The (Un)Welcome Surplus

Last week upon arriving home from a short business trip, Mr. Cents enthusiastically greeted me with “I just found another hundred and sixty dollars in our budget!” Of course, I was intrigued, until I discovered the source of our surplus was due to our housekeeping service going out of business.

We typically don’t disclose the fact that we had a housekeeper due to responses we get from other people, running the gamut from the sarcastic “gee, must be nice” to the critical “that doesn’t sound very frugal”. While hiring a service might seem counter to our frugal tendencies, we were factoring in the cost of what we had to give up to keep a clean house ourselves, and inflating the value of our free time.

Last November, through a crazy whirlwind of holiday parties, family gatherings, working long hours and constant travel, Mr. Cents and I were completely exhausted. The last thing we wanted to do on weekends was scrub toilets, dust knickknacks, and vacuum. When we initially signed on for a year of housekeeping service, we were looking at the decision primarily from a standpoint of time valuation - is my time more valuable than $25 an hour (or whatever cost the service turns out to be.)

While I value my free time, Mr. Cents and I keep a very tidy house and could easily do the work in smaller doses, freeing up our extra income for other investments. As we move toward a minimalist lifestyle, we had actually been considering cancelling our service.

The notice of our housekeeping service could not have come at a more appropriate time. Things are slowing down a bit and we’ve also discovered a remarkable amount of free time since giving up TV. It was getting more difficult for us to justify paying someone to do something we could easily do ourselves.

And if the extra surplus in our monthly expenses were not enough, this weekend I also happened to read Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich. The book is an eye opening for many reasons, but what stuck with me was the substandard way franchise housekeeping services train their employees to “clean”. The methodology Barbara described during her training was all about appearances – little concern was given to hygiene and sanitation. After all, she implies, it's much more important to look neat and tidy than actually be clean, free of bacteria and disinfected. Umm….gross.

Fast forward to this weekend where we spent about 2 hours doing a thorough cleaning, more than our housekeepers were able to do (Due to liability and safety concerns, housekeeping services can not typically allow their employees to climb on ladders or do any work that is higher than ground level.). At the end of our marathon session, I had felt an incredible sense of accomplishment – the kind you can only get from cleaning your own house. On that note, I don’t think we’ll be employing a cleaning service again any time soon.
Granted, it was a leisurely weekend.