Working For Financial Freedom

When You Have To Fire The Maid…

Welcome to Working For Financial Freedom. If this is your first visit please read about this blog. You can keep updated by subscribing by email or to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

One of the first things we did many months ago when we decided to kick this debt to the curb once and for all was let the housekeeper go.

Yeah, I know. What in the world were we doing shelling out $100+ a month for a housekeeper when we had car payments (and I stay at home with the kids)? I hired a housekeeper in the third trimester of my pregnancy last year. She was a huge blessing to have right after my youngest was born. But after awhile things settled down, I started getting more sleep at night and we didn’t truly need her as much.

But we kept her on. Paying her with money we should have been putting on the cars to pay them off quicker. It was a real stupid decision and we finally wised up and stopped having her come and clean.

So now we have no maid and I take care of the cleaning myself.

When you are used to having someone else clean the house realizing that it’s all up to you now can be a bit of a shock. Luckily, from my “pre-spoiled” days I have plenty of tools in my cleaning bucket that helped me get a cleaning schedule and get back on track without too much pain.

Get Organized with the Flylady?

Marla Cilley, or Flylady as she’s called, started an online mentoring group back in 1999 for people who wanted help maintaining their hope. I think I first stumbled upon her site in 2001 when I was a new stay at home mom with a 3 year old and 1 year old at home.

She has a book, a free yahoo group and an amazing website and staff that support her and the thousands of “flybabies” that flock to her site for cleaning advice and MUCH, much more. Some of her famous sayings include “You can do anything in 15 minutes” and “You can do this”. So if you are feeling frustrated or unorganized at home; Flylady is a must.

For all you guys out there: Flylady might appeal more to women, but there is hope for all ya’ll wannabe FlyGuys at Hey Tom.

Knowing HOW to clean matters too…

The other supply in my cleaning bucket is the book Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House. Flylady will help you get a routine for your life, but this book will give you tips on everything from how to get stains out, and even how to properly fold your bed linens. I didn’t buy my copy of the book (it retails for $19.95), but was lucky and got it for Christmas from my mom (thanks mom!). It’s more than a cleaning book, it’s more of an all-in-1 resource of how to care for a home. If you need a simple cleaning book I’d check out the book below.

A basic, but good, cleaning book that will get you started. It’s a much easier read than Home Comforts; so if you are looking for some quick help I’d start with this book.

* Speed Cleaning 101: Cut Your Cleaning Time in Half

Really your best bet is to visit the library or a used book store and browse their selection of cleanings books. I always like to check out books from the library to make sure I really like them before I decide to purchase (I have way too many unused cookbooks due to impulse buying a book based on its cover…)

So there ya go. Save money and fire the maid. Get organized and have the right tools and you’ll never notice a difference. (other than the one in your budget when you have more money)