Yes, you read it right! I clean my own house. It seems as if I am the only one who does. I used to pay for someone to come in twice a month to clean. My husband could never understand why I would have someone come in because the night before the maid would come I would scramble around cleaning BEFORE she came.
I would make sure there was no hair in the sink, ewww gross, who would want to see our hair in the sink! I would pick up every toy on the floor and strip the beds myself. I would wash all the linens and towels. I would clean up the stove. I couldn’t let the maid see that piece cooked, dried, pasta on the burner! Is that a hand print on the wall? Crap, I’ll clean that up too! It hit me when I was lint rolling the dog. What the hell am I doing?! I am paying a maid to come in and do the deep cleaning, but I clean it all before she even gets there. Then after she came, I was hypersensitive about my clean house. I would freak out for any spill or scuff mark! I just paid a hundred dollars for the maid to come! Why on earth was I so mad at my husband for even thinking about sitting on a perfectly made bed to take off his shoes. Oh No! Is that a kid brushing her teeth…Don’t spit in the sink! It was just scrubbed! I would wait days before I brewed coffee in the sparkling coffee pot, instead I drank instant. I washed dishes without letting them hit the sink that was cleaned and bleached!
Now, I know there are a lot of you who have absolutely NO qualms about the maid picking up anything and everything and you get your money’s worth. Some of my more daring friends even talk about the maid doing the family’s laundry, underwear and all!!! They yank out any ugly leftover in the fridge and put it in the sink for the maid to deal with.
I made a realization. I didn’t mind cleaning my home. In fact, I actually liked cleaning my home! After all, this is my home and my responsibility and I was spending 200 dollars a month to have someone else clean my family’s mess! ( And $200 is on the conservative end!) What was I teaching my family by letting someone else clean our mess? We are the ones living here. We are the ones making the mess. Isn’t it our responsibility to keep it clean?
I know that not every mom has the time I have to clean house, but trust me, I don’t want it to consume all my time. For the most part, I am a stay at home mom. I am not a house wife. I am not married to my house. I am a home manager! Any effective manager will tell you that organization of tasks is key! And I do organize my time. Just like the maid to who I paid 100 dollars a visit, I take one day every two weeks to deep clean. It takes me maybe 3 hours every two weeks to do windows, tubs, showers, vacumn under the beds, polish furniture and scrub the microwave and stove. I put on my ipod and blaze through the housecleaning. In three hours, I am done and then I just have to keep up on it daily with light house keeping.
I am not saying it is easy. It requires some planning and organization. But when I think of the benefits, I find it worth my time and energy.
I invest 3 hours every two weeks on deep cleaning. I spend 30-45 minutes a day to maintain my home. I save $2,400 a year! What are some of the things you can do with that money? Is my time invested in cleaning my own home, with the help of my children and husband, (which I feel is OUR responsibility to begin with) worth $2,400 a year? You bet it is!