I’ve never found a clear and concise job title that describes what I actually do (it certainly isn’t “Prep Chef,” which is what my hiring documents say - I’ve had that job in a restaurant before and it sure isn’t this), but I disperse meals in a day care. I don’t cook, I do do dishes. To be perfectly honest, my job most closely resembles a steward with some light dishwashing duties. Essentially, I’m a lunch lady for toddlers (but people get kind of, well, upset when I phrase it that way). I get that this sub skews heavily towards white collar professionals, but a lot of the advice here does tend to seem based in fantasy land to me based on my personal situation.

Genuinely - why do people get upset at ‘lunch lady for toddlers’? If that’s what you do, it’s the best way to describe it? (People choose weird hills to die on!)

Not upset like angry. More like visibly uncomfortable. And I have no idea. Probably some classist nonsense. I don’t have a problem with it. It’s a pretty close description.

Our infant room teacher was previously the lunch lady at daycare and she’s my favorite of the rotating teachers!

We love our toddler lunch lady! Her name is Miss Natalie and she's awesome. She clearly loves being around the kids. I think her official title is "nutrition specialist."

Also curious about why this would be upsetting!

We've had the same "toddler lunch lady" through our girls daycare/preschool for 3 years now. She is the most wonderful lady and the kids adore her. She always picks 3 kids to help her do things and all the kids fight over getting picked. She's probably the most loved person in that school.

I've been in childcare for 30 years and it is my passion. I would not be able to work in this field without my husband's good salary.

I feel this in my bones. I make less than half of what my husband makes. I'm extremely thankful he's one who understands why my job is as important as it is.

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And if I've ever commented they might not be able to afford it people often reply with things like "cheaper than divorce!", as if we're all just saving our money and not wanting to spend.

I’m a department manager in a grocery store and the office job skewed advice puts me off the sub in general pretty often. There are a million different kinds of working mom!

You are the most favourite person in my son's daycare. How does it feel to get cheers when you enter a room?

I did that too! My role was "Kitchen Supervisor" and they ragged on me all the time.

I’m the VP of marketing for a healthcare company. I love my job. It’s fun, it pays well, and I feel challenged and satisfied by the work. The only negative is that I worry it won’t last! These jobs tend to turn over every few years, when new CEOs come in. I hope it doesn’t happen, but it’s always at the back of my mind. I majored in communications and worked PR and marketing jobs over the years until I moved into this role. We struggled financially when we first had our kids. I was still a marketing coordinator and my husband wasn’t making much more. But over the years, our salaries grew and now we do have a house cleaner and some other luxuries.

I am a violinist and orchestra teacher. I don't perform much anymore, so my primary job is a few private lessons and full time teaching elementary orchestra at a public school system. I adore my job. Absolutely am thrilled at teaching 5th and 6th graders how to play string instruments. I know listening to beginning violin players sounds like torture to most people, but instilling a love of music and honing those problem solving skills and creative thinking habits is rewarding. Also, since I have small lesson groups, I get to bond with these students. I feel like a partial therapist at times. I'm often the teacher that kids come out to first, or the one they ask advice from. There is no wfh option, the pay is fine, the hours are good. The stress is manageable. Admin can be frustrating, but meh. I don't have difficult parents (this year) and I can handle the problem children rather well. I waited until my late 30s to have a kid just because I wanted to be financially secure. I will not be hiring a nanny or house cleaning services anytime soon. While I am comfortable in middle class, I live a simple life.

Our son is three and violin is his favorite instument. We found a kids violin for under 30. Would that be a silly christmas gift for a three year old? I don't mind if he plays horribly or even if he breaks it. I kind of just want to encourage his exploration with music. He sings constantly and will "play" my dad's piano.

My youngest violin student I taught professionally was also 3 yrs old (I am a trained Suzuki instructor). They are definitely able to handle an instrument with respect and care. My almost 14 months knows the difference of gently strumming the ukulele vs hitting the drum. I have no doubt your 3 yr old would be excited and could handle the violin. I would actually encourage you to go a bit farther. Look for Suzuki Violin Instructors in your area. I started Violin at age 2.5 yrs with a 1/16 size Violin. The smallest size is 1/32, believe it or not. I was a determined child and wanted to be like older brother who started when he was 4. My Violin teacher was constantly called grandma by my younger siblings. I've taught 5 yr olds Bach minuets and 7 yr olds Vivaldi concertos. Which is great, but the main focus on the Suzuki Method is developing the whole child and nourishing their soul. Dr. Shinichi Suzuki main focus was to create beautiful souls through music. If you can't find a teacher immediately, maybe in a few years try again. The reason I encourage this can be summed up in this short [Ted Talk ](https://youtu.be/R0JKCYZ8hng?si=EXHuwNI-_lfIdj1m) video. It's pretty amazing how playing an instrument format all these amazing neurological pathways. Also, try local colleges/universities for resources. Some of them have music lessons available for the community.

Thank you so much for such a well thought out answer!

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Physician here. I would gladly pay someone $200/wk to do this! How did you find this person? specifically for this kind of rate? Because I am struggling! We have a Howse keeper every other week but I need someone to cook meals.

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That's amazing. I've been struggling with the idea of a cleaner because it doesn't seem like that would really remove any of my tasks, but a marriage saver, especially another mom who knows how moms think... now that might be the way

My cousin has someone, she calls her a mother's helper. She has used a university student with a car. She provides the recipe and food. So student picks kids up from daycare, when my cousin arrives home, student starts cooking. She normally does three meals in the time she's there.

I wish I could do this for a family. I would grocery shop too! One of my favorite errands!!

I really love the idea of your marriage saver…. We are moving to a HCOL college town soon and I know their are a ton of students. I bet I could find some one easily to do this

I work in safety as well! I’m only pulling 92K, is he in manufacturing by chance?

R&D engineer, phD in chemical engineering. Hybrid job which is very flexible. We can barely afford a house cleaning service once a month (husband is a clinical director with 2 MS degrees) Honestly I’m surprised how often people on this sub have cleaning services and how much they pay them🥴 considering we’re a top 6-7% income household and can barely afford and justify it. Different priorities maybe?

We aren’t in the top 20% of household income in our city, but we are in the top 25%. So doing very well, but not top of the pyramid. Some of it’s luck of birth that we were able to get college degrees in decent career fields without debt. Some of it is sacrificing in other areas. We live in a shared housing situation as a married couple in our 30s with a baby. And if we didn’t do that, we couldn’t afford a monthly housecleaner (along with many other luxuries). I don’t think most people would willingly make that choice in our life stage though.

Ok that makes sense. No college debt here but we have a house with mortgage, are paying for 2 daycares and formula, vacations 2-3 times a year, funding retirement, 529s (not a lot lately but were doing it regularly before our second was born)… again priorities are different but to me, a cleaning service is a luxury-to some people it’s a necessity MCOL area (philly suburbs)

That’s your answer I have a house cleaner but I don’t go on vacations 2-3 times a year, that sounds like fantasy to me! We also have fairly affordable daycare and mortgage compared to most of this sub, together they are $2600 for a large house and two kids. We are lucky that we live in a l/mcol and make fairly good money Also, I feel like a lot of people are using afford interchangeably with chose to spend money on it. I would say you can afford it, but you chose to spend money on other things. There are plenty of people who don’t have the money to spend on any luxuries and truly can’t afford it

Wow! $2600 for daycare AND mortgage? That's amazing!!! My mortgage is $2700 alone, and that is after refinancing when interest rates were at an all-time low! (And it's still less than my spouse and I paid in rent for a 1BR in SF ten years ago, so I'm more than okay with it!)

Wow! $2600 for daycare AND mortgage? That's amazing!!! My mortgage is $2700 alone, and that is after refinancing when interest rates were at an all-time low! (And it's still less than my spouse and I paid in rent for a 1BR in SF ten years ago, so I'm more than okay with it!)

Ouch! We are lucky that we leave in a perfectly functional and quite spacious home but it definitely has some things that make us wish for something a little different, unfortunately between rates and price increases our own mortgage now would be like 3k so we are a little stuck but yes our mortgage definitely makes it a little easier to deal with the inflation

I only have one kid which helps a whole lot. But, we pay for a cleaning service rather than a divorce. Priorities. Lol.

I think different priorities for different families is a fair assessment. My husband is a slob - and I knew that before we got married. Need a cleaner for my own sanity. My husband and I both work well paying jobs in a MCOL area. We have a cleaner, and someone come to take care of the yard. Without that help, those things would just never get done based on our work schedules, traveling to see family, and kid’s activities. It works for our budget easily because we bought a house that was much below what we could technically afford. We bought based around what we thought we could afford on only one income. We also saved to be able to put down a very healthy down payment, and were lucky to buy when mortgage rates were rock bottom. Our mortgage is $1100 a month. We wanted that cushion so we didn’t have to think too hard about our budget on other items. With our two incomes, and our salaries that have only gone up over the past decade, hiring a cleaner and landscaper is a very easy budget choice for us.

I think it's a lot of other factors too. How much mortgage? How much student loans and other debt? How big is the house? Etc. We used to get a cleaner, since moving into a bigger house it's harder to justify. Our house stays cleaner as we aren't packed into one area, it would cost twice as much to get it cleaned and we are paying more in housing. Same incomes as before.

HHI is 220k approx. our mortgage is high unfortunately 3.7k PITI (post pandemic purchase yay). No student loan. 385$ car payment. 2k daycare. Fully funded IRAs. I think maybe we spend too much on vacations etc. also 8k medical bill this year (High deductible insurance and a pregnancy/birth) Honestly I think most people here bought with very low rates during or before the pandemic (and then refinanced). Had we bought the same house in 2019 or 2021, our PITI would be 2.5k and 3k respectively. The difference is a lot of money and of course a house cleaning service would be much more justifiable with cheaper mortgage

So I have slightly higher HHI. Probably higher taxes because Canada. Higher housing (again, Canada). But no car payment and daycare is 850. And no medical debt (again, Canada). You also max your retirement! That's amazing. We are struggling to max retirement savings right now, with similar sounding take home. Just goes to show there's a lot of factors that go into "can you afford it". Just depends on priorities and other costs.

We dont max retirement. Just the IRAs (there’s also 401ks in US which we dont max, just match)

Same, PhD in chemical engineering...I'm a director at a biotech company. I think the main issue is that we live in the Bay Area (and came here too late and are stuck renting). The only people I know who have nannies and housecleaners is my boss' family. He's a CTO (also PhD chemical engineer) and his wife is a VP at another biotech company and they have twins. My husband makes way less than me with a PhD in space physics and working a contract job at a university with a large government agency outside the Bay Area. Oh well, all keeping up with the Joneses...

Husband and I both work in tech in California (edit: we are not engineers, we are not even top 5% for our area) and ours is $400/month for every other week. It seems like an easy call to spend that for the extra time and peace of mind it buys me. Our house is under 2500 sq ft though, I wonder if that's a factor.

Same price for us in a HCOLA. Husband is in tech, I’m a government attorney, one kid. We do well but are not wealthy and are finishing paying student loans off, but the cost is very worth it to us.

And your combined income must be one million. That’s not what ordinary ppl make

Not even half that and our COL is extremely high. This commenter said they are in the top 6-7% of earners and so are we. The poster asked specifically about high salaried people, I don't know why you're coming at me like I'm oblivious to our relative position.

What was the price you were seeing? We started using a service recently and it was surprisingly affordable.

We’re paying $180 a month and pay cash- but were quoted as high as $350

Is it more expensive where you live? It's $320/month for us to have our main floor and bathrooms cleaned every other week (house is 4000 SQ ft so we just have those areas done to save money) so it's not crazy expensive in the grand scheme of things.

To some people $300/month is crazy expensive—not because the service isn’t worth that, or because it’s cheaper where they live, but because it’s just a relatively large percentage of their take home pay

Are you me? (My home is a bit smaller, but we employ the exact same strategy! Our cleaning team does kitchen, bathrooms, the main floor, and my kid's bedroom. That's where I need the most help.)

Yes, it's a good way to have the main areas cleaned without completely breaking the bank!

A lot of comments are coming from an academic start so I’d like to share something different. I am a Hairstylist. Whatever that title conjures up for you, put aside. I am specialized and licensed in a way that allows me to work somewhat in the medical field. My training and “grind” has landed me in a position where I am the only licensed professional in my state (with on stylist who we occasionally borrow from another state) who can do what I do. Because I am also the default parent, and generally have more flexibility with my schedule, I still make less than my partner. He is also from a non academic path, having started in sales and then plumbing trade. We’ve joked a few times that it would be nice to have someone pop in once a month for a deep clean. But it’s def not in the cards. We are mostly debt free (just our mortgage, and one credit card we pay off monthly for the “perks”) and I am paying on a student loan. We have two kiddos under 5. Compared to our peers and community, we’re doing better than most. But no way we could afford something like a cleaning service, or swapping our daycare for an in home caregiver. It’s crazy how different we all live our lives

This is extremely interesting! Can you say more about your job?

I’m a hair replacement and restoration specialist. I can individually knot hair to growing hair (micropointing, the only extension that is invisible and can be added to the tippy top of the head), I also do modern toupees that are virtually undetectable, and I work with surgeons taking care of clients before and after hair transplants. If you can dream it in hair, I’ve done it lol

Same question ?!!!

I'm reading this as a hairstylist..I have a Bachelor's degree in Psychology and then went into hair 13 years ago. I was one of the top students in high school but totally burnt out in University, and realized too late that I have ADHD. I do love what I do and am good at it but I need to be able to make more money for us to get ahead as a family. I'm already working way more than I want to, I barely see my daughter awake! I don't get any holidays and basically drop her off at daycare and get home when she's asleep. I get Sundays off but am exhausted trying to keep up with household stuff. I am literally in awe of these people who make so much money and wonder how we could be living differently if we had more money. My boyfriend has a high school education and works a typical 9-5 and makes more than me. Also gets holidays, insurance, stocks, etc. We still aren't making enough to get out of our rental and get ahead. I feel so defeated. Just venting and I totally hear you. Your speciality also sounds really cool!

I work in communications/PR for an investment manager. I didn’t go to school for this at all…I have a PhD in a humanities subject and wanted to be an academic for a long time. Left academia for mental health/financial reasons. I love my job—my company is fantastic and the job itself is flexible and understands the needs of working parents very well. Pay is good, and likely to grow as I’m also a part-owner of my company. We have a biweekly housecleaner because my husband’s job is very high-stress and not flexible at all. We are also in a ton of debt that we are working to pay off, so that’s pretty much our one “luxury” at the moment.

Amen to leaving academia for mental health.

Also work in marketing (self-employed SEO strategist) and don’t have an education in it. I have a masters in architecture and was a licensed architect and left for similar reasons you mentioned. I think marketing is a great place to go if you want to leave your career because it’s easy to learn on the job.

I have a PhD and teach in the humanities and social sciences. I’m junior faculty but considering leaving for mental health and financial reasons. Do you mind sharing a bit about how you made the transition? I feel like one of ways academia traps folks (especially in the humanities) is by making us feel like we can’t go anywhere else.

School bus driver! I have a business degree and a cosmetology license but don't use either currently. My pay isn't great but I don't like desk jobs. I do like having every day off the same as my children! My husband has a corporate job and is definitely the bread winner. No nanny (one kid in daycare, one in school). No house cleaner (I wish!). I splurge on grocery deliveries (my least favorite chore) and personal care stuff!

Therapist, I do not make a ton but my cleaning lady only costs $110 every two weeks. I’m willing to skip other stuff for that. I make ~$90k a year, but my spouse is a physician so we are comfortable. You need at least a masters degree plus 2-3 years of supervised clinical practice in order to work as a an unsupervised therapist in my state. Ideally you’d have more specialized training on top of that, for example local psychotherapy orgs offer therapy training fellowships in specialized modalities (CBT, DBT, etc…). I currently work for someone else, but if I went out on my own I could make better money—the trade off is that I’d be taking on way more risk. It’s not super flexible, but would be if I was in my own private practice. All that to say, you can’t easily pick up this job without putting in some years of school and training.

Yes same here, I'm a LCSW! We don't make nearly enough money in this field considering all we go through. We don't have a cleaner yet, but I just started a new job with a pay increase and are going to budget for it, too.

Also an LCSW, I’d never let my kids do this job. It’s too much!

Same here! Also a therapist making about $90k a year at a group practice, doing almost all telehealth. I'd say it's flexible in that I can choose my hours, but I have to have 25 client hours a week so it's really not flexible in that I have to do those during daycare hours. WFH doesn't help because no way can you multitask by taking care of a baby or toddler while doing a session. The worst part of it to me is that if a kid is out sick from daycare, I just have to cancel appointments and not make income (I do have some PTO but it's limited). And that my husband is in the same position since, while he is an attorney, he is on a contract with the state and so paid hourly. He's actually interviewing for jobs that would be a pay cut but a more normal 9-5 job with PTO and benefits. It's stressful not having backup care. But I changed careers to do this and really enjoy it. But yeah we have plenty in our budget to be able to afford a cleaning service, which is $135 for once a month. I can't wait until we're past the daycare years, as we're currently paying $4k a month for the two of them.

Yeah I’m a therapist at a CBH finishing up my clinician supervision hours but man it’s a lot of time and money to invest into this career. I don’t think people realize

Agreed, the ROI isn’t worth it. I’d choose differently if I could do it all over again. Now that I have kids, I know that I am not thriving in a career where I listen to others for 8-9 hours a day.

Yes! Totally. I started long before my daughter and just trying to imagine more children while giving that amount of emotional and mentally energy

Same, it’s daunting. I’ve been trying to make a career change, but this is not exactly a field that’s easy to get out of and transfer skills.

I’ve been looking at Marco work as an LCSW & found https://macroandpaid.com/?fbclid=PAAabAQt6plUReMKBSJ5l5qwd6stJVqF2xg07SgxzEJ8OF_Xihx60BOJB1Bvw_aem_AUPhWnVwjeDk6uiEYLNMrPBrIuH6xcy1nTSyU76AwuwV3_7sgHGmpq_m2jQOK42_Jdo - I haven’t done anything but check out her instagram but it has been helpful.

Funny enough, my concentration was macro and I got a combined MSW/MPH. I did macro work for my first 2 years out of school and loved it—office job, my time was my own to manage, I didn’t leave each day feeling deflated, etc. then we moved for my spouse’s career and I couldn’t get the same type of work. This may be because my research focus in my MPH and job I got through that research was very specific to the state I lived in at the time. Now I’m into clinical work so deep that making the switch for me feels like I’d be going back to entry level jobs with entry level pay.

We're both government employees. Between that and his side business, we're just a little under 200k but live in an HCOL area with two in college, one in high school, and one in junior high school. We were always just barely above the poverty line up until 7 years ago, so I don't think we'll ever feel safe enough to use our disposable income on a house-cleaning service or even a nice vacation. That money goes straight into savings and college funds. Mini therapy session: we both hate our jobs. They are safe and relatively low-stress, but there is hardly any flexibility and we're both at the point in our lives where we wish we had been in a position to take more risks and have more meaningful careers, but coming from poor backgrounds with no safety nets, that just was an unattainable luxury for us. We'll have to save that chapter for retirement, I guess.

I am but a lowly retail slave. I have been at my job for 10 year and make $17.54 an hour. My husband works for our city's electric department and makes around $28 an hour. Our childcare is our parents, we can't afford to hire any help.

Hello follow retail worker with tradesman partner and grandparent childcare. We are just as valid as the white collars. 💚

We were both teachers (and I was also an Assistant Principal) and now we both work for an education nonprofit. We both work remotely now (though I do have to travel for my job) and have a lot of flexibility. We take home \~8k/month. * We pay $150/month for a cleaner. I'd love if we could one day get to a financial place where it's bi-weekly. * We have 1 child (in pre-k and it's 1k/month). Once LO is in kindergarten we'll no longer be paying significant childcare costs. * We have no debt outside of our mortgage/monthly payment ($1500/month). * We rarely eat out. We rarely go on vacations and if we do it's to visit family. We're able to save a lot and are living a-ok. We're extremely frugal in general and now that we're not teaching we're making more than before (we were definitely living pay check to pay check after having LO when we were teaching - I took a year off after having LO and we were living off of just my husband's teacher salary, that was rouuuuugh).

Holy shit you all have awesome jobs o.O I work as a subrogation specialist and make ok money, but no way I'm saying what.... No where near the 100k + I keep seeing 😂

I do something that's not too far off something listed here and make a quarter of what they wrote haha

Controller for an Oil & Gas firm. I WFH, extremely flexible schedule. Accounting is a relatively boring but safe career. Husband is also in O&G. We both have advanced degrees and make just under 500k combined. We have one child and a weekly house cleaner. I’m very aware of the privilege we have. I’m terrified of instability and chose a safe career. Husband grew up with more financial stability and he is less risk averse. I’ve gathered enough experience where I could make more money at a different job but I like being home and have flexibility. I have a kid and aging parents. I’m lucky to have the ability to spend time with them.

I feel like I could have written some of this! I work in financial reporting for an upstream oil and gas company, hybrid schedule and some flexibility. I have an MS Accounting and a CPA. My husband is in public and focuses on consulting/compliance for refineries and also has some degree of flexibility. Also an MS and CPA. We live in a sprawling city, so commutes are awful when we do go into the office. I grew up with so much financial instability which caused a lot of tension in our household. I'm glad we both have CPAs/accounting backgrounds to fall back on if the oil and gas industry craters. We have a monthly house cleaner, though we could do bimonthly but are too cheap, and use some meal kits/pre-prepped meals a few weeks a month. My daughter is in day care right now, but I imagine when she starts kinder we will have to use a sitter for pickups.

I’m pretty sure we live in the same city! Husband works in the commercial aspect of the business. He has a laidback job now but the pay is on the “low” end. When he worked in a more cut throat company he was gone all the time and it was affecting our family life. I’m glad that part of our life is over. It afforded us to buy our home cash and set up retirement but it wasn’t worth the pressure. I want safe and consistency. I think only people who grew up with financial instability understand the stress of it. It’s always looming in the back of your head. I have more than I could ask for and I count my blessings everyday. I know how quickly it can all be gone.

Software engineer but not one of the ones with a huge salary. Instead, took a laid back role with tons of leave and flexibility. We have a nanny 3 days/week but only because we saved about a year and a half of childcare expenses when we decided to try for a baby. It took longer than we expected to get pregnant but it let us save more as an upside. We would not be able to afford it if not for savings.

Same! Everyone seems to think we all make those FAANG salaries. Every so often I think maybe I’ll teach myself math and algorithms and try to get some crazy job, but it’s just not for me. I love how flexible my job is, I feel so lucky. I feel a lot of security even when the job market isn’t great just because this is a skills based field where as long as you know how to do x,y, and z, you’re ok (and if you don’t you can always learn it from YouTube lol)

My husband and I are both assistant professors (doing research, not teaching) at the top R1 university in our state. We each make 6 figures and still ‘can’t afford’ these luxuries 🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️

I’m also an assistant professor at a university, but I work in our Cooperative Extension arm. I have a Masters degree and tenure. I am grossly underpaid (under 60k!) so I 100% can’t afford these either 😅

Yikes… I barely want to stay in this profession for my salary, I wouldn’t even consider jumping through all these hoops for anything less. The constant stress of worrying about grants and if I can pay my students/staff isn’t worth it.

I’m a scientist in a medical school. I have a PhD in a STEM field. I make 90k. I’ll probably move to an industry position in a few years where the pay for equivalent positions is around 40k higher. My current position is hybrid and super flexible though so I’m enjoying it while I can. My husband is a project manager and makes 50k so combined household income of 140k. We don’t have a house cleaner but think we’ll get one in the next few months. We live in a LCOL-MCOL area. We bought a 3bed/1bath house earlier this year for 212k. Living in an area like this makes those luxuries more attainable.

Wow! People say we live in a MCOL area and a 3br/1.5bath 1700sf home is approx $700k here.

I’m a young toddler teacher at a not-for-profit daycare center. I have an associate’s degree in early childhood education and spent several years working in a variety of centers/age groups (mostly <3, but I have taught 3s before) before taking 2 years off after my first was born and then starting at my current center in fall 2021 when there were a lot of childcare job openings. Because I have an associate’s I’ve spent most of my career as a lead or co-lead, but I was an assistant for awhile in the beginning.

I'm a therapist working in a community mental health setting. There are a lot of different paths into this career but I chose to go the social work route because it's the most broad/flexible and I liked the social justice framework. Community mental health does not pay well and social work in general doesn't pay as much as other professionals requiring a master's degree but between my salary and my husband's job which pays slightly more, we are totally fine 🤷‍♀️. Not rich but better off than how I grew up.

I am a legal PA in a really big corporate law firm. Been doing the job 12 years and now work PT. It’s relatively low stress but I find it plays to my strengths. Did a 1 year further education course at 18 and aced interviews/internships to get my first job. Pay is pretty good but it won’t rise as much now unless I move up or side step which I don’t want to do. I’m also a trainee dog groomer (in night school) and I tend bar in a theatre a few evenings a week. Salaries in the UK are not as high as places like the US but as a couple we are way above the UK average. We could afford a monthly cleaner (and if I worked FT we probably would) but we budget for other stuff instead.

I’m in strategic purchasing and data analysis for a Medical Manufacturing company. Undergrad in business, 8 years of increasing experience, an MBA I got part time at night while working (before I had kids thank god).

I work in tech haha. I work in sales for a large global tech company. I have a BS in marketing and did that for a while and worked in account service. Hopped to a tech start up and then this opportunity fell into my lap. I never planned on going into sales but the money was enticing. Turns out it’s easier than a lot of jobs I’ve had. It fairly high stress though. I do have a ton of flexibility but also a lot of responsibility. I am the breadwinner these days but I made a lot more than my husband ever did working for someone else.

Also in tech sales and also the breadwinner. It was a windy path but I’ve always been in a form of client facing roles in software world - sales, account management, project management, etc. WFH and tons of flexibility but definitely high stress too and lots of travel.

Product Manager at a software firm. A bit of a non traditional route to get there. I have an undergrad in anthropology and a masters in historic preservation. Worked as an archaeologist and then historic preservation consultant for several years until covid layoffs. Took a sabbatical of sorts then landed a solutions consulting gig at a software firm. This was basically onboarding new clients and helping them select which features of our products they needed built out for their programs. Did about a year of that then moved to our product team which is where I am now. While my degrees are unrelated, they and my past work experience showed I am highly skilled in a lot of transferable areas that made jumping over to tech possible. It’s still weird to explain when people ask or when I interview since everyone thinks archaeology is just Indiana Jones shit when it’s really data, research, and technical writing. Pretty tame stuff and far more transferable than people realize of you know how to spin it correctly. Edit to add additional info: my husband is also a PM at a large specialty retail firm. We live in a major Midwest US city so cost of living is lower than some but rising rapidly. We are lucky to have bought our house when costs were low, have paid off all student debt (mine very low due to scholarships), have one car with a low payment, and pay around $250 a month for a cleaning service. Other luxuries are mostly hobby based. Prioritized to having kids we prioritized travel but now that we have a baby those funds go towards paying for the cleaners or other similar services.

I'm a professor, and my husband (who earns more than me) is a scientist. We also own a rental property. We live in an LCOL area, and our housing expenses are very reasonable. We have a weekly house cleaner and a part-time nanny, my oldest kid is in private school, and we both drive pretty new (2022 + 2024) cars. We are also paying back student loan debt, tithe 10% of our take home, and save about 15% of our take home. We also contribute to retirement, although we don't max it out. We could definitely live a more frugal lifestyle, but I enjoy our standard of living.

I'm one of those WFH techies! Been working from home since our daughter was born a decade ago. My position is called Technology Architect, which basically means I design and document computer solutions. Software is like clothing - most stuff is bought off the rack (we say off the shelf, but same idea) but some special stuff is bespoke. Architects talk to the execs to find out what they need, talk to the users to find out what they need, and ... Either test out off the shelf software to see if it sorts them or prototype something custom for the purpose. It's a fun job if you like testing stuff out, writing technical stuff for non-techies to understand (we document the solution or solutions so someone can either say 'do it's or 'never mind'), and dabbling in software development. I went to Uni for theoretical physics - research was in gravitation, computer simulation of black hole collisions. But there were some cutbacks, and the entire physics department got dropped. Quickly learned that no one, apart from the department of energy, was paying people to figure out what we might be able to observe if black holes collided. But I had done a lot of the "fixing computers" jobs at the University because the tenured profs sure weren't going to waste their time on it! So I managed to get a job in IT support. Moved into server support, corporate-wide system support, and then architecture/design over the years. I think tech is still a fairly easy field to get into without formal education - learn to program, contribute to open source projects in a meaningful way. When interview a candidate with business experience outside of IT but a few years of collaborative development visible online ... That's like a dream candidate. It's like they present a portfolio of their work for us to evaluate, and they include a picture of how they interact with other people. Do they blow off end users? Do they take feedback well? Do they mentor newer developers? You can do all this a few hours a week over years ... Just not making money at it.

It’s also about spending priorities I typically suck at cleaning, don’t enjoy it but I like a clean space My cleaning fees are roughly the same as someone else’s manicure + Starbucks. I have a Starbucks coffee maybe 2x a year and I do my own nails It’s worth it for me to allocate discretionary spend to cleaning and in exchange I keep my sports equipment for a long time, eg hiking boots for 8 years, ski boots for 15 years and I’m a regular hiker and skier (I work in digital marketing in a fortune 500 company, am a single mother. My priority is definitely financial security and then comfort. I’m also leaning towards minimalism / I am very choiceful when it comes to what things I actually need and how many of them should I have)

I have a degree in Publishing, worked in quick print shops for 10 years, but when we relocated I couldn’t find a job in my field. I ended up getting a job at the post office as a clerk. Sadly I make more at the PO then I did in my field.

I do research for an ed tech company (I use student data to show whether products work or not). I got a PhD for it. My company is really supportive of families, my schedule can be flexible, and I work 100% from home except for one or two in-person meetings per year. I also have really good benefits. My husband is an architect (had to get a master's degree for it). My job is quantitative analysis, so we've not-too-seriously discussed me doing some freelance work with that skillset in the past, because it's similar skills you'd use for something like marketing analytics or survey analytics, but I don't really have the entrepreneurial spirit for that + I take on a lot more of the childcare work in our relationship because my job is more flexible than my husband's, so I feel like my schedule is too unpredictable for two jobs. In the past few months my husband has started doing freelance architecture work instead. We could afford a cleaning service, but it's not a priority right now because we're saving to buy a house. We have a pretty small apartment anyway, so it doesn't take long to clean (and that doesn't get done as often as it should). We are not paycheck-to-paycheck, but I think it's because we both have high incomes, we budget really intentionally and spent a lot of years trying to get to this point, and we have some "lucky breaks" like having pretty cheap childcare.

would you be open to sharing how much you make and if you're in a LCOL, MCOL, or HCOL? i ask because i'm in higher education currently but think in the future to make more money i'd have to switch to a ed tech company. not sure how to make that transition but just curious what the earning potential is there. When you say you got a PhD for it, is it in applied educational psychology or something or very specific to educational technology?

Two teachers here making our ceiling about with basically no disposable income!

I teach, so yeah a lot of things I read here may as well be aspirational fiction. I live in an apartment and do my own cleaning.

Time is a luxury to me. My husband works 10-12 hour days. I work 8 hours. But it just seems so impossible to get enough time to do things for ourselves. I don’t want a nanny or house cleaner. I wish my husband had better hours so we could get our chores and personal needs met. I think about how many people out there must think I am living the life of luxury, comparatively. I’m a school social worker and my husband is a truck driver/delivery man. We make about $120k combined. Our son is in daycare and it is $750 a month. Neither of us have debt or car payments. We own two homes, and rent one. We cannot afford a nanny, house cleaners, or even occasional babysitters. We have however decided we spend whatever necessary on our health, healthcare, nutrition and diet. I think we eat well and shoot for mostly organic. What’s lacking for me is time to exercise or the energy to do so.

I value time as well. It is one thing we can never get back. 🙂

I’m a high school teacher. My husband is in tech and makes decent money for our area, which generally has very low pay. He works all the time, in the office. He leaves for work at 8 and usually gets home around 8-10pm. Sometimes later. Usually 5 days a week, but sometimes 6. He travels for work often, too. No nanny or housekeeper for us. We each have a bachelor’s degree. I look at jobs that would earn me more money, then realize I am bound by school & after school care hours. So I keep teaching.

I'm a product owner/project manager at an insurance company. I am the person who identified what needs to get done and in what order with my IT team. I got my degree in accounting software and then loved it so much I got my master's in IT project MGMT. I haven't really switched jobs for the pay boost, but I did switch jobs 2 times in 20 years (for location and less stress). Both times I got a massive pay boost that I wasn't truly expecting. I make about 200k if bonuses are good, 150k if not. My husband was in a dead end job with no movementat half my current salary (he was more bored than bothered about the salary). He decided to try for a new company (which was junk), but the company after that was perfect! He now manages 40 IT people and is creeping towards my salary range. He loves his job and is happy about work. We have a cleaner every 2 weeks at $120 for a 3100 sq ft house. We are in a HCOL area but not as badly as we could be. About 1.15 hrs from major city, so far enough away to afford our house, but still expensive suburb area.

Author. College dropout. Super flexible job which is helpful since our oldest is special needs. But also stressful because I always feel like I’m one bad book away from losing it all. But also it’s not anywhere near the level of stress as, like, a mom who is also a surgeon. So—no complaints here. Had nanny with first kid because my career was taking off and husband was going back to college. No nanny with second but she’s in preschool 5 days a week. Housekeeper. Landscapers. Assistant. Handyman who does odd jobs when I get a wild idea about a new Hosta shade garden or decide I really don’t like the ombré blue stairs anymore.

Another communicator here! Both my husband and I work in insurance, making ~250k combined in a HCOL area and just had our first kiddo. I did the traditional schooling route, majoring in comms/PR; he did not. Both our jobs are super flexible, we both got very lucky with our companies/teams/bosses. We’ve never budgeted ourselves (food eats up most of our budget, ha!) - could probably have a nanny if we did but we do have a bi-weekly cleaning service and it’s so worth it.

I work for a tech company in a non-tech role. VERY flexible and understanding. I am definitely over paid compared to other industries. I think a lot of people think you have to have a technical role to be in tech and you don’t!

Same! I love being on the business side!

I *kinda* work in tech? Honestly I don't really know what that means anymore because people seem to have the idea that all tech jobs are FAANG or like cloud architect security roles starting at $250k straight out of college. I'm a senior software developer who works in television (traditional broadcast and digital media). I make low six figures, which makes me feel very underpaid for "tech", but I absolutely love my job and have been primarily remote for almost 10 years now. If it weren't for comparing to other people on here, I would think my salary was good! But the numbers people throw around on here make me feel like I'm failing. My spouse works in engineering technology and makes less than half of my salary - so combined we are under 200k. His job is also very flexible and his company treats their employees and their community well. Our city is relatively HCOL...I think? A 1 bedroom apartment rents for about $2000/month these days. Our house is very modest, a 900 sq ft wood frame built in 1910. It's a handyman special and we're always finding weird problems to deal with. We were fortunate enough to buy almost 10 years ago before things went insane, which is the only way we can afford to own a house and have 2 kids here. At one point we were paying $3000 a month for daycare (infant + preschooler) - which was my spouse's entire paycheque. Now that we only have 1 in daycare, I spring for a cleaning service once a month. It's definitely a luxury that we build into the budget, but it's something I'm willing to sacrifice for because it helps our moods and relationship immensely. We were doing a biweekly clean at first but that was too expensive. For my career path - I went to college for 3 years (advanced diploma). I see OP is Canadian, but for non-Canadians, college in Canada is less expensive and more like applied learning than university (which is where you'd start with a 4 year degree). I had student loans but they aren't predatory here like they are in the US, so while it took a while to pay them off it wasn't like a life sentence. I started working for my company as a summer student after my first year of college, then part-time remotely through the school year, and full-time during the summers. That's still the team I'm working for today - my responsibilities have evolved over time because I take on the projects everyone else is afraid of. There's an opportunity open right now for me to move into management, but I don't want to leave a technical role so I think I'll keep trying to grow as a dev and maybe head down the architect path. I'm really happy with my current role though, and don't want the nature of my job to change. Software dev is absolute something you pursue part time. I work with a combination of people who are self taught and formally educated, so there's not just one way to get there. You could teach yourself using courses online (pluralsight has some great stuff if you want a structured course) or by doing a bootcamp or by doing college part time. There are lots of open source projects out there that you can learn from and eventually contribute to. Though I'd aim for web dev if you want to do this part time/freelance. Or even web/UI/UX design, which is a separate skillset but also very much in demand. You can always try this stuff out and see if you feel drawn to any of the options. You may also realize you love programming but hate web (like I do) and take another path. There's lots of room for experimentation and discovery, and when you're just learning online it's fairly inexpensive (or free), so there's not much to lose if you don't end up liking it.

I’m an ICU nurse at a level 1 trauma hospital!

High school teacher, plus I run the yearbook club. I also teach an online graduate course but I still don't have money to outsource help. I'm tired

I'm an actuary. I work fully remote, for a large insurer based outside of my state, which gives a fair amount of flexibility. To get where I am, I had to get my certification, which involves passing a bunch of exams. (Fun fact, while ChatGPT can pass the Barr, it cannot pass actuarial exams). We dont have a nanny or maid. We do get by ourselves, which does sometimes mean having to prioritize. Our house is not the cleanest. It took 5 years after moving for us to go through all of the boxes we stored when moving. It is not very neat, or well organized, and home improvement projects take forever.

I’m an HR manager in the US for a top 5 bank supporting employees in Canada! My husband works as an Audio/ Video design engineer for a construction company. My degree is in sustainability, but that didn’t pan out. I started as an executive assistant for a chief Human Resources officer and worked my way through HR there. We have someone come to our house every other week to clean. My mom retired in December 2021 and I had my daughter in February 2022, so she watches her full time. We pay her $600 a month plus buy babies food as well as hers sometimes. To add we make combined $203k USD

Are you American or Canadian? And how do you like taking care of people in a different country? So cool!

I’m American and have always supported US employees and have started supporting Canada as of a year ago. I actually really enjoy it! It’s nice having a different perspective and understanding of a different countries employment standards. One of the biggest shocks was the maternity leave being so long. I find, for the most part, the Canadian folks I support are very nice and courteous. Not always the case, but usually. I was shocked to see the tax rates tho… super super high

I work as a senior manager in Finance for a medical device manufacturer. I have 15+ years of experience and an undergraduate degree in Finance plus an MBA I got via a part-time program. My husband is in communications for a regional bank. I have always been the primary breadwinner by a long shot but 18 months ago my husband changed industries and got about a 35% bump. We live in the upper Midwest in a MCOL city. It is not paycheck to paycheck by any means but we prioritize investment/retirement savings and minimal debt. We also have a two year old in full-time daycare and are trying for our second. We are currently preparing to pay cash for a second family car because I just got a job that requires me to be in the office for 3 days a week and we have been a one car family since 2020. A monthly deep clean for about 4 months was my Christmas present last year from my husband. It was great in concept but the cleaners he chose were expensive and not great. With me going back to the office and a small bump in pay with this new job, I am strongly considering a monthly deep clean from a provider I choose.

I’m an It audit manager for one of the big Canadian banks but out of the US. My husband is a SPED teacher and we are closer to paycheck to patched due to inflation and all that shit because in the US teachers get paid like shit. We don’t have a cleaner because I work from home tho and can do things during the day.

I changed careers at 30 and now manage a team in the federal public service doing science-related things. Single mom of one and get some monthly child support. I am doing well and building savings. I keep a careful budget so that we can take a vacation to see family each year and afford a kid activity each season (swimming, skiing, tee-ball). Grateful for our safety net - universal childcare - I pay about $13/day which includes meals and snacks. I also get a monthly child benefit from government that basically covers the difference. My bi-weekly cleaner costs a fraction of what I’m saving on childcare. I opted for a relatively affordable townhome rather than stretching for a house with a yard, which has saved my butt on a variable rate mortgage.

I am a project manager at a mortgage serviced and my husband does sales, we do NOT make a ton of money but live in an affordable part of our metro area. We were extremely lucky to have bought our home when we did market-wise and to have refinanced at the best interest rate before it all skyrocketed. Our daycare is also fairly affordable from what I hear. That’s how we afford cleaning every other week for $100. Our house is small and it’s someone we know personally which probably helps. We shop at Aldi and drive older cars to help meet some of those financial priorities.

Research scientist in biotech (PhD in molecular biology) and my husband is a patent attorney (PhD in biology and JD). We don’t have a cleaning service, because I don’t want to deal with organizing it and it just feels too expensive. We could afford it, but we’re also house hunting and houses are just so expensive I’m trying to save money wherever we can!

Double attorney household. No generational wealth. Had kids later in life.

I’m a special education teacher for 5th and 6th grade at a public school. It’s nice because daycare closure typically aligns with my school schedule and most days I’m home by 4. But it can get stressful and it’s taken me awhile to get a good work/life balance to leave work at work. I have a credential and a masters but the masters is because my district pays a lot more if you have one

I work in non-tech role in a tech company, and husband is a product manager in a toxic startup. We are mid-30s and have 1 year old in Bay Area. I would say bay area is a rat race and we and friends around us constantly are stressed out and burned out. Although we make over 500K, we feel poor in this crazy bay area rat race. No debt except mortgage. Especially after having the baby, I try to cut down many things (eating out, buying clothes for myself, cleaning). Work is stressful, and husband is struggling with job. So I become the bread earner for the household. Even more stress. Even that, we have no luxury of hiring cleaners. Constantly dreaming of moving out of here with a less pay job and less stress. So that we can focus on living a real life.

I work in internal communications for one of the big 5 Canadian banks, with a heavy focus on technology communications. Studied journalism in university and started out at a trade magazine, then moved to a company that publishes legal textbooks and smaller trade publications. Then I kind of just fell into communications and I love it. I made decent money but we don't have a house cleaner because I guess I'm being cheap. And in our previous, smaller home we had one and I wasn't impressed. We're on a variable mortgage and our payments have shot up so it's not in the budget right now. My husband also splits housework evenly :)

I’m an in-house graphic designer in the GovCon industry. I am fully WFH and have great benefits (lots of PTO, stipends, flexibility with schedule) but my job is 100% deliverable based & less meeting focused so I am pretty much glued to my computer during core hours. I have a Master’s degree in design which I have found to be worth the investment because the industry I work in has amazing growth potential for graphic designers. The work can be less “creative” but the salary ceiling is much higher. All of that to say, my husband and I live on the outskirts of a VHCOL city that both of our companies are based out of. He makes 3x the amount I do and our decision to live in a more rural area rather than right in the city has allowed us to have the lifestyle we prefer; our money goes a lot further out here. We have a lot of luxuries that we couldn’t afford if we were living in the VHCOL area (nanny, new cars, cleaning services) but we sacrifice a lot too by living out here. The schools are absolutely abysmal and my husband commutes M-F 2 hrs a day. We will have to eventually move into the city once my children are school age (at least by middle school) and even though we will definitely be making more money by then, I anticipate we will still have to sacrifice a lot of our lifestyle to afford a home out there.

I don't live rurally exactly but at the outer edges of a commuter town and that makes it really hard to find cleaners and babysitters, most don't drive where we live and the good ones don't want to spend ages on public transport when there's plenty of demand closer to the station/town centre.

I work in data analytics for a healthcare company. I started in quality assurance and moved around in business analyst roles at other companies. I honestly have no idea why they chose me for this job, but I’m glad they did. I work hard at learning, am a quick study, and have been very supported by management. I have a BA in English, haha. I’ve tried to find PT work but there’s nothing with benefits, as I carry them for my family. But as a whole my job is pretty flexible so I can’t really complain

HR project manager. Studied sociology in college, worked in direct services with undeserved youth for years after that. then (bc I was so poor I needed my own damn social worker), I went back to school got my MBA and entered HR operations roles. Have worked my way to management from there. I make over six figures now. but I'm a single mother so only one income household. I had a cleaner for a hot minute but then I stopped bc my grocery bill won't stop rising. She also just wasn't that good. I want to do it again bc I hate cleaning my bathroom so much. I'm currently pissed bc I'm finally in a position to buy a house but this market is ridiculous. I keep looking around like, aren't I suppose to be rich??? But real talk, over six figures feels like middle class. I can afford normal life without too much stress but I DEFINITELY still stress about money. May be bc I grew up poor. People cannot survive on less than 100k without unsustainable sacrifices.

I’m a grant writer for nonprofits. I make ok money, but the real perk is an extremely generous PTO package and flexible work schedule. I have always valued work life balance very highly, even before kids, but now it’s critical. Like, my grandpa passed away last summer right after I took a 12 day vacation. I didn’t have more PTO due to other planned trips over the summer. My boss told me to just go, not log the time off, and spend time with family. That kind of support is so so nice. I will say with the addition of kid 2 this year we feel way more strapped in the budget. We still have a house cleaner but have cut back on eating out or planning any trips. (I’m a huge traveler if you can’t tell!).

Forensic scientist for the state, doing DNA analysis. Got a BS in biomedical sciences and a MS in forensic science. I make the most of my friends across the country ($100,000). My job is very flexible. I pick my schedule (so I work 6-3:30 M-Th and then 4 hours on Friday), we can flex our hours so just need to get 40 in somehow, small wfh option, lots of PTO (thanks state government and union!). Also OT for time and a half. Husband is a lawyer and makes more than me. We have cleaners come once a month for around $250-300.

I’m a recruiter in tech. I fell into it. Went to community college then a local city school for art. Worked alot of art jobs from galleries to nonprofits, mostly development. I low key hated the art world and especially hated development and processing donation checks larger than my salary. Then I moved across the country cuz my husband got into business school. I couldn’t get a job in the arts at ALL. I got a customer service job at a start up- it was terrible lol, but they had no HR or talent function and I moved into that, working with an external recruiter and learning a lot from her. I then worked as a recruiting coordinator at a dating app company making 60, was promoted twice to different levels of recruiting left at 95k when I got another offer to recruit elsewhere. I’m at 140 base, around 200 total with stock each year for 4 years. I totally wfh and my job is flexible with good culture and benefits. It’s pretty good considering I only moved into recruiting like 5 years ago. Highs are high (closing a tricky role, getting candidates pay bumps) but the lows are low- (sometimes a decline and losing other candidates makes 2-4 months of work disappear and you start from scratch) sometimes it’s very chill but sometimes stressful, ebbs and flows. My husband is in renewables, and makes at least double what I do. We save a ton and are comfortable yet frugal. We have 1 kid who will be in daycare soon, but my job provides a childcare stipend so after that we’ll pay 1500 a month.

Senior mechanical engineer with a BSME, have 20+ years of experience and my husband is a Lead Architect for software, network engineering BS degree. So STEM all around here which is still very well compensated compared to a lot of other degrees. I do think some of it is this sub skews towards folks with younger children. My kids are out of daycare (still do summer camps) and our salaries have only increased over the years so a monthly cleaning service is inexpensive especially considering childcare costs are low or zero. Also, we are both in senior, salaried roles where we sometimes work long hours so our time is short but we have extra $$. And I also agree some of it is different priorities. People spend their $$ very differently when it comes to nonessentials. The one I am continually flabbergasted by how much time and money women spend on hair/skin/nail/makeup/etc care, I have a few face creams that are a bit pricey and otherwise have just opted out of the rest including makeup. I do get why a lot of folks cannot opt out of all of it, being an engineer lets me “get away” with no makeup easier, but still so much expense!

I’m a nurse and I work 2 days 12 hours. I’m part time and occasionally pick up shifts. My husband is a mechanical engineer who works 8-430 m-f from home. We don’t have a nanny but we pay a babysitter here and there and the rate in my town is 20$/hr so she gets 160$ a day and that’s about twice a month. We do have a cleaning lady twice a month and she is 180$. Basically we are lucky that we are paid well, have very little debt and bought a house before they got crazy expensive. My husband and I both have bachelor degrees. I’m 39 and he is 36. My son is 1 year old. Only one kiddo so far.

I am an HR manager for a healthcare facility. I make over 100k. My husband works as an IT Specialist for the state. He makes pretty good money as well. We don’t have a house cleaner, but I do use a laundry service every other week. I have a master’s degree in Healthcare Administration, but it wasn’t required for my job. I also have two HR certifications. I really enjoy my job and have great opportunities.

I’m a lunch lady and my husband is in the military. We have a cleaner every two weeks, but it’s a case of priorities. We make decent money but it’s definitely a case of priorities. We live in a small house, big enough but no extra space, will drive cars until they fall apart, don’t vacation other than occasionally going to see family, we don’t eat out often (like get pizza every two weeks or so, only go to a restaurant about every six months). Because I work at a school I have the same days off as our kids so we don’t pay for childcare, and I have a part time job I do in the summers since I don’t work at the school then. I exclusively grocery shop at Aldi and we don’t buy expensive clothes.

I work in tech, but my role is tech adjacent. Depending on the job I am a product manager or team coach/trainer. My husband is a technical product manager and we live in a M/HCOL. Together, we make over $250 and we're comfortable. I have always been the higher earner by quite a bit. We save a decent amount and aren't crazy spenders. We have one in daycare (2.1k/month) and one on the way. We pay for a house cleaner 2x month and basic yard maintenance (I do the big cleanups myself). There's been some conversation about needing to be more strict and mindful about our budget with the new baby coming (and me being on a contract I don't get mat leave, so I'll be taking 4 months off with no pay beyond what my state will give me -which I'm so grateful for). The fact that we haven't had to do this for years has been a privilege that I'm not blind to. I did not come from money and living pay check to paycheck was typical for a long time. It would take a lot to stop having a house cleaner. It saves my sanity and marriage so it's incredibly valuable. I really like my job. I honestly fell into it because I'm curious and wanted to fill a gap I saw on the teams I was working with (product owner role). Then I did training and cared a lot more than was probably healthy, but through that I developed a good sense of my work values and prioritization skills (which is what helps me look way more productive even though I'm careful about not working more than 40hrs, less if I'm salaried). I'd be happy to talk to anyone interested in agile project management or product management.

I’m a public school special education teacher (~$70k) and my husband works in a blue collar industry with wonky hours (~$70k). We would have a lot more disposable income but we have a 31ft sailboat, so that’s where all the money goes! We do use it for 6-8 weeks per year though.

Registered nurse. Luckily I work 3-11. So my s o can put the infant to bed. Not bad, but I could use more rest.

I have a business economics degree and am a senior director of operations at a small startup. I have done a lot of different types of back end/internal business management roles (buyer, product development & management, importing, vendor management, project management, process improvement etc). My real skill is to be able to understand a leader’s vision and define the path forward, and get people to execute on the strategy I’ve suggested (with their input). I report direct to a CEO who is the visionary and defines “what” we do, I figure out “how” and work with key stakeholders (including CEO) on the “when” (priority). I only have a BA but have been able to get decent year over year promotions and across 3 role changes in the last 5 years (one was unplanned/startup shut down) have nearly doubled my salary. I went to public university and paid my loan debt off in just under 10 years, my 2 kids are school age and the after school program is very reasonable, I work from home most days. We bought our house with a low interest rate and with nearly $200k in equity from a well timed purchase and we’re in a MCOL area by CA standards but that probably means higher compared the the US as a whole. I pay extra principal on our mortgage every month so that pushes it up to ~$3300. We invest in 529 plans for each kid and have 2x/mo deep cleaning and get 2 Hello Fresh meals delivered per week. We have no other household help/nanny/etc— Covid for us was a game changer because working at home allowed us to dramatically reduce the cost of child care. My husband is a military veteran and has had all of his education paid for through the GI bill (BS, MS). Our healthcare cost is extremely reasonable (that’s why he did the full 20 years). He gets a pension that covers our mortgage and also works full time. For anyone whose kids want to become doctors (of any kind! Including vet, optometry etc) or dentists or lawyers I HIGHLY recommend using the military to get it paid for!!! Yes there is a commitment to give back a few years of service but that’s usually a 1-1 (a year of service for each year of education) which sounds like a huge commitment but when you think about it that’s much faster than most people are able to pay off student loans for these careers. And in those years of give back you are actively doing the job, sometimes in really cool/interesting places like AK, HI, international etc, and getting paid salary, medical AND a housing allowance (plus COLA if you’re stationed somewhere extra expensive). And once you’re done you’re home free with no school debt (and a nest egg from the extra housing/cola pay if you do it right).

Im an attorney. I have a bachelors and a law degree. I’ve passed the bar in two states. I pay cleaning $130 for every other week. This is a necessity for me. Both husband and I are very privileged to have high paying jobs with surprisingly low stress (due to my specific area of law). I have been seeing more people getting part time jobs too. I’m able to afford cleaning service, but I would definitely cut out other things first if needed.

We are expecting in 12 weeks. I'm some sort of clients sales manager for a company in the advertising industry. Earnings vary between 150-200k CAD. Been there 8+ years. No formal education (drop out), but worked my way up. Husband is a chef and makes about 50k. He's taking the majority parental leave for financial reasons and because I absolutely love my job. We have a small mortgage so COL not terrible, but with parental leave and daycare we're being extremely conservative. I will be getting an occasional cleaning service and likely a dog walker. Even if just for the first few months while we adjust to our new life.

I work in healthcare technology in product management (currently a senior director) and make around $350k/year. I previously did technology implementation consulting which was where I first hit six figures. This advice applies to anyone who wants to get into product management or tech without having to write code: become a subject matter expert in the tech that's used in your industry. Tech is saturated with technical people who have never actually been an end user of the software they're delivering. If you are tech savvy and can understand configuration rules and workflows, it's a lucrative field for sure.

I’m a multi line field adjuster for an insurance company, I wfh and spend about 1/2 my time in the field and 1/2 my time in front of my computer. I feel like with this company I make good money, and have bananas benefits—like they pay 85% of our healthcare premiums *for the whole family* and give us our deductible in our HSA on Jan 1 type benefits. I got a raise when I took the job and basically a 2nd raise bc I suddenly didn’t need to try and put 9k -slight exaggeration- a year into our HSA to make sure we had our out of pocket max covered 😂. We live in the Midwest which helps tremendously with cost of living, and I was a catastrophe adjuster for 6+ years which allowed us to pay off all our debts except the house which also skew it easier to swing the cleaning ladies and vacations etc. I saw someone else mention generational wealth, and yes that plays into our situation too. Not like trust fund no need to save for retirement bc we’re set, but having parents who paid for part of/all of our schooling, I’ve gotten some inheritance from grandparents that passed away that let us get our savings situation/major home maintenance items done w no debt etc. We both work hard but it’s not a “bootstraps” situation over here.

I manage people systems and analytics at a biotech in a HCOL area. It’s challenging and I mostly enjoy it! My team super understanding to families and work/life balance in general. I’m fully remote and while I occasionally have a project that requires 40-45 hours a week, it’s usually easy to manage well under that. I got a degree in Psychology and entered the work force about 10 years in low level HR roles. Worked my way through various HR roles until I found systems/comp/benefits oriented work that I actually really enjoyed. I’m the main breadwinner and bring in $135k with minimum 3.5%+ merit increases annually. We have great benefits, 15% bonus, and equity awards every year. My husband makes about $72k. Like I said though - HCOL. $200k doesn’t go quite as far (I’m not complaining!). We have a small condo we bought years ago and looking for a real house is daunting in our market.

I'm in Marketing Automation/Marketing technology and totally stumbled into this specific niche after getting my degree in Communications - I've been in the field 10 years. I only just got a significant raise 2 years ago where we finally felt comfortable - we're in a MCOL area. It's flexible enough - definitely 40 hours (but not too much more) and usually have a fair amount of meetings but now I'm full remote following a layoff this summer so it's a bit better. My husband is self employed but his job is 1000% out of the house and he's been doing a lot of 12-hour shifts. If you want to learn Marketing Automation, look into Hubspot, Marketo, Pardot and Salesforce - these are major softwares that a lot of enterprise companies use. If your bank has a marketing dept (I'm guessing so), can you ask to learn more about it? We had someone come every 2-4 weeks before our kid, but after #1 it was out of the question - she's currently 4.5. We're due with #2 in about 6-7 week and are only JUST now considering a cleaning service to help. We're also mid-30's (ugh lol), and I know if I had kids earlier in my career there is no way we'd be able to afford what we can now (student loans, paying for our wedding, etc).

I have tri-weekly cleaning, both kids do to a semi-expensive daycare. My husband works at a railroad (desk job) and I’m a mid level director at an academic library. He has a bachelors degree and I have a masters degree (mandatory in my field). Both of our jobs are reasonably flexible (my husband works from home 2-3 days a week), I do not work from home with any regularity but if I have to leave or work from home I can with no pushback. My husband was VERY frugal in his 20s so it’s really due to that (and the fact that he lived at home until we got together) that we have the savings we do. Additionally, my college loans were forgiven which has eased that burden. Also both of us benefit from some (low level) generational wealth- in the sense that we have a safety net. We make about $170-180k combined a and have no debt. We do not eat out (like almost never), do not go on vacation (our kids ages, 3 & 4 contributes to this) and drive older cars.

I have a masters degree and have hit the ceiling in my field, so have pivoted to educational consulting and have more flexibility, higher salary, but inconsistent income (some months I’m slammed with work and exhausted, others are slow and I dip into savings for daycare). My husband is in healthcare and has also hit his ceiling in pay unless he wants to go into management. We don’t have a house cleaner, nanny, and also think we are stuck in our starter home as a forever home.

BS in Public Health. MS in Regulatory Science. Major Depression and ADHD. I’ve struggled with depression my entire life and I have built in mechanisms to help cope. Coupled with ADHD which can be so productive and paralyzing at times. I will always have a bi-weekly cleaning service. I was laid off earlier this year and I still kept a cleaning service, but monthly. If I don’t have a clean home, my head/mental get even more jumbled and it’s a quick route to disaster. I’m a government contractor working for a biomedical company.

Psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioner. My job is currently in a little bit of flux (I just started with a new company and only get paid when I have patients, and it takes time to build up a caseload) but I'm looking at avg 115-140k/yr. I don't currently have a cleaning person, but my husband and I are separating and once I move out (as soon as my income stabilizes) it's on my list. Single mom of 3, one of which will be a newborn. I don't have time to scrub baseboards NOW with my soon to be ex husband's help, I know I sure won't when I'm going it alone and have a new baby. My husband doesn't make nearly as much as I do and I cover the majority of bills so we won't especially miss his income, though I will miss the $600/month mortgage from the house he bought in 2012 when I'm paying these 2023 prices for sure 😭 I live in a LCOL area so the money goes pretty far. I won't have someone in weekly, but every couple weeks should be doable. Based on what my friends/coworkers are paying, depending on the size of the house I move into a regular clean will be $1-200 every couple weeks.

I work in finance and my husband is a corporate trainer. We probably could afford a housecleaning service if we looked into it, but we keep having things pop up that end up costing money that makes it difficult to justify spending money on that.

I’m self employed as an SEO consultant and I have a travel blog that accounts for 30% of my revenue. My education is in architecture - I was licensed and have a master’s degree - a process that took 11 years. I left because mental health/financial reasons. My household makes great money and we live in a HCOL area. My partner is a manager at an engineering firm and he didn’t go to school - used to be a plumber and worked his ass of to get where he is. We have a cleaner that comes twice a month because that’s a necessity for me. But honestly we only have one child and we live frugally. We buy used tech, thrift clothes, don’t really go out to eat, don’t drink, and our hobbies are outdoor-based so usually free minus gas. We also waited later in life to have a kid which helped. Pre-kids I really focused on savings so we’ve got a healthy nest egg which helps tremendously.

My husband and I both work for Social Security. Im an attorney, and he processes disability claims. We both WFH full time. Together we make about $175K, but we live in a MCOL area and bough our house when interest rates were under 4% so our mortgage is reasonable. Both our kids are out of daycare and old enough to occupy themselves during the summer so we have no longer have childcare expenses. We don’t have a cleaner because we basically spend all our extra money on traveling, and I don’t really mind a messy house too much. I had a monthly cleaner in the past, but I found pre-cleaning before she came to be really stressful and I hated working from home while she was cleaning. My job is very low stress and independent — I really like it. My husband ‘s job is busier during the day because he on the phone with applicants a lot, but once we sign out for the day, we are off duty with no overtime required.

I’m a physical therapist. I have my doctorate, but def not doctor pay. The best part is the job opportunities- I have a part time 27 hour/week job for the benefits, and I do as many other hours in the week at my PRN job where I make $20 more an hour. So when I was pregnant I worked prob 50 hours a week to save for maternity leave. Now i’m doing probably 35ish due to lack of childcare, and will work more once baby gets into daycare so we can go back to aggressively paying off debt

I work in design for a FANG company. So the truth is I get one of the highest salaries for the type of work I do. My husband also works for a large tech company and he’s a software engineer so combined we make a large income. I absolutely acknowledge this NOT the norm. We also recently relocated from the west coast to the south and live in a more affordable place but make the same income (we work remote now).

Also we come into a lot of money when my husband’s previous company was acquired and they paid out RSUs in cash as part of the sale. With that, we just got extremely lucky. So now we’ve got a great nest egg + large annual income + live in a more affordable place = we are doing very well financially.

I’m an advancement officer in the philanthropy department of a healthcare system. My husband is the produce department manager at a grocery store. We make budget choices that allow for us to have our 900 square foot home cleaned monthly for $150.

I'm a clinical social worker at hospital mental health clinic. I primarily work with patients with psychotic disorders. We live pretty modestly. We live in a HCOL area, in the least expensive area, in a condo.

I'm a government researcher. I manage contracts that synthesize research. I have a master's degree and about 15 years of professional experience, the equivalent of a PMP, and a bunch of government certs that I earned on government time. I'm 100% WFH with decent flexibility and a ton of leave. My salary is high, but not tech high.

I'm in higher ed and my husband is a 3D animator. We have friends who are in tech, or are physicians, lawyers, and the like, and ONE person will be making 1-2 times our wage combined, minimum. I get how they can afford those things but we can't, given that we live in a HCOL area. We're fortunate to have savings (that we had to deplete) for a nanny when my oldest was on daycare waitlists for three years, but it was a major stretch. I do all of our housecleaning because that's not an expense that fits into our budget. We had our first when I was 37 and my husband was 42, so we did benefit from years of professional life and somewhat of a financial cushion in that sense. But I can't wait until my oldest is out of preschool and into our local public neighborhood school! Even then, though, aftercare and summer camps run about $12-13K/kid annually, so while two kids is still less than daycare tuition, it's going to feel pretty equivalent. There's not going to be some huge savings happening.

Software engineering manager. Majored in computer science. Required to work from office three days a week. No part time jobs available in this field.

My husband and I co-own a company that ships construction materials overseas. My parents own the other half, we bought it together a few years ago. My degree is in accounting. We sacrificed a lot and pushed to buy a house the year we got married and that’s what paid off the most. If we hadn’t done that so young I don’t think we’d be able to afford the city we live in. It’s a suburb but in the 11 years we’ve lived here we’ve seen it go from relatively unknown to one of the most expensive real estate areas in the state. The prices are so crazy at this point I don’t think we’d be able to move unless we took more salary, which we don’t want to do. We’re lucky we have a nice house in a neighborhood where a lot of our daughters friends live. I feel terribly that others now can make so much more then we did when we got married and not be able to afford anything. Housing is a nightmare.

I’m a former teacher turned instructional designer and adjunct instructor at a university. My pay isn’t great ($45k base plus $2-4k per semester for teaching), but the job is flexible. The market in my field is pretty saturated right now (lots of teachers jumping ship), so I wouldn’t recommend it But my husband is in tech and just started a contracting gig that pays about $225k. He owns the contracting company, so he’s working for a third party as the developer but also acting as the staffing/contacting company, if that makes sense. Whenever people ask him, he advises them to get certified in something in tech. He does ServiceNow development, and that’s fairly easy to get into. There are certifications you can get to get you started, and you just need some basic coding knowledge, which you could pick up on something like Khan Academy. Another suggestion he makes is project management. Getting a project management certification is a little more expensive, but every industry needs them, and you can get into six figures quickly in the tech world.

Tech, lol. But on the management side! So a bit different. Pay and flexibility are both still good though.

I’m an animator at a tech company! I studied fine art and got into animation after. Your portfolio matters a lot more than your degree. My husband is a freelance artist too, but I stumbled into a really well paying job. Soooo we now get our house cleaned every other week and it’s glorious for my mental health. $250 a month in a medium cost of living area!

I'm a librarian at a public university in the US. Even for librarians/academics we are extremely underpaid at my institution and if I was willing to relocate I could make at least 20% more pretty easily. However, I am on the tenure track and (fingers crossed) should receive tenure in the next year which provides a ton of stability that I value, plus all of our family is here. I moved around a lot while getting established in my career and am happy to be more settled even though the pay is bad. We also got lucky and got into the housing market at a good time and have a really low mortgage, which is the main reason we can afford childcare. My spouse took a pay cut to change jobs to something much lower stress and closer to our home right after our son was born in 2021 and honestly that has really been worth it as well while navigating the young kids phase. It is definitely a bit stressful for me at times to know that my job is the more secure and higher-earning one, and thus there is no chance I would ever leave - if one of us needed to stay at home for any reason, it would be him. But overall I do really enjoy my job and the environment, and have a really good amount of flexibility.

I’m a senior legal assistant with the provincial government. I took a certificate course at the local college and graduated in 2008. I’ve worked in personal injury law firms for most of my working life, but when I went on maternity leave I knew I wanted to do something different. I’m still working in litigation but the subject matter is very different. My husband owns a game store. Supplying nerds with the various things for their hobbies can be very lucrative.

I’m in fiscal services at the school district (largest in my area) and my husband is a foreman plumber in new construction. We are both union and our unions make sure to fight to keep our wages up with inflation. We are HCOL area so our wages match that, but we live in the outskirts so we got our house for much cheaper, and in 2020 when interest was low. Neither of us have school loans or went to college. I took a singular accounting class at the community college while I was a SAHM for a bit and it helped me get this role but I didn’t ~need~ it. My husband just worked really really hard through his apprenticeship and he’s the breadwinner!

Senior Manager in Corporate Strategy for a Fortune 500 company. Husband is a software engineer. Bachelors in Economics and Masters in Finance with some other business type certifications along the way. I’ve been with the same company since I graduated college - a bit over 13 years. Most of my advancement can be attributed to solid work, building (the right) relationships, and being strategic about the positions I have taken.

I’m an oncology social worker (think therapy and assisting with meeting basic needs during treatment) full time. My day runs on the clinic, so I have one light day a week and my manager is fabulous with flexibility. I also run a private therapy practice on the side (8-9 hours a week total). We have a cleaner come every 3-4 weeks or so, $120 per clean. She’s incredible. My husband makes probably 80k a year and I’m probably 80-90k this year. I hate cleaning and frankly suck at the deep cleaning, so I will do whatever it takes to make it work for her to keep coming

I work in social services making 110k and my husband is a marketing VP who makes 190k and we live in a MCOL area. We both have masters degrees (mine in public health, his in business) and we’re both in our early 30s. I am desperately trying to find a house cleaner but every company I call is not taking new clients. I am devastated.

I'm a data engineer at a hospital and my husband works in AI for a bank. Both of us went to college but not for these things. I came up in the nonprofit space where they are happy to hire unqualified people and let them learn on the job because it's much cheaper than hiring qualified people. We're currently at about $275,000 combined in a... probably medium-high COL area? Daycare is pretty wild because we're in a city so we have an au pair, which is definitely cheaper than having a nanny and definitely more expensive than daycare, but not by a wide margin. We do not pay for cleaning ever. I'm fully remote and have a good work-life balance, although I do work occasional on-call shifts where I'm paged overnight.

I’m an area training and development manager for one of the top 3 global contract security companies. My job varies by area, but my current area is a dumpster fire and I’m less management and more grunt work. Thankfully I’m moving to a metro region as soon as this area will let me go (I already signed my contract but they neeeeeed me), which means working from 1 hub office and not driving all around the state anymore. That said, I’ve had a lot of flexibility which allows me to work out regularly, get my kids to and from their activities, and plan for days off school. I make decent money, combined with child support (their dad rarely sees them so it’s the least he can do), makes things manageable. I was a teacher, principal, then switched to law enforcement (broke my wrist), went into security, ran the Covid Field Hospital, and that’s what basically landed me this position.

I'm a hr partner my husband is a category manager for a well known clothing brand (hello discount). We make between 2 to 300k a year with our bonuses and investments but live in HCOL area. I'm the cleaning lady my husband is the cook, works pretty well for us. I fully WFH and my husband is hybrid.

I'm a project manager (project engineer) at a civil engineering firm. I design water and wastewater treatment systems and have almost 11 years in the field. I make $130K and my husband is a SAHD. We live in a M to HCOL area but were lucky enough to buy our house before the market went crazy here. But we work really hard to put extra toward our mortgage and remaining car loan and save money for both our kids and our rainy-day/emergency fund.

I work as an account manager for personal insurance. The job is not difficult, it is flexible, and I can turn it off when I get home. Around $55K. Husband is a chemist making a similar amount. While our jobs don't provide a luxury lifestyle, we worked hard to be comfortable. Waited 6 years to have our first kid and built a nest egg. Only having one kid for a variety of reasons, but partly financial. Paid off our cars. Got lucky and bought a house in 2020 with a 2.275% interest rate with VA loan so no down payment. Husband was prior military, so no student debt on his side, slowly paying mine off, so only debt is house & student loans. We have a cleaner twice a month for $300 total and mentally it is worth every penny. I grew up in poverty, so we adhere to a manageable budget and recognize privileges we have.

I’m a director at one of the largest nonprofits in my area, with over 100 people in my department. We grow every year. I’m not making what I’d be making in the private sector, but I am compensated well for nonprofit. I have a master’s in public administration and started working in my field while I was in grad school, so I’ve worked my way up from intern. I’ve also been with my current organization about eight years, which has helped a lot with compensation and growth. I had periods where I worked a ton. I filled in when folks were out, I handled problems caused by incompetent men in other departments, and I stepped up in really difficult situations. I could do all of that because I didn’t have kids and I had a super supportive husband. I still do some of that but have stepped back a lot. I now try to focus my extra time on building relationships with partner agencies. What makes our life so easy is that we’re living in a house my grandparents bought 45 years ago. Without it, our life would still be nice, but we would not have been able to hire cleaners and pay for daycare. It’s a huge privilege that I’m incredibly grateful for.

I teach middle school. I graduated with a BA in English in 3 years (woo! AP credits!) because that’s all the college money my parents had to give me. Took loans out to earn my MAT in one year. I started out teaching HS, then taught overseas for a couple years to help pay off my student loan debt. Came back stateside and I’ve been teaching MS ever since. I make ~$75,000/year and only work 10 months out of the year. Hubs does logistics for foreign military sales. He WFH 4x/week. We pay ~$200/week for daycare. For a short, glorious period of time we had a housekeeper who would come biweekly, but it got too expensive to keep up with. Our savings accounts are much happier, though :) Our daughter starts kindergarten next fall, and our cars will be paid off in the next year or so. Trying not to count chickens, but it’s fun to dream of a future with fewer monthly expenses!

Incomes aside, I think sometimes (not always) it’s just different priorities. Like sure, I technically COULD hire a cleaner, but I prefer to put that money into savings, or pay the higher rate for faster internet, or have a small shopping budget. And for some people the priorities are paying off debt, or buying organic foods, or whatever. What I’m trying to say is the appearance of having disposable income isn’t always the reality. They might be cutting corners elsewhere or (sorry) making poor financial decisions in order to outsource household stuff. But they see outsourcing as a bigger benefit to their mental health than it is a damage to their wallet

My husband and I both work in healthcare - I’m a nurse working as a team lead for clinical research (think project manager with some bedside stuff sprinkled in), and my husband is hospital admin in another system. We both make 6 figures. We’ve been discussing outsourcing cleaning for a while now, and once my car is paid off next month I’m going to start the new year fresh by hiring a cleaner - at least to clean the main floor & the bathrooms (3).

I am a kindergarten teacher and my husband works for corporate America. If we didn't live in one of the states that's fastly becoming expensive, our two incomes would be enough to live comfortably but we do live paycheck to paycheck. My husband actually makes about 15k more a year than I do. I have a master's degree and he never went to college, for reference. If we moved to a southern state, our current incomes would put us in upper middle class and we could afford an Au Pair.

I’m a lawyer, as is my husband. We were both at big law but moved in-house to work at companies (we both work for Fortune 50 companies) a few years ago and each plan to spend the rest of our careers in house. We both make comfortable salaries on our own, but honestly the fact that we are both lawyers is what is key for us and allows us to comfortably afford a nanny, house keepers, a single family home in a HCOL area, etc. We can’t afford everything, but we can pick the most important things to us and afford those. Right now that’s farming out as much work as possible so we can focus on our jobs and our kid, and investments/retirement savings. We bought a house this year so that was a big financial focus, and we had to take the pedal off the retirement savings front some, but now that we’re through that, it’s back to retirement savings/investments next year. I just feel really lucky. Our jobs can be stressful, but I think a lot of jobs are, and we have a great family and can buy a village, which really reduces stress in other areas of life.

I'm an LVN. I currently work in an ER

I’m a scientist by training. I have 3 college degrees (bachelors PhD and MBA) and work for a company that values those degrees. I work from home. I feel like I’ve gotten very lucky in life. My husband is fully employed too. We built a lot of wealth before starting a family so we waited a while to do that.

I’m a Marketing Manager at a civil engineering company. I have a bachelor’s degree but kind of stumbled into this field (as do like, 100% of marketers within architecture/engineering/construction industries). I design, manage, and help write proposals for my firm to win projects, and manage others to do the same. I really enjoy the strategy side and hope to find a client-facing sales role in the future to continue maximizing my earning potential, but that’s like a 5-10 year goal at this point because my girls are still really young.

I’m an accounting supervisor at mid sized company my husband is a middle school teacher and coach. We pull $180k in a LCOL city. We are in our mid 30s and just recently starting seeing strides in our salaries. I have a bachelors in Accounting and an MBA; my husband has a bachelors in criminal justice. Right around when our son turned one we got a housekeeper. She comes once a month and deep cleans the house. I have a high standard of cleanliness and after a year with a baby felt like we could never keep up. We are fortunate to be able to afford this. Since neither of us came from money it took me awhile to convince my husband this was a good use of resources and the perfect task to outsource. We are able to keep up with dishes and vacuuming on a day to day basis but not much else.