I have domestic help twice a week, for about five hours a day. Cori does general tidying and cleaning, changes the beds, and sweeps up out front and out back. Many people have their helpers do laundry and iron, and also food preparation. I don't mind doing laundry and Andrew doesn't mind ironing, so I have her focus on the other stuff. Our tidiness and also cleanliness does suffer in between visits but this arrangement has felt about right to us.
It is so dusty here that the house gets dirty much faster than in Canada and so it really is a lot harder to keep the house within the acceptable range of clean. Also with three little kids and our social life largely confined to our home and family, well, I'm sure you can see why I am glad to take advantage of the affordability of domestic help.
A couple of weeks ago I asked a Mexican mom what kind of domestic help arrangements she has, and this is what she told me:
- Live-in nanny, responsible for child care including accompanying mother and child(ren) to birthday parties, light cleaning, food prep, laundry. Expected to work morning to night. Has Sunday off. "She's really good" so she's paid $1,000 MXN (~$85 CAD)/week
- Daily housekeeper, eight hour work day, responsible for heavy cleaning and ironing. Paid $1,000 MXN per week.
I just can't wrap my head around dedicating something like $750/month to domestic help. I paid way less for my first apartment!
Another interesting cultural difference!
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I miss Cori! But I only needed her 1 or 2 times a week for about 4-5 hours per time. We have some housekeeping help here also, but will only last a few months while baby is little :)or maybe longer????? Hmmmmm.....
ReplyDeleteWow, a live in nanny (who does so much)is so cheap there! Daycare here is so ridiculous, for the two kids you could pay anywhere from $60-$100/day. Housekeepers here charge $20-$25/hour, that's way too much for me to ever get one! My football team got me 4 hours of housekeeping when I was first sick and it was so fun to come home to a clean house. Maybe I should start cleaning houses....
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