

We have mostly tile floors so that we can sweep or mop instead of vacuum. We don't wear shoes or socks indoors. We coat the outside window glass with Rain-X and only have to clean them once or twice a year (when we hose off the screens). We use a lot of closets & cubbies. Our kid is heartily tired of the daily 10-minute tidy, but it's the only thing that keeps horizontal surfaces from turning into junk piles. It's well known among the neighborhood kids that if you touch a window or an interior wall in our house you will clean it.

We have enough clothing (Goodwill again) to only do laundry two or three times a month. (Tae kwon do laundry is another problem, but doboks are expensive and not found at Goodwill.)

So we clean the house a lot less than we used to, but it's still one of the cleanest houses I've ever lived in. Our major cleaning task these days is bunny hair, and that problem will resolve itself in a few more years.

Now if I could just apply the same system to our yardwork...