ATTENTION BUSY MOMS & DADS!!!
Recently, I made a decision. A decision that I had been thinking about for quite a long time. One that I considered the pros and cons and went back and forth about. I hired a house cleaner! Me. I hired someone to help me at home. Me, a woman that tends to think she can do it all. A woman that is on a budget. A woman that has piles and piles of things to do, and somehow tends to get it all done, but is never happy with the amount of time she has leftover for herself and her family.
And guess what?
I, like many other moms and dads out there, was spread thin. Full time plus job, four kids with abnormally busy schedules, and a very busy CPA for a husband. We both own our own business’s which means no set schedule (aka work whenever you have a free moment).
Our crazy wonderful life
My oldest daughter has taken after her momma and filled her schedule with softball, drama, Thespians, and student council. And that is just one of my kiddos. So as you can imagine my middle name is taxi-cab. This leaves little or no time at all to clean the house. I mean REALLY clean. Sure, we pick up our things and the kids have chores. They have to make their beds, fold their laundry, and do the dishes. Plus the boys do trash and the girls help with dinner on many nights. But what about the windows? The floors? Fans? Bedsheets? I think the last straw was when I asked my 13 year old son to help dust a shelf, which we had apparently never done…. and his response was:
I guess he didn’t know that because he NEVER saw me do it. Because, quite frankly, there was no time. Now comes the question, is it worth the extra money? I did some calculations and found out how I would be SAVING by having the help. The endless hours I spent cleaning were getting out of hand. A little here, a little there, really added up. I’d say I spent about 10 hours total cleaning each week because the house was so disorganized and we were so “on the go” that I couldn’t put enough time together in a row to do a good job cleaning. If my time is worth $35/hr, then I was “spending” $350 a week trying to clean (and not really accomplishing much). Instead, I have someone that can do this in just a FEW hours and things are actually CLEAN CLEAN for once.
Homejoy came to my rescue. And they were amazing. From start to finish they made the entire process so easy. First, I headed to their website and answered a few questions about my home.
I then filled out my contact information and scheduled a time and date that worked. You can choose the amount of hours or you can go with what they recommend. I chose 5.5 hours for my first visit. Throughout the week I received a confirmation email and reminder. I’m pretty happy about that – I think they secretly knew how I tend to overbook and miss an appointment on occasion – woops!
From the minute the house cleaner arrived until she left, I felt comfortable and confident that this was going to be a great experience. After her initial introduction and a quick tour, she let me know that it may not take her the full 5 hours to clean. Honesty – I love it! I had opted out of having my office cleaned since I would be busy working and the kids had already made their beds and dusted (after mom had to teach them what that meant), so that cut down on what needed to be done.
She then pulled out a few different floor cleaners and let me smell each to choose what fragrance I prefer. Now that is SERVICE-I love it! She then went about her cleaning. She stopped once to come and let me know about the cling ons that she had for our 3 toilets. Her FREEBIE to me – I love it!! I meant to ask her what kind of vacuum she used, because, I had NEVER seen my carpets so beautiful. And I use a Dyson that is pretty darn good. Hers was apparently 10x better. After she was done, she took me on a tour of my newly sparkling house and reminded me about the cling-ons so I would remember to tell the kids not to touch. CARE – I love it!
Upon inspection, I was very pleased with everything. The floors were very clean. There were no signs of cereal on the floor, no wrappers under the table, no sand at the door where half the playground dirt always ended up once the kids removed their shoes. I could see out my sliding glass doors and I even saw my reflection in the mirror without a single fingerprint in the way. Check out some of the things included in your cleaning:
I highly recommend Homejoy! I’m a VERY HAPPY mom and you would not believe how much extra time I had this week to play with the kids and just enjoy family time without worrying about sticky floors or dusty tables. I can’t wait until my next cleaning (next week!)
And now, you can try them too and save 50% on your first cleaning!! 50% off first cleaning is ONLY available through the end of November 2014! Try them out at 1/2 price and I promise you will want them to come back again and again! To receive your discount, just follow the link HERE and you will note at the top the 50% off banner. The 50% off will show at the END – not on the first page. The hourly rate you see on the landing page will be reduced by 50%!!! ALSO – You must BOOK by end of November, however they can come clean AFTER November 🙂
Disclosure: I was provided with one free cleaning to facilitate my review. All opinons are 100% my own.
Having someone else clean my house has become my most precious splurge. I love, love, love it! And as happy as it makes me, it doesn’t feel like a splurge at all!