As a working family, we continually revisit the question as to whether to source external support for house upkeep purposes.
The cost of this (on top of Nursery) aside, we always seem to reach the same conclusion.
Namely, that with the busy lives we lead like so many others, the practical necessity of regularly having to clean the house and gardens to keep them free of dust and (equally importantly) germs, gives us not only a healthy home routine, but enables us to guarantee ourselves some regular healthy exercise which involves working as a team and at the same time, to derive pride and pleasure from the end result we have achieved in the process.
Indeed, research shows that as many as 150-200 calories per hour can be expended in performing a single average suburban house clean. This can equate to a whopping average 4,000 calories per month, which is not at all to be sniffed at as part of the wider wellness picture!
Add to that the well recognised stressbusting™ value of housework in that it helps reduce blood pressure and boost circulation, and doing it ourselves becomes really a no brainer for us, albeit it requires a bit more careful planning of our schedules and sometimes staging the work throughout the week.
Then there is the fact that 'housework' utilises other muscle groups to our usual work outs, making it a superb exercise in StretchBusting™ (see our earlier post entitled "The Value of Morning StretchBusting™" for further detail).
And finally, we are of the personal view (with no disrespect intended to external providers, many of whom do a fabulous job) that, in the same way that nobody who lends your car is likely to treat it with the same care as you would, no external home upkeep support could give our home the love and attention we do.
If we ever lose momentum or enthusiasm for doing our own housework, then a secret motivational weapon we hold up our sleeves is to make the advance decision to have a treat for supper that we wouldn't otherwise enjoy as a reward for doing so with the extra calorie consumption our endeaours have resulted in.
Some people cannot, however, for health reasons take responsibility for the upkeep of their own home either at all or as well as they would like to.
In this case, there are excellent tools online to make cleaning easier at a reasonable cost and/or those people ought to be entitled to subsidised assistance to offset their inability to do the work themselves. See our Legal Notices section for further relevant info.
Major Love & Sleeves Up, LouLoU™&MikeyM™ xxxx☺💘💞 xxxx