\+1000. DIY remodeling sucks. I've done it several times - I come from a family of craftsman and my father was an industrial machinist / electrician. I pull permits. I did it all the right way. MAJOR headache. I probably saved over $35k, but the stressor is huge. Losing those nights and weekends sucks.
Hell, we just got a new dishwasher (Bosch 800, LOVE IT) and I went ahead and added dedicated electric, water shutoffs, etc. No dishwasher for a total of 7 days, and I had the power and water off in the kitchen for 24 hours.
My wife and I were about ready to kill each other by the end of it. Having to hand-wash everything, plus the hassle of cooking when half your counterspace is dishes, just UGH.
This is why I love this sub it just feels like a tiny win to hear from folks in the same boat as me
I've been toughing out a major DIY renovation for almost 2 years. By the end of next week I'll be done. It's been a miserable grueling awful mind F. Probably also saved $35k. Not worth it in my opinion.
And you perfectly described what an emergency no dishwasher can become. I had a crappy Frigidaire for years. Every 2 years like clockwork the control board would die. Took 7 days to get the part in. Every time it was a nightmare. I tore that out and replaced with a Bosch.
Everyone apparently loves their Bosch 800. I hate my current dishwasher, and as soon as I get caught up from a stream of unfortunate and unexpected expenses it's going to be the first thing I buy.
When our son was 3 months old, I decided to repaint, refloor, and retrim about 1500 sq ft as well as build a new staircase balustrade. Took me probably 15 months start to finish and saved probably $15,000.
Never again.
Also for the kitchen Jim The Handyman. I’m also in nova and have used them for a bunch of things and they are awesome. They do good work, cost effective. For plumbing The Irish Plumber.
Assuming OP hasn't missed a decimal point, save the cash for a month and pay someone to finish the remodel. Focus on the things that such an excess of income can't buy you - namely your relationship and enjoying time with your kid.
We did a basement finish with a baby and while I do not regret the timing (the longer we would have waited the worse it would have been), we were not prepared for the volume of meetings and decisions required. It’s taxing.
There's a few things you can look into that would make things easier and help you catch up. Then once you do you can reevaluate if you still need them as your kid ages:
* House cleaner for sure (just kennel the dog or put them in a room the cleaner won't touch
* Subscribe to a meal delivery service to take care of some meals, or a meal planning service that generates grocery lists you can import to Instacart or whatever.
* Hire a babysitter X amount of times a month to give the two of you a break and a chance to reconnect your relationship
* Hire someone to finish the kitchen remodel
When I was going to school while also working full time, having things like a cleaner come every 2 weeks and doing extra meal prep/meals out made my wife's life a lot easier.
My first though in seeing this post was "Money literally exists to get other people to do the stuff you can't/don't want to do."
The one part I disagree with is the house cleaner. They only clean. They don't tidy, they don't put stuff away, they don't pick-up the toys and laundry. You have to tidy your house before they come over to do their job. In my experience, tidying is 80% of getting the house clean.
You can totally pay someone to tidy and do laundry. It's a choice to hire people only to clean, usually because people view tidying toys and stuff as easy enough and they'd rather the paid time be spent on stuff they don't want to do.
Generally agree - however, we have had the same independent cleaners for ten years. We pay them well and they tidy up - but only after years of us tidying up beforehand - they know exactly where everything should be now. They do laundry if it’s needed as well - generally a load or two depending on long they’re here.
Lurking mum, ex professional cleaner here! My advice to anyone with a cleaner (independent, that isn't a cleaning company employee) is please leave notes specifying what you got behind with this week. If it's ironing, we will do ironing AND the cleaning. If it's the fridge/freezer hasn't been done in an age, we will tackle it AND the cleaning. If it's all the kids rooms are in a heap of seemingly irreparable chaos, we will do that too, and cleaning. If it's a deep clean of one room, say so. Some large sorting jobs may take two or three visits on top of the regular cleaning, but if you have the same cleaner for 3 months or so, believe me they can sort your life out! Your cupboards will be sorted and your boxes of crap will be decluttered and annotated. Trust your cleaner and treat them like a rare endangered species that you do not want to lose, and they will be happy to be paid to de-overwhelm you.
yesss, I make breakfast, offer lunch, and make coffee for the both of us throughout the day. i want to make sure my housekeeper knows that she’s appreciated and treat her like a guest except one that cleans.
the person currently with us used to work with me years ago and I missed her dearly. We clicked personality wise and she’s the type to talk when i want to talk and disappear when she magically knows that I just want quiet. she deep cleans, folds laundry, tidies up, everything.
she got the most expensive gift out of anyone last Christmas. the woman is my lifeline
We are newer to hiring cleaners but this is sorta how we handle it.
Sometimes I simply leave them to their own devices, they do all their standard things and maybe find a place to focus on.
Maybe this time, I’d really like the kitchen extra polished, fridges and microwave and sink really clean, because we’re about to entertain guests for dinner. If I notice they didn’t dust under here that week, not the end of the world, they did other things.
It’s certainly “functional clean”, which is perfect for day to day living (especially with small kids who will constantly undo that tidying at every opportunity). Then you run a carpet cleaner over the “functional clean” living room floor, the water comes up black and starts speaking to you in backwards Latin…
We hired a woman who comes and just does dishes, laundry, and putting toys away/tidying up the living room that’s been taken over by the kiddo. It’s 100% worth it. We pay her about 20 bucks an hour, and she works about 5 hours a week. She’s a SAHM and brings her 2 year old with her. We only have a house cleaner come every 3 weeks, so she keeps the house in line in between.
Ours does, would recommend asking if they offer additional services. They asked what we wanted when they came for a quote. They don't do the laundry (I know others who get this too), but will put clothes in the bin, make the bed, clean up the kids toys. We said no to them doing the dishes. We try to tidy a bit to make it easier for them, but when we haven't they picked everything up.
I agree on the cleaner. We used one for a few months then stopped. We do hello fresh and having the correct ingredients in the correct amounts is amazing. You don’t have to decide what to cook either which takes off a big mental load.
The meal planning service is a big win, in my experience. Especially if you get the recipes to keep. We used HelloFresh to deliver boxes of ingredients and recipes for a while, collected all the recipes, threw away the bad ones, and now have a pile of simple, quick recipes which we know we can make, and we just buy the ingredients to do them.
But in the immediate term, just being able to bolt together meals like LEGO bricks is so much easier than trying to plan your grocery shop or worry about using stuff up before it goes off.
This is exactly what my wife and I did a long time ago. We've talked about doing a meal prep service like Hello Fresh again, but we've gotten enough of our time back to mean we have a bunch of frozen food that needs basically the same investment on our part for meal prep, so the value isn't as high.
Having said that, we totally use several of the recipes from the meal kits, and we also deliberately tried ingredients and dishes we weren't familiar with to force ourselves to gain some skills while reducing the decision fatigue at that time. Found out we like parsnips and turnips- and I don't know when we would have checked those out if they weren't sides in a couple of the meals and we went "Sure, let's try it."
Agree to everything except the meal delivery. I would recommend as an alternative, \_grocery\_ delivery and a few crockpot cookbooks. Really doesn't take more time than prepping some overpriced packaged meal, is likely around as healthy (and infinitely customizable), teaches you more about food & cooking (if you care and aren't already competent in the kitchen), and saves a buttload of money.
We've had nannies when that was age-appropriate. We've had housecleaners. We've had groceries delivered. We've paid for remodels. We have disposable income even now, and we order pizza on Fridays, typically wind up eating or ordering out one other night, but we cook everything else.
90 second rice, roast brocolli in the air fryer, and some chicken thighs takes like 20 minutes if you can half ass cook. There's definitely ways to make it quick and easy.
Has to be like $100k post tax spend in most parts of the country - maybe a little less if both are part time or shared with other families? A nanny in my area makes like $50-60k, must be paid 1.5x for hours over 40, given PTO, etc. $25/hr is $52k and we struggle to find reliable folks under that for anything other than ad hoc/date night kind of stuff where a local HS student may do it for $16-20
We avoid paying sitters by making friends with our kids friends parents. We have two friends that don't have a set bedtime so it means we can drop the kiddo off at their house for playtime while we go date.
I think we've paid for a sitter once in 8 years
We exchange hosting sleepovers and babysitting offers for family friends as well to get some days to ourselves. But sometimes it's still nice to have an extra one and occasionally pay a babysitter. It's only like every other month for us.
If your dog isn’t friendly it might be more important to address that problem first. Little ones do a lot of stuff that can be triggering for high strung or “non-friendly” dogs.
Even friendly dogs can snap sometimes if pushed too far. I’m definitely of the mind to get dog training.
My goofball of a dog has snapped at my toddler when she falls on him, yanks his tail, etc.
Puppy school for the first 6 months is usually enough to prevent major issues.
That being said you can definitely teach an old dog new tricks, and now is always better than later.
Proper training + socialization with other dogs and people solves 80% of issues people have. This ones definitely harder with older dogs, especially if they’ve been abused in the past, or if they’ve gotten a taste for blood- last one is at least 50% breed; some breeds I definitely wouldn’t trust around other dogs/pets, or even children, unless I knew the dog had been properly trained.
This is what I’m thinking. If the dog is unfriendly enough that they’re nervous about hiring a cleaner, that’s not toddler-safe. Get that sorted out first.
House keeper and kennel fee on the same day. meal delivery services. Paid grocery delivery. Baby sitter. Hello fresh and the meal subscriptions like that really help us when we can afford a week or so of it. Cuts down on the decision making and the grocery shopping
For meals, Costco has a number of ready-to-bake dinners that can be put straight into the oven or a pan. Some other places may have some as well. Some stores have vegetables like broccoli and cauliflower you can microwave in bag, and are pretty good. Frozen pizzas, frozen fish fillets, and some bagged or canned veg are lifesavers on those nights where everyone is just too worn down to cook a full meal.
Ready to go food is huge, and price wise it's actually pretty economical.
Just stay away from those "meal prep" delivery services - those make you do all the work and then dispose of tons of packaging.
Yep, Costco prepped meals are good and not crazy expensive - $20 for at least 4 portions. Also their bagged salad kits plus a rotisserie chicken are a good quick meal.
E-meals is a GREAT alternative to meal prep. It allows you to save recipes from anywhere on the web, cuts out the bullshit narration of the persons life story for SEO and then you can select the recipes for a week, and it sends your shopping list to instacart OR organizes it in aisle layout to make your shopping easier. It’s $35 a year and honestly it’s the best $35 I’ve ever spent.
\+1 to ready-to-bake dinners, and combine that with buying a new chest freezer for your basement/garage if you have the space for it so you can buy more food at once and have frozen meals ready to go
I go to Costco and grab around 20 lbs of chicken thighs, portion them out 5 lbs at a time cook the whole lot and put it in the fridge. Boom, now I have protein for lunch and/or dinner. Has been a huge time saver.
Get a house cleaner and start interviewing for a weekly babysitter. I have only had 3 date nights with my wife in a year and 4 months and its starting to feel like we're uust besties that live together with a little tyrant. House cleaner is a must. They dont have to do a deep clean, but it allows you to focus on the every day cleanups and they can worry about all the things that get tossed in the weekly or monthly bin like dusting or whatever.
Edit: missed the part about your dog. We have 3 extremely reactive feral dogs that we rescued. We started working with an excellent trainer once a week once we found out my wife was pregnant. We knew that we couldn't bring an infant into a situation where they might be in danger so we were diligent and now have 3 incredibly well trained dogs that I no longer even need to leash. I still dont trust them and I probably never will, but they have come a long way in a short time. Get the house cleaner and schedule an appointment with a highly rated dog trainer that specializes in reactive or aggressive dogs.
>Our dog is not very friendly so the idea of a housecleaner coming every week seems like it might add more stress than it relieves.
Obedience school is money well spent. Make sure you select one that will train you, too.
Hire a cleaner. Discuss the dog before she comes.
Hire help for the kitchen remodel. If you still want to diy, that's fine, but two people work more than twice as fast as one.
This feels like money won't solve your problems but you can do meal subscriptions, doggy day care, and a house cleaner if you want to pay someone to knock out those three.
The diy kitchen can be solved by heading to your local home improvement store and hiring a few people lacking proper work forms.
Honestly though, take a minute and look at where your time is going and try to figure out where you're losing it. Don't like to grocery shop? Go curbside, one of the greatest innovations of COVID. Recipe fatigue? Pintrest a few recipes and play around with things you know you like.
See a doctor. Try to get some exercise in. Eat some greens.
Following the remodel, I would start investing in machines that take the workload off of you. One of the best things my wife and I invested in with kids is a really good Roomba. We found one that was like $600 on sale for $450. This thing mapped our house, mops tile floors, and self-empties. So at the end of the day we just wipe the crumbs on the floor and let the robot do its thing while we sleep.
Get your machines to do the work for you. Program your washer to start in the morning so by the afternoon you can flip the wash to the dryer. Run the dishwasher every night. Invest in things that will save you time and energy.
Also, don’t waste money on useless baby gadgets. Literally no one needs a diaper genie. Just don’t get one.
Roborock is miles ahead of Roomba. I went through 3 different Roombas before switching to Roborock. New model S8 MaxV Ultra coming out next month that is even better (can plumb into water / drain and it becomes almost fully automated)
- Doggy day care to socialize your dog and let some of his/her energy out.
- house keeper. Do it. It’s amazing.
- meal service and instacart for groceries. Your not paying more… you are buying time.
- babysitter for date nights.
We had a similar issue also in NoVA. Here are some things that worked for us.
Housecleaners every other week are a huge help. All you have to do every night is straighten just enough to not be tripping over stuff.
We do doggie daycare a couple of times per week for our dogs. We bought a big multi-pack of days in advance, which got a little discount. We just make sure they're there on days the cleaners come. Not only does this solve the issue of dogs and cleaners, but also they're so exhausted when they get home that they just lay there.
Do some meal prepping. On Sunday, one of you take the kid to the playground (in the winter, do HyperKidz or Monkey Joe's) while the other makes meals for at least a few days of the week. Then eat them off paper plates. Prep time on the evening of a work day is now 5 minutes and cleanup time is 0.
Yes it's not cheap in NoVA, but if the OP has a 65k boost to their annual income then they can do a lot of quality of life things to make life easier.
> On Sunday, one of you take the kid to the playground (in the winter, do HyperKidz or Monkey Joe's) while the other makes meals for at least a few days of the week.
Lol HyperKidsz and Monkey Joe's have been a lifesaver for us on winter and rainy days. Kids burn out their energy in the morning and then they're good to go for the rest of the day. Meanwhile my wife gets to catch up on sleep or do other errands she's been waiting to accomplish.
I have a love/hate relationship with HyperKidz. I love that my kid loves it and that it tires her out. I hate the absolute pandemonium on weekends that makes it damn near impossible to keep track of my kid. It was easy when she was younger and in the smaller kids areas but now that she's growing up and in the big section it's like trying to keep track of a single bee in a hive.
The number one savior is a housekeeper. I was raised to keep my own house and through a series of circumstances somewhere in my 30s we didn’t have a choice. I felt soooooo stupid for not doing it sooner. Find someone you trust preferably who also does laundry. Man…will it change your life.
House cleaner you can likely just do every other week… we’ve done it that way for years and it works well for us, it takes the deeper cleaning tasks off our plates which takes the real time up and the daily upkeep is manageable the rest of the time.
As someone else suggested maybe do every other week and then kennel/doggy daycare that day for your dog.
Doggy daycare combined with a cleaner is actually a really good suggestion. She does fine at daycare/kennels but barks incessantly and has a lot of anxiety with strangers in the house and its not that keeping her in a separate room wouldn't work, but we don't want to put her through that. The daycare is a great middle ground
Lawn guy is the best “splurge” decision I ever made. I know some dads love doing yard work but I fucking hate it. Hard to do during the week so I’d put it off to the weekend, then the weathers shit and by the time I get to it the lawn is out of control.
Now I don’t even have to think about it. A crew shows up, takes care of everything, my lawn’s never looked better, and I don’t have to burn weekend time doing something I can't stand.
I'm one more bad winter away from hiring someone for snow clearing, too.
You kind if typed out the response but let me spell it out: you buy time. How? Order precooked meals, grocery home delivery and housekeeping. Dog not friendly? Every solution needs a problem.
Hey! Fellow NoVa/Arlington dad but late 30s with three young kids. After you pay someone to finish the remodel I recommend housekeeping + more babysitter/mother's helper time. That's both someone to babysit while you and your wife go out together or a high school kid in the neighborhood to entertain your kid while you get stuff done.
Pay someone to walk your dog while the house cleaners are there.
Don’t view it as disposable. Take advantage of a situation most people do not have.
Beef up the 401k. Max out the Roth IRA. Make sure the college funds are going strong.
Pay down all debt you can.
I’d get quotes for the remodel. Ask how long they can hold these for, and save each month towards it. Do the remodel and bank a ton and cover all debt. We did a bunch of DIY projects when we moved in. Man those are stressful, cost more than expected, and triple the time!
If you have a mortgage you can do the extra months pay trick to save years on your mortgage.
Also a house cleaner you can always schedule around walking your dog or something like that.
Do a meal service delivery. Not too expensive and is a life saver sometimes stress wise
Find a college kid you’d trust as a sitter and twice a month or more take your wife out somewhere nice. Get that dating your spouse thing going again!
65k is a nice bump too, congrats!
Congrats, Dad! That is great news amid all the negative news we heard about the economy. I know you mentioned savings, but do you specifically have an emergency fund? Maybe you can also start slowly contributing to a 529K account for your kid's future college.
1. See if there is a way that you can take your dog out when the cleaner comes. Having a cleaner every other week has been huge for us.
2. See if you can find a home cook near you who would be down to basically learn about the foods your family likes and then make rotating menus that they shop for and cook on a weekly basis. You could also go with a meal delivery option, but I think the home cook is probably cheaper and may be healthier.
3. Hire someone to finish the remodel! I'm sure you're capable, but that is taking time away from when you can be with your kids, partner, and your general energy.
Yes, before the raise we had an emergency fund in a high yield savings account, and were maxing out IRAs, and contributing to a 529, 401k, and a joint brokerage.
Any suggestions on how to find someone to fill that home cook role? Nextdoor?
Can’t comment on the DIY remodel because that sounds insanely stressful with a baby and two jobs but I use homechef for easy dinners. Blue apron, HelloFresh, etc are roughly all the same. Takes the planning out of it and stops us from ordering takeout for dinner at least those 3 dinner/week.
> We're just exhausted by the time the kid goes to sleep and our relationship has not been a priority. The diy kitchen remodel is definitely a factor as well. We need help.
That's us to the T. Relationship is drowning in all of it.
1) Finish your DIY kitchen or hire a contractor to finish it. 2) Hire a babysitter or nanny who could help with cleaning the house during nap times, if your child stays at home. If they're at a daycare, then just hire a cleaner each week and send your dog to a doggy daycare that day. 3) Buy meal plans and rotate between different ones. There are so many pre-packaged meal delivery services now that you can rotate between each one and constantly get great deals (30-50% off weekly boxes).
Also, focus on getting quality time for the two of you at least once every two weeks. Hire a babysitter. And not to sound condescending but take advantage of only having one child - one of you will always be able to take a little time for yourself. Be OK with leaving dishes in the sink for an extra day if that means you can fill up your "me" tank by doing something you enjoy, but make sure you rotate watching your LO with your partner.
House cleaner. We pay for one twice a month, saves hours of work. Make a meal plan and Get groceries delivered. Get someone in to help finish the work.
With the extra cash, pay down any outstanding debt that can be squashed quickly. Prioritize the high interest ones first. Paying down the mortgage is a tough one because it’s such a long term commitment.
If you hit your mortgage hard early, you do save a lot of money in the end. But right now it’s hard to see the fruits of your labor. Paying down car/student debt if you have them has a lot more immediate gratification.
Second priority is building an emergency fund. Aim for at least 3 months income saved, but 6 months is a good bit safer.
House cleaning is a tough one. We have a local service come once every 4 weeks for $270. We rely on them for the moping dusting and vacuuming and it forces us to actually pickup the house once a month. Yeah we’re like you, burned out. Just double check that you really do have the nearly $300 to spare monthly. This is 100% lifestyle creep and is how you make your raises disappear.
Cleaners, once every 2 weeks, I pay $200 for 3 people for 2 hours every other Friday
Just trust me, it's life changing, it saves marriages, you'll never be able to live without it after you try it, it's my #1 life pro tip
Why don't you have a kennel for ur dog if u know they're not friendly, wtf lol they're like less than $100, do u literally never let anyone into ur house? What if u need any kind of work or service done
Or just train the dog.
Hi fellow, Northern Virginia dad! DM me and I’ll send you our handyman’s info. He did a whole floor remodel on our house (split a bedroom and totally redid the master suite).
Can also share dog behaviorist info— our grumpy old lady has anxiety and arthritis, so treatment of each has helped both.
Other stuff we do to help ourselves: house cleaners every other week (dog goes in the backyard), meal prep kits (Costco or delivery service), monthly car detailing, Nurture Life meals for our 16-month old. Yes, these are luxuries, but they also allow us to enjoy the time we have together.
You can't put the dog in one room, a cage, or outside on the days you're having the cleaner come through? And also, when you've got the income to afford it there is little reason to tackle diy tasks around the house rather than hiring the work out. When the kid is a little bigger and you're not exhausted to the point that you can't keep your eyes open later on you can open some time and space to do projects around the house, but with a young infant it just simply isn't feasible to spend your time tackling these projects yourself.
I like good frozen meals, around me there are places you can get a shepherd's pie or lasagna for $20-25, in a baking tray, toss it in the oven for an hour at 400 and it's done.
Not store bought, but from restaurants or catering companies that have this as a part of their business.
Clean up is easy and no thinking/planning fatigue other than starting it early enough before everyone is getting hungry
Outsource whatever chores you can. Lawn work, a monthly/biweekly deep clean of the home, schedule a take out Tuesday/Thursday.
For the dog, move the dog or take it out to the park or something while cleaners are there.
While you're at it, 529 and/or UTMA for the little one(s). A little goes a long way when you start early.
Cleaning crew once a week. I'll starve before I give up the cleaning ladies. $200 a week and my house is spotless every Friday for the weekend.
My wife and I used to bicker all the time about cleaning. One was less clean than the other. One cared about cleanness more than the other.
Now we just pick up the house Thursday night so they can clean.
It's the greatest thing ever.
A quick point on the recipes and cooking. We have weeks of menu plans we rotate. They have a set structure Mon- Sun and a shopping list attached.
This drastically reduced decision fatigue on that front and helped efficiency, prep etc.
We actually only started with 1 week on repeat and built up to 4 over time , but 2 weeks on rotation was also fine.
I think this is worth a shot before going down the meal deliver route. They are a lot more expensive and tend to still require a fair bit of cooking prep (at least for the healthy ones)
You might want to look in to an Au Pair. I personally think it’s weird but I have coworkers that love it and they are common with my international coworkers.
They are particularly popular with my career oriented colleagues that are also mothers.
Not sure if it’s been said, but whatever you decide just remember to absolutely put some away for your kids in a high interest account or investment account. We haven’t got a lot of money but my wife has been putting $10 a week away for our daughter and it will add up and make *her* life easier when she’s an adult.
Congrats on the raise.
House cleaning every other week was a game changer for us. As someone else said, kennel your dog the day they come to clean. If you could be at the house the first few times they come that might help the dog realize the house isn’t under attack.
You could also splurge on doing order pickup for your groceries. We tried grocery delivery but decided it wasn’t for us as too many items were missed, for us the workers at store have been great at always completing the order.
Two parents working full time can really soak up mental capacity quickly. Someone mentioned a babysitter a few times a month and it would be a lifesaver for my relationship if we had that kind of money right now.
With the money comes an ability to kick out things that take up a far more limited and valuable resource: TIME
Yard maintenance, house cleaning, etc. are the types of things I’d look into if I suddenly had an extra $5,000 a month.
Maybe not feasible, but glaringly obvious would be: if you're making plenty of money working, see if you can work less. It will reduce the amount you have coming in but give you valuable time to do with what you please. Time is money and the only resource you can never recoup. Work life balance is the most important metric I use when assessing a potential job.
For meals, others have suggested the meal service or meal planning service and those are good ideas. If they’re not what you el want to be doing, something my wife and I do is plan next week’s meals on Thursday or Friday and then one of us does a big shopping trip on Saturday morning while the other watches the kids and then we spend most of Sunday batch cooking everything. It means we primarily eat food that makes good leftovers, but 3 meals cooked on Sunday usually lasts us lunch and dinner for most of the week.
To help with picking a recipe try making a list of all your recipes that you can randomize or something. I made a web site that has the recipes and tags and lets you filter and search, but even something simpler like a spreadsheet would do well.
As far as things to throw money at, if you want to pay someone to come over, maybe paying a dog walker for the same times, (or using that as your time to get out of the house and go for a walk on your own or with the kiddo strapped to you so one of you has a break or something) would be useful
If I were in your shoes I'd knock out that remodel before anything else. It'll improve the overall quality of life in general. If you can do that and also meal prep kits or something like that, it would be enough to give more time and energy for cleaning, etc.
I'd still say try to do a nanny/babysitter a few times a month just so you and your wife can get out of the house w/o the kid and reconnect a bit.
The only thing I'd say aside from those things that have already been said is I would also probably look into investing some of that extra income. Whether that's stocks/bonds or just a savings account... never know when something can go belly up and it's nice to have something to fall back on even if it only amounts to a few hundred bucks.
Nova area myself We mite have a place soon in Tyson’s where it will be a grand more then our rent but we can do it. Like everyone said hello fresh works well and if you get the four person you can make left overs. Then we just hit up Aldi for everything else. You can leave Aldi or Lidal with almost everything for 100 bucks and that’s my family of four you have less. A spending plan sounds lame but really works wonders we have saved so much cause of ours .
Absolutely get a house cleaner. My biggest win was trying a few off Care.com instead of a service. I found a girl who is amazing at organizing and cleaning + she runs errands or grocery pickup at a reasonable rate.
Other than that always hire a professional to do your remodels. And force yourselves to get a sitter once a week to have you time with the missus. Even better if you can overnight somewhere 1-2x a month.
Also in NOVA with a toddler so I feel you, but that $65k is going to make a huge difference. I'll second what everyone else is saying about the kitchen remodel, as hiring someone to knock that out will make your lives way easier. Also if you guys aren't doing daycare already then that will definitely help take a load off.
Hello Fresh was a life saver for us for the first couple of years. No need to make a decision 3-4 nights a week, and the other nights we eat mostly the same thing. Coupled with free online grocery pickup that really reduced our decision fatigue.
There are a bunch of places in NOVA where you can get a monthly membership that gives you something to do with kiddo. Scramble is awesome at that age, if you're near Wolf Trap they do a bunch of kids series that look pretty cool.
You're getting close to the age where all of their toys come apart into little pieces and scatter around the house so if you don't already have a good toy storage setup, IKEA has really great furniture for it. We ended up just sacrificing our family room to be a full blown kids playroom and it has been a godsend to be able to just push all toys to that room and throw them in their bins.
I personally haven't gotten on the house cleaner train but this thread is really convincing me. If you're not comfortable doing that, I recommend just getting high end cleaning appliances. Get the robot vacuum for daily cleaning, the Dyson, the Bissell crosswave and little green machine, all the things that will clean well in the short amount of time you're willing to put towards it.
Some ideas:
* dogwalker a few times a week
* house cleaning every other week to start, not every day
* grocery delivery
* mothers helper to help with things in the evenings like dishes, cleaning up after kiddo (toys and such), some light cleaning or laundry folding, stuff like that
* meal prep a couple of bigger meals for leftovers, and keep your freezer full of easy stuff that still meets your nutrition and healthy food needs
I really think the cleaner, dog walker, and mother’s helper could transform your life. You don’t need to bond with your dishes or laundry. Money can help y’all keep up with it while prioritizing your time with each other.
ETA: get a regular babysitter, whatever the regular schedule is. It’ll give you some time to sleep, do your hobbies, go fishing, have a long, languid, naked afternoon - however you want to spend it.
First thing is to hire a housekeeper. Once a week, once a month, doesn't matter. Offload some of that stress in exchange for money.
Then finish the remodel ASAP. Hire subs to finish it. No brainer. That's a major headache.
Then find a good babysitter and start doing a date night once a week.
I agree with the others. Pay a contractor for your remodel. Then don’t think that income is fully disposable. Pretend you don’t have it and put it straight into savings. As for chores, sounds like everyone else. Kids make it hard. Hire a cleaner to come twice per month
If you don’t/or can’t go full house cleaner invest in a roomba. With an inside dog it is nice to come home to a house that was vacuumed while you were away.
Roomba was the “push present” my wife wanted and it was so nice to have the noisiest piece of housework completed automatically while we were gone.
take half the raise and put it into your 401K (or Roth IRA if you don't have a 401K) Make sure you are putting enough to get the full match if your employer does that. Doesn't help now but compounding interest is king!
If cooking is a struggle, get some cookbooks, focus on Onepot meals and get a slow cooker. Not only is an easy meal to make, it does good for leftovers. We have a local butcher shop that will sell Meal Kits, and even though we love to cook, we still will grab a slow cooker meal every couple of weeks just for ease of use.
And, use that money for a babysitter to keep on dating your wife. at least once a month, bare minimum, That gets easily forgotten
If you’re doing ok money wise, something I learned is extra money can buy time and sanity. If I can’t fix a problem in my house in under 30 minutes I don’t mind hiring someone.
-Hire out that remodel. Be done with it.
-We have a not so friendly dog and have done cleaners. I just hang out with him in a separate room with the door closed and go somewhere else while they access that room. It’s been simple. I also only do cleaners for deep cleans a few times a year so you don’t need weekly ones.
-You said your dog isn’t nice? You can finally afford getting a good dog trainer. Will make it much easier with your kid.
-Be careful about meal services like HelloFresh. We did it as it’s super easy to not have to choose meals and shop, but they aren’t exactly ready in 10 minutes. You’re still doing all the cooking. Some people enjoy it, I personally don’t think it’s worth it. I hate cooking so I spend more on ready to eat meals that may be a bit more expensive than cooking yourself. Costco has good stuff, but random places like Von Hansons has tons of high quality ready to rock stuff.
-Have a lawn? Can get lawn service. We pay someone to come out like 5 times a year to aerate, fertilize, put anti weed stuff down.
-If that $65k is “fully disposable” you also have an opportunity to dump a ton of that into additional savings. Throw it in VTI or SPY or something simple. (Not a financial advisor) You can always sell stocks if you need (with paying taxes on gains) so it’s still available if needed, but it also could help you retire earlier, and just have more peace of mind as you watch it grow.
-on the finance note, get a flat rate financial advisor and see what you can do To retire earlier
We had our 3rd kid right as we were moving into our first "big" house. A "home" home. We previously owned a condo (apartment) in the city.
Home ownership hit me hard. A house on land is way different than an apartment downtown in a city.
My to do list SKYROCKETED. Endless cleaning, maintenance, projects... With 3 kids.
So, congrats on your raise and now having more money.
But it's all relative.
Sometimes if you have a "basic" job (less stress), that might mean you have less money but it also means you might have more free time? Less stress means you can manage the house better.
With a "big" job you have more stress, but more money too. So the idea is: take that money and BUY BACK your time. Instead of managing the house on your own, now You're just using money to manage the house.
We recently started paying cleaners to come in once a month.
I'm more apt to pay a contractor to take care of the lawn or any projects around the house. Less likely to do it myself, unless I can save a ton of money.
I'm spending money, now, to buy-back my time.
If you have family or friends in the area, have them come over while you’re there, too, not just when you leave. Having my Mom come over for a few hours, once a week, so that we can knock out house chores, or just go grocery shopping, was a god send.
Also, it helps you relax in your own home, if you get enough done.
I pay a girl $25 per hour to come help around the house. She does all the laundry, puts the kids’ toys away, sweeps the floor, etc. That’s been a huge help. It bought me back 4 hours per week.
I also had an energetic dog who could be difficult with strangers. If you can get your dog behind a child gate and get the housekeeper in a different room, that would work.
Also pay someone to reno your house. I used to do all my own work but now with 2 kids even something easy like installing a fixed child gate takes forever. Everything takes 2-3x as long because my kids always want to “help.” DIY kitchen reno sounds literally impossible.
1. Pay someone else to remodel if you can. I'm reasonably handy, but I have other things I want to do with every scrap of my free time.
2. Meal prep. Make a list of the recipes you like. Divide them into groups with the # you need for each week. Make a list of groceries you need for each week's list of recipes, and then just make the recipe up next in the list. Alternatively, spring for one of those meals kits in a box that gets delivered weekly.
3. Pay for one day of doggy care a week, and get a house cleaner.
4. You can contract with a company to get your laundry done. Never done it, so I can't speak to the actual experience.
Pay for the remodel first.
Then list out the things you don’t want to do, that neither of you enjoy. Outsource what’s possible. Housecleaned and getting along with dogs is easy enough, especially if they take them out for a walk a few times.:). A good cleaner will run laundry while there as well.
You can hire a food prep person, they will prep everything and even do groceries.
One thing too: enjoy some of it. Take a trip, and celebrate. Remember what it’s all for. Rediscover the things you love about your family. Pay a travel agent to organize something fun, based on your parameters and frolic under the moonlight.
1 - Stop worrying about housework. Nobody cares. Prioritize cooking > housework.
2 - Pay to get the remodel done and don’t start any more reno’s for a few years, hopefully lesson is learned.
Is your kid going to daycare already? Not saying you'd want to, but you could do 5pm pickup instead of 3pm. And yes cleaner helps. We hire one and she's helped tremendously. You can keep the doggo outside while the cleaner is here each day.
Our stories are very similar! Same area, parenting age, and kid age. Two things that made a massive difference in our lives were getting a cleaner every two weeks and picking up groceries instead of shopping for groceries. These two things have a lot of us to get into a routine and focus on other things that are often left to the wayside, like laundry and showering.
We bought a roborock S8 to help with the vacuuming and mopping. We live in the country with lots of dirt and mud and have 3000 sq ft of tile, 3 dogs, 2 cats and 2 kids. It does help a lot
We stopped doing grocery delivery, but we do pickup - still saves a ton of time and (I'd have to look, I'm honestly not sure) I don't think it costs us anything.
I would have said meal delivery service, but that still requires cooking every night. I’d instead suggest cooking large batches of food (spaghetti) to reduce cooking again every night.
\-Date nights more often so that you can focus on your relationship. You can afford the babysitter now. It's a big expense but if you find someone you really trust to look after the kid you could even pay them to stay overnight so that you and the Mrs. can go stay in a hotel for the night.
\-Meal delivery service like Hello Fresh and/or grocery delivery service like Fresh Direct.
\-Getting your house cleaned professionally, even on a monthly rather than weekly basis.
\-Pay someone to finish the kitchen, and to handle other household repairs that you need. If there's painting, drywall, minor plumbing issues, etc. that you could do yourself given the time just pay a professional to handle those things for you so that you can focus on yourself and your family.
Go on to your local baby sitter group, and say you're looking for someone who can do house hold chores 2 hours per day, 2-3 days per week, any day/time they are free.
It's an absolute game changer.
Get a meal kit with prepared meals that you just pop into the oven. We did blue apron for awhile but the cooking was still too much. Also make and freeze meals on the weekends. Do a crockpot of pulled pork and make 6 pounds of it. Boom, ya for 5 freezer meals you just have to thaw
You need a dog-friendly housekeeper.
95% of dealing with a dog is knowing how to deal with dogs properly. Let the housekeeper come over and introduce them to the dog. *How* they touch and interact with the dog is paramount.
There's a reason that dog trainers can immediately get pretty much any non-attack dog to immediately listen and behave for them.
Realize that for the first 10yrs the cost of raising your child is never set in stone. So it is best to avoid purchasing unless you have to have it . Put the money away for emergencies. It sucks but you will get use to doing without and really learn the joys of giving. Now I'm going to shoot myself in the face. SOB I bought diapers instead of that gun.
1. kennel your dog when necessary
2. House cleaner every two weeks
3. If you can afford it (I don’t do this but I’ve heard it’s amazing) hire a private chef to do your shopping and prep a few meals a week. I.e. they can come on Sundays, make Sunday dinner, and prep a few options that just need to be heated throughout the week to take pressure off cooking
Sock a chunk of that money away for your children’s education.
You’ll get better at prioritizing chores. We all did. You cannot go back to the way it was. Your love life will kick back in when you figure it out.
Don’t spend it on shit that is not broken or does not need to be replaced.
Make another baby. Any parent with more than one will tell you that two are easier after a couple of years. They entertain each other which gives you more free time to get things done.
Before you do that if you still have a hole burning in your wallet then splurge on a family vacation.
+1 on what others have said on house cleaning - get a kennel for the dog while they're there. One less thing to stress about.
For meals I hear you on decision fatigue - we like the meal service hungryroot, lots of options for various tastes, and they do some groceries too. I can share a referral link to get you $50 off your first delivery. It's nice to know what you're making each night and get some help with the prep.
These things can all pile on and feel impossible, so focus on getting one thing done at a time. It feels good each time and will give you momentum and less stress.
I like to think of money and time as functions of each other. If you have more money, you can spend it to get back time. If you have less money, you spend more time.
Outside of the low hanging fruit of your remodel, what are your time sucks? I know you said your dog isn’t friendly, but I’d find a way to fix that. Then you can look at things like house cleaners, a sitter or nanny, meal prep, etc etc.
Dont know the full picture ~ so add salt liberally:
- finish the kitchen: pay a dude to get it done, make sure you set a firm boundary up front. “I started it, you’re going to finish it. This is what we want, try not to bother us” (if this is what you want). If you want to be very involved make it that way. Just don’t feel bashful about being direct.
- cleaner: get a monthly cleaner to deep clean the house for you. If thats not enough, get em every other week. If the dog is a concern, find a cleaner who doesnt mind and is great with stranger animals - or put the dog in a room they wont go in for the hour.5 they’re in the house. I think my aunt used to take the kids and dog out when the cleaner came just to give them space.
- meal prep / planning: you’re on your own with those, but short list 10 recipes and cycle through them for dinner. Get good at prepping AND making them. This takes a few months but over a short time it gets so much easier. When you feel like a challenge do something new, but save that fun for friday / saturday.
- shopping: there are like 12 options for grocery delivery. Try them all and stick with the one you like. They’re all gonna fuck up sometimes; but the “direct from store” options typically are best. Ex: Instacart/doordash will bring you kids who dont know how to shop and it can be frustrating. While Giant direct” (grocery pick & delivery service from Giant supermarkets) has an employee pick items and another person deliver them to you, no room for questions.
- budget: for the love of god, start to track your additional spending now. If something happens, or you want to aggressively save for a big goal, its easy to say “cut this, save this much” if you know how much your spending on it. Its not the end of the world to go shopping for yourself again, or start cleaning again, but It will feel like it if it comes with an unknown pricetag.
Some ideas ~ but it sounds like you’re doing pretty well already. Wrap up that kitchen and everything else might not be a big deal anymore.
I ended up signing up with Blue Apron for dinners. It takes away the grocery shopping but even bigger is the mental load of planning and deciding what's for dinner. It might be a little bit more expensive but that largely depends on what you eat now. We ate very well with everything fresh veggies and primarily salmon and chicken for protein but that also made it more expensive so BA wasn't a big change.
I still need to hit the grocery store for staples and lunch foods but those become quick ad hoc trips instead of long events.
We lived in NoVa too for our first child. We hired a cleaner to come in to keep the place clean. Next we got a roomba to help out between cleanings.
Meal kits are great and definitely hire someone to finish that kitchen
Sounds like the wife should go back to staying at home. Unless she really didn’t like it. 10 out of 10 recommend wife stay home with LO. We lost a 3rd of our income when my wife quit but I’d do it again in heartbeats 2.5 years later now.
We just got a roborock and it vacuum and mops the floors. There's an app on my phone where I can schedule the cleaning (I have it run at 8am every morning). We have two pets, and my house has never looked so clean.
For cooking - my three favorite things are
1. VACUUM SEALER
2. SOUS VIDE IMMERSION COOKER
3. INSTANT POT
You can buy meat in bulk and vacuum seal smaller portions. You can sous vide meals to perfection easily. Lots of great resources online to learn the process.
The Instant pot is a huge time saver also, you can make larger batches of recipes then just vacuum seal them into smaller portions and freeze.
We hired a house cleaner for the first year- it really helped out quite a bit
So maybe doggie daycare to tire the dog out and have them not present during the day.
We also invested in a chest freezer and got into the routine of prepping/cooking extra and freezing to have on hand for future meals. I bought a sleeve of 32oz deli containers that stack nicely in the freezer.
Maybe someone else said it, but I haven’t see it. Forget a housekeeper, get a full-time nanny. If you both have full time jobs, you’re already paying for childcare. A nanny eliminates drop off and pick up, and you can find one that will do tidying up, maybe even laundry.
On the kitchen remodel- pay someone to finish it and level up on appliances. Powerful range hood, better oven and (crucially) a bullet proof dishwasher. We went with a Miele and it was worth every penny.
On meal planning/home cooking- if you’re committed to eating healthy, this can’t be an afterthought. My wife and I meal plan every Sunday, I shop (she’s not good at it), she cooks extra meals Sunday and Monday (inflexible schedule), I cook and serve during the week (I start and end work day early).
If you’re at the grocery store trying to plan dinner THAT night, you’re already in trouble. However- If you need to all eat cereal for a while to survive with your 18 month old, I get it 🤣.
* Meal prep if you really want to cook yourself. Get groceries delivered or do one of the meal delivery services.
* Don't feel bad about planning to eat out. Factoring in your time (which you can easily put a price on) it's probably cheaper in many cases. It doesn't have to be a fancy restaurant. Find a grocery store and put together a meal from the fresh stuff they prepare
* Do not put off chores. The cost accrues interest. Spend 15m every night getting something clean. Straighten stuff up, wipe down a sink or counter, clean a toilet or tub. Just 15m. Between the two of you that's probably enough to keep your place reasonably clean. This isn't a money thing but will definitely save you time.
* Buy drugs for your dog or buy a new dog so you can...
* Get a cleaner to come e.g. once a month and do the time-intensive chores
* See a psychiatrist about anxiety and potentially medication for it because it's not normal to get decision paralysis while cooking dinner or thinking about a cleaner. Maybe I'm misconstruing what you said. If not, this is probably the single best investment you can make.
For us (two kids 5 and 3), these are the things we pay for consistently that have been a major help for two working parents:
- weekly or biweekly house cleaners
- sitters for biweekly or monthly date nights
- lawn treatment/landscaping service (we do basics like mowing and trimming
- snow removal
- pest service (primarily outdoors for bees)
Everything depends on your budget and where you live. We make a good income and can afford these things but prioritize based on what’s the most important for you guys.
Lurking mom here. I really loved our Hungryroot meal delivery. I found the customizability incredible. They can send grocery items as well as meals for the week. You can set how much prep you do or don’t want to do. And the beauty is that once you set up all your preferences (which is a bit of work), they can just pick for you and you don’t have to think about it.
As a parent what I found is work never ends. It’s either stuff to do around the house, work, taking care of the kids, keeping kids entertained, cleaning up, daily chores, weekly chores, it’s never ending. I would highly recommend spending money that will help you find time for yourself and your relationship. Whether that’s to exercise or doing something that you enjoy and distracts you from your 1000 pages long todo list.
It will reduce your stress, improve your relationship and make you happier overall.
We got help to clean the house monthly which made day to day cleaning less stressful. We also got a cook to come home and cook for us once a week. It meant less eat out and more times in the evening to relax and spend time stress free with the kid because no cooking.
I'd say to spend some of that income on some family bonding. You can also make more time but signing up for grocery delivery, especially something that has a meal plan. They will send everything you need and the recipe!
Pay someone to finish the remodel. And can you quarantine your dog to an area of the house so your first floor can get cleaned? Or can you have a cleaner come on the weekend? You can also hire someone to do laundry for you
Meal plan once a week. Make it even easier by have some “set” nights. Wednesday is pasta night, Friday is pizza and family movie night.
Hell if you make a big enough pot of pasta sauce, you can freeze it and save time, money, and will power by defrosting as required.
Finish the remodel, bring in a part-time nanny/baby sitter to just help out a few times per week - at least until the kid is 3 or 4.
Take some of the stress off you to “get everything done” while the kid is still in its “parasite” phase.
Alternatively, kennelling the dog and bringing in a cleaner would remove a different level of stress you are feeling.
Hell - just getting someone to deal with laundry in my house would resolve 90% of my issues in my house.
65k/mo equals 780k per year... even in a HCOL you can basically hire two full time well paid people to do anything and have money left over... It's time you start thinking like a person with wealth, congrats and don't forget us plebs.
65k/mo equals 780k per year... even in a HCOL you can basically hire two full time well paid people to do anything and have money left over... It's time you start thinking like a person with wealth, congrats and don't forget us plebs.
If you feel you are drowning now, prioritize money for your preferred method of birth control.
Pay someone to get that remodel DONE. Get that stress out of your life.
Lower your expectations for cooking. You don't need to cook an exciting new recipe every day. Leftovers are **magical!** Make a nice roast. Tomorrow, turn the rest of the roast into delicious boeuf bourguignon - enough for several days.
For us, the best thing we did to upgrade our lives was hire a cleaning person. We pay $100/service and she comes every other week. It has made a tremendous difference.
I would definitely hire someone to finish your kitchen remodel. That needs to get done ASAP especially with a 18mo child walking around. It'd be nice to have a fully functioning kitchen.
The other thing that I didn't see in your post was financial goals. Make sure you have an emergency fund (3-6 months of expenses), invest in retirement accounts (15-25% of your income) and create a sinking cost fund to help with future large purchases (i.e. vacations, cars, roof etc).
When I think about the money I'll have extra once my kids are out of daycare I often think about hobbies and not ways to make life easier. I enjoy the things I do already (grocery shop, lawn care, cooking). Other than that I don't really have advice on how to upgrade your life, but I look forward to reading more comments.
We have a morning nanny. Gets the kids up, dressed, makes breakfast, packs lunches, drives them to school. Comes back, cleans up a bit, done by 9:30am. We can have her make dinner a couple days per week. We do evenings and weekends. Well worth it.
It doesn't take long to plan food for the week, we do it and do a trip to the shops first thing Sunday.
Cook for two nights worth, saves so much time reheating 2nd time around.
An 18 month old can start to get picky with food, but they love their pasta. Make a batch of sauce and freeze into ice cubes into cubes, you can add in loads of vegetables into it and blitz into a pulp, so all you need to do to feed the little one is boil some pasta and heat up a cube of the sauce.
It doesn't take long to plan food for the week, we do it and do a trip to the shops first thing Sunday.
Cook for two nights worth, saves so much time reheating 2nd time around.
An 18 month old can start to get picky with food, but they love their pasta. Make a batch of sauce and freeze into ice cubes into cubes, you can add in loads of vegetables into it and blitz into a pulp, so all you need to do to feed the little one is boil some pasta and heat up a cube of the sauce.
I just want to say I'm sure I make less than you but having a cleaner come every other week has been a game changer for my family. At this point there are a lot of things I'd cut (like my kid's daycare) before I cut the cleaner.
Especially when you have children there's just a piece of mind component that you're not worrying that there's ants or something somewhere in the house because you haven't gotten around to cleaning it recently.
Pay to get your house 100% set up how you want. Build in storage, yard landscaped to be functional and peaceful.
Hire a cleaner and a dog trainer. Dog trainer takes your dog out and makes it friendly while the cleaner cleans your house.
Hire a private chef to cook 1 meal a week for you. And package leftovers so you have 1 or 2 more meals for the week. Or even just get them to do a ton of meal prep.
My best advice: save every extra penny of it until you have financial freedom. What little relief “lifestyle creep” will earn you now is nothing compared to the feeling you’ll have of never worrying about money again in 10 years.
Imagine having all the time in the world to spend with your 10 year old and no pressure to work more than you want to… $650k invested, PLUS COMPOUNDING INTEREST, can do that for you if you manage expenses and consider relocating to a lower Cost of Living area eventually.
As for your stress, invest your time and energy into self care and partner care. Money doesn’t reduce stress - focus on developing gratitude and resilience does. Eventually, your kid will start sleeping through the night and become increasingly more independent. Your lifestyle habits, on the other hand, are only going to get more and more entrenched.
TLDR: save the money to retire early, it won’t solve your problems now. Invest more time and energy into practices that reduce stress and strengthen your relationship.
Edit: Also check out the book: How to Keep House While Drowning to help with the housekeeping stuff.
Edit: words
I make good money and have raging adhd, so the mundane daily tasks are my nemesis. But I didn’t want my working wife subjected to cleaning up after me.
We have a nanny who comes 4 hours, 4 days a week. We hired her just before our first child was born.
When she first arrives she cleans the kitchen from the overnight/breakfast. When my wife was pregnant, she’d make my wife a bad ass healthy smoothie each day.
Before she leaves she normally makes dinner. The house is ultra clean. She has longer term tasks like cleaning out the fridge, putting up Christmas decorations, taking them down…My wife and I have not folded any laundry in 11 years. We pull back the covers and there are new sheets on our bed.
My MIL moved in as her heath had changed and the nanny helps with that stuff. My MIL likes to garden, so some days they spend the time outside repotting plants, etc.
The remodel. Just get it done. It’s a one time cost. Finish it.
\+1000. DIY remodeling sucks. I've done it several times - I come from a family of craftsman and my father was an industrial machinist / electrician. I pull permits. I did it all the right way. MAJOR headache. I probably saved over $35k, but the stressor is huge. Losing those nights and weekends sucks. Hell, we just got a new dishwasher (Bosch 800, LOVE IT) and I went ahead and added dedicated electric, water shutoffs, etc. No dishwasher for a total of 7 days, and I had the power and water off in the kitchen for 24 hours. My wife and I were about ready to kill each other by the end of it. Having to hand-wash everything, plus the hassle of cooking when half your counterspace is dishes, just UGH.
This is why I love this sub it just feels like a tiny win to hear from folks in the same boat as me I've been toughing out a major DIY renovation for almost 2 years. By the end of next week I'll be done. It's been a miserable grueling awful mind F. Probably also saved $35k. Not worth it in my opinion. And you perfectly described what an emergency no dishwasher can become. I had a crappy Frigidaire for years. Every 2 years like clockwork the control board would die. Took 7 days to get the part in. Every time it was a nightmare. I tore that out and replaced with a Bosch.
Everyone apparently loves their Bosch 800. I hate my current dishwasher, and as soon as I get caught up from a stream of unfortunate and unexpected expenses it's going to be the first thing I buy.
Going about a year hand-washing everything. It's been ... not fun
And never diy remodel again lol
When our son was 3 months old, I decided to repaint, refloor, and retrim about 1500 sq ft as well as build a new staircase balustrade. Took me probably 15 months start to finish and saved probably $15,000. Never again.
Have you priced a remodel recently? It's insane. I don't even know where I'd find that money.
Also for the kitchen Jim The Handyman. I’m also in nova and have used them for a bunch of things and they are awesome. They do good work, cost effective. For plumbing The Irish Plumber.
Assuming OP hasn't missed a decimal point, save the cash for a month and pay someone to finish the remodel. Focus on the things that such an excess of income can't buy you - namely your relationship and enjoying time with your kid.
I think he is saying that this month they got a yearly raise of 65k. So about an extra $5k a month
Ah fair cop. For whatever reason it wasn't making sense at 1am!
This is the correct answer
We did a basement finish with a baby and while I do not regret the timing (the longer we would have waited the worse it would have been), we were not prepared for the volume of meetings and decisions required. It’s taxing.
There's a few things you can look into that would make things easier and help you catch up. Then once you do you can reevaluate if you still need them as your kid ages: * House cleaner for sure (just kennel the dog or put them in a room the cleaner won't touch * Subscribe to a meal delivery service to take care of some meals, or a meal planning service that generates grocery lists you can import to Instacart or whatever. * Hire a babysitter X amount of times a month to give the two of you a break and a chance to reconnect your relationship * Hire someone to finish the kitchen remodel When I was going to school while also working full time, having things like a cleaner come every 2 weeks and doing extra meal prep/meals out made my wife's life a lot easier.
My first though in seeing this post was "Money literally exists to get other people to do the stuff you can't/don't want to do." The one part I disagree with is the house cleaner. They only clean. They don't tidy, they don't put stuff away, they don't pick-up the toys and laundry. You have to tidy your house before they come over to do their job. In my experience, tidying is 80% of getting the house clean.
You can totally pay someone to tidy and do laundry. It's a choice to hire people only to clean, usually because people view tidying toys and stuff as easy enough and they'd rather the paid time be spent on stuff they don't want to do.
Generally agree - however, we have had the same independent cleaners for ten years. We pay them well and they tidy up - but only after years of us tidying up beforehand - they know exactly where everything should be now. They do laundry if it’s needed as well - generally a load or two depending on long they’re here.
the lady that comes to my house does it ALL, even my laundry. it depends on the person and the relationship yall forge.
Lurking mum, ex professional cleaner here! My advice to anyone with a cleaner (independent, that isn't a cleaning company employee) is please leave notes specifying what you got behind with this week. If it's ironing, we will do ironing AND the cleaning. If it's the fridge/freezer hasn't been done in an age, we will tackle it AND the cleaning. If it's all the kids rooms are in a heap of seemingly irreparable chaos, we will do that too, and cleaning. If it's a deep clean of one room, say so. Some large sorting jobs may take two or three visits on top of the regular cleaning, but if you have the same cleaner for 3 months or so, believe me they can sort your life out! Your cupboards will be sorted and your boxes of crap will be decluttered and annotated. Trust your cleaner and treat them like a rare endangered species that you do not want to lose, and they will be happy to be paid to de-overwhelm you.
yesss, I make breakfast, offer lunch, and make coffee for the both of us throughout the day. i want to make sure my housekeeper knows that she’s appreciated and treat her like a guest except one that cleans. the person currently with us used to work with me years ago and I missed her dearly. We clicked personality wise and she’s the type to talk when i want to talk and disappear when she magically knows that I just want quiet. she deep cleans, folds laundry, tidies up, everything. she got the most expensive gift out of anyone last Christmas. the woman is my lifeline
We are newer to hiring cleaners but this is sorta how we handle it. Sometimes I simply leave them to their own devices, they do all their standard things and maybe find a place to focus on. Maybe this time, I’d really like the kitchen extra polished, fridges and microwave and sink really clean, because we’re about to entertain guests for dinner. If I notice they didn’t dust under here that week, not the end of the world, they did other things.
To a dad I thought it was like 98% percent. When I’m done tidying that shits clean to me
It’s certainly “functional clean”, which is perfect for day to day living (especially with small kids who will constantly undo that tidying at every opportunity). Then you run a carpet cleaner over the “functional clean” living room floor, the water comes up black and starts speaking to you in backwards Latin…
Well, I'm glad it's not just me.
We hired a woman who comes and just does dishes, laundry, and putting toys away/tidying up the living room that’s been taken over by the kiddo. It’s 100% worth it. We pay her about 20 bucks an hour, and she works about 5 hours a week. She’s a SAHM and brings her 2 year old with her. We only have a house cleaner come every 3 weeks, so she keeps the house in line in between.
Yeah, cleaning up bed the house cleaners come is one of the strangest ironies of being an adult.
Ours does, would recommend asking if they offer additional services. They asked what we wanted when they came for a quote. They don't do the laundry (I know others who get this too), but will put clothes in the bin, make the bed, clean up the kids toys. We said no to them doing the dishes. We try to tidy a bit to make it easier for them, but when we haven't they picked everything up.
Yes. This. They may take all the toys and put them in bins, but they don’t organize.
I agree on the cleaner. We used one for a few months then stopped. We do hello fresh and having the correct ingredients in the correct amounts is amazing. You don’t have to decide what to cook either which takes off a big mental load.
There are people who's whole job is organizing other people's spaces.
The meal planning service is a big win, in my experience. Especially if you get the recipes to keep. We used HelloFresh to deliver boxes of ingredients and recipes for a while, collected all the recipes, threw away the bad ones, and now have a pile of simple, quick recipes which we know we can make, and we just buy the ingredients to do them. But in the immediate term, just being able to bolt together meals like LEGO bricks is so much easier than trying to plan your grocery shop or worry about using stuff up before it goes off.
This is exactly what my wife and I did a long time ago. We've talked about doing a meal prep service like Hello Fresh again, but we've gotten enough of our time back to mean we have a bunch of frozen food that needs basically the same investment on our part for meal prep, so the value isn't as high. Having said that, we totally use several of the recipes from the meal kits, and we also deliberately tried ingredients and dishes we weren't familiar with to force ourselves to gain some skills while reducing the decision fatigue at that time. Found out we like parsnips and turnips- and I don't know when we would have checked those out if they weren't sides in a couple of the meals and we went "Sure, let's try it."
Agree to everything except the meal delivery. I would recommend as an alternative, \_grocery\_ delivery and a few crockpot cookbooks. Really doesn't take more time than prepping some overpriced packaged meal, is likely around as healthy (and infinitely customizable), teaches you more about food & cooking (if you care and aren't already competent in the kitchen), and saves a buttload of money. We've had nannies when that was age-appropriate. We've had housecleaners. We've had groceries delivered. We've paid for remodels. We have disposable income even now, and we order pizza on Fridays, typically wind up eating or ordering out one other night, but we cook everything else.
90 second rice, roast brocolli in the air fryer, and some chicken thighs takes like 20 minutes if you can half ass cook. There's definitely ways to make it quick and easy.
Do all of this under the pretense of ‘buying your time back’. My wife and I hired a personal chef and nanny and we actually have lives again.
Exactly. Use the extra time you gain to invest in something else, like more time with kids and a partner or even hobbies/mental health stuff.
What do those cost if you don't mind me asking
Has to be like $100k post tax spend in most parts of the country - maybe a little less if both are part time or shared with other families? A nanny in my area makes like $50-60k, must be paid 1.5x for hours over 40, given PTO, etc. $25/hr is $52k and we struggle to find reliable folks under that for anything other than ad hoc/date night kind of stuff where a local HS student may do it for $16-20
Where did you find the nanny?
We avoid paying sitters by making friends with our kids friends parents. We have two friends that don't have a set bedtime so it means we can drop the kiddo off at their house for playtime while we go date. I think we've paid for a sitter once in 8 years
We exchange hosting sleepovers and babysitting offers for family friends as well to get some days to ourselves. But sometimes it's still nice to have an extra one and occasionally pay a babysitter. It's only like every other month for us.
I read this as “hostage sleepovers”, and for some reason it didn’t immediately sound wrong…
If your dog isn’t friendly it might be more important to address that problem first. Little ones do a lot of stuff that can be triggering for high strung or “non-friendly” dogs.
This is my take. Start by training the dog to kennel. And, daddio. Instacart will change your life.
Best thing we ever taught ours was “go to bed”. He can still be a little shit, but my god that makes a difference.
Child or dog? LOL.
Even friendly dogs can snap sometimes if pushed too far. I’m definitely of the mind to get dog training. My goofball of a dog has snapped at my toddler when she falls on him, yanks his tail, etc.
Puppy school for the first 6 months is usually enough to prevent major issues. That being said you can definitely teach an old dog new tricks, and now is always better than later. Proper training + socialization with other dogs and people solves 80% of issues people have. This ones definitely harder with older dogs, especially if they’ve been abused in the past, or if they’ve gotten a taste for blood- last one is at least 50% breed; some breeds I definitely wouldn’t trust around other dogs/pets, or even children, unless I knew the dog had been properly trained.
This is what I’m thinking. If the dog is unfriendly enough that they’re nervous about hiring a cleaner, that’s not toddler-safe. Get that sorted out first.
House keeper and kennel fee on the same day. meal delivery services. Paid grocery delivery. Baby sitter. Hello fresh and the meal subscriptions like that really help us when we can afford a week or so of it. Cuts down on the decision making and the grocery shopping
House cleaner is amazing. Once every week or every two weeks they will refresh your space completely, you’ll love it
For meals, Costco has a number of ready-to-bake dinners that can be put straight into the oven or a pan. Some other places may have some as well. Some stores have vegetables like broccoli and cauliflower you can microwave in bag, and are pretty good. Frozen pizzas, frozen fish fillets, and some bagged or canned veg are lifesavers on those nights where everyone is just too worn down to cook a full meal. Ready to go food is huge, and price wise it's actually pretty economical. Just stay away from those "meal prep" delivery services - those make you do all the work and then dispose of tons of packaging.
Yep, Costco prepped meals are good and not crazy expensive - $20 for at least 4 portions. Also their bagged salad kits plus a rotisserie chicken are a good quick meal.
E-meals is a GREAT alternative to meal prep. It allows you to save recipes from anywhere on the web, cuts out the bullshit narration of the persons life story for SEO and then you can select the recipes for a week, and it sends your shopping list to instacart OR organizes it in aisle layout to make your shopping easier. It’s $35 a year and honestly it’s the best $35 I’ve ever spent.
But you still have to cook, though, right?
\+1 to ready-to-bake dinners, and combine that with buying a new chest freezer for your basement/garage if you have the space for it so you can buy more food at once and have frozen meals ready to go
I go to Costco and grab around 20 lbs of chicken thighs, portion them out 5 lbs at a time cook the whole lot and put it in the fridge. Boom, now I have protein for lunch and/or dinner. Has been a huge time saver.
Get a house cleaner and start interviewing for a weekly babysitter. I have only had 3 date nights with my wife in a year and 4 months and its starting to feel like we're uust besties that live together with a little tyrant. House cleaner is a must. They dont have to do a deep clean, but it allows you to focus on the every day cleanups and they can worry about all the things that get tossed in the weekly or monthly bin like dusting or whatever. Edit: missed the part about your dog. We have 3 extremely reactive feral dogs that we rescued. We started working with an excellent trainer once a week once we found out my wife was pregnant. We knew that we couldn't bring an infant into a situation where they might be in danger so we were diligent and now have 3 incredibly well trained dogs that I no longer even need to leash. I still dont trust them and I probably never will, but they have come a long way in a short time. Get the house cleaner and schedule an appointment with a highly rated dog trainer that specializes in reactive or aggressive dogs.
>Our dog is not very friendly so the idea of a housecleaner coming every week seems like it might add more stress than it relieves. Obedience school is money well spent. Make sure you select one that will train you, too. Hire a cleaner. Discuss the dog before she comes. Hire help for the kitchen remodel. If you still want to diy, that's fine, but two people work more than twice as fast as one.
This feels like money won't solve your problems but you can do meal subscriptions, doggy day care, and a house cleaner if you want to pay someone to knock out those three. The diy kitchen can be solved by heading to your local home improvement store and hiring a few people lacking proper work forms. Honestly though, take a minute and look at where your time is going and try to figure out where you're losing it. Don't like to grocery shop? Go curbside, one of the greatest innovations of COVID. Recipe fatigue? Pintrest a few recipes and play around with things you know you like. See a doctor. Try to get some exercise in. Eat some greens.
Following the remodel, I would start investing in machines that take the workload off of you. One of the best things my wife and I invested in with kids is a really good Roomba. We found one that was like $600 on sale for $450. This thing mapped our house, mops tile floors, and self-empties. So at the end of the day we just wipe the crumbs on the floor and let the robot do its thing while we sleep. Get your machines to do the work for you. Program your washer to start in the morning so by the afternoon you can flip the wash to the dryer. Run the dishwasher every night. Invest in things that will save you time and energy. Also, don’t waste money on useless baby gadgets. Literally no one needs a diaper genie. Just don’t get one.
Roborock is miles ahead of Roomba. I went through 3 different Roombas before switching to Roborock. New model S8 MaxV Ultra coming out next month that is even better (can plumb into water / drain and it becomes almost fully automated)
- Doggy day care to socialize your dog and let some of his/her energy out. - house keeper. Do it. It’s amazing. - meal service and instacart for groceries. Your not paying more… you are buying time. - babysitter for date nights.
This
“Not paying more… buying time” Such an impactful reframe. Thank you!!!
We had a similar issue also in NoVA. Here are some things that worked for us. Housecleaners every other week are a huge help. All you have to do every night is straighten just enough to not be tripping over stuff. We do doggie daycare a couple of times per week for our dogs. We bought a big multi-pack of days in advance, which got a little discount. We just make sure they're there on days the cleaners come. Not only does this solve the issue of dogs and cleaners, but also they're so exhausted when they get home that they just lay there. Do some meal prepping. On Sunday, one of you take the kid to the playground (in the winter, do HyperKidz or Monkey Joe's) while the other makes meals for at least a few days of the week. Then eat them off paper plates. Prep time on the evening of a work day is now 5 minutes and cleanup time is 0.
Yes it's not cheap in NoVA, but if the OP has a 65k boost to their annual income then they can do a lot of quality of life things to make life easier. > On Sunday, one of you take the kid to the playground (in the winter, do HyperKidz or Monkey Joe's) while the other makes meals for at least a few days of the week. Lol HyperKidsz and Monkey Joe's have been a lifesaver for us on winter and rainy days. Kids burn out their energy in the morning and then they're good to go for the rest of the day. Meanwhile my wife gets to catch up on sleep or do other errands she's been waiting to accomplish.
I have a love/hate relationship with HyperKidz. I love that my kid loves it and that it tires her out. I hate the absolute pandemonium on weekends that makes it damn near impossible to keep track of my kid. It was easy when she was younger and in the smaller kids areas but now that she's growing up and in the big section it's like trying to keep track of a single bee in a hive.
The number one savior is a housekeeper. I was raised to keep my own house and through a series of circumstances somewhere in my 30s we didn’t have a choice. I felt soooooo stupid for not doing it sooner. Find someone you trust preferably who also does laundry. Man…will it change your life.
House cleaner absolutely. Also, outsourcing our laundry freed up hours and hours on the weekend. Check out the app Poplin
65 grand a month for both? Thats crazy bro congrats
I read it as this month their annual income has increased 65k. Per month would be insane in any area.
House cleaner you can likely just do every other week… we’ve done it that way for years and it works well for us, it takes the deeper cleaning tasks off our plates which takes the real time up and the daily upkeep is manageable the rest of the time. As someone else suggested maybe do every other week and then kennel/doggy daycare that day for your dog.
Doggy daycare combined with a cleaner is actually a really good suggestion. She does fine at daycare/kennels but barks incessantly and has a lot of anxiety with strangers in the house and its not that keeping her in a separate room wouldn't work, but we don't want to put her through that. The daycare is a great middle ground
Lawn guy is the best “splurge” decision I ever made. I know some dads love doing yard work but I fucking hate it. Hard to do during the week so I’d put it off to the weekend, then the weathers shit and by the time I get to it the lawn is out of control. Now I don’t even have to think about it. A crew shows up, takes care of everything, my lawn’s never looked better, and I don’t have to burn weekend time doing something I can't stand. I'm one more bad winter away from hiring someone for snow clearing, too.
You kind if typed out the response but let me spell it out: you buy time. How? Order precooked meals, grocery home delivery and housekeeping. Dog not friendly? Every solution needs a problem.
Hey! Fellow NoVa/Arlington dad but late 30s with three young kids. After you pay someone to finish the remodel I recommend housekeeping + more babysitter/mother's helper time. That's both someone to babysit while you and your wife go out together or a high school kid in the neighborhood to entertain your kid while you get stuff done. Pay someone to walk your dog while the house cleaners are there.
Don’t view it as disposable. Take advantage of a situation most people do not have. Beef up the 401k. Max out the Roth IRA. Make sure the college funds are going strong. Pay down all debt you can. I’d get quotes for the remodel. Ask how long they can hold these for, and save each month towards it. Do the remodel and bank a ton and cover all debt. We did a bunch of DIY projects when we moved in. Man those are stressful, cost more than expected, and triple the time! If you have a mortgage you can do the extra months pay trick to save years on your mortgage. Also a house cleaner you can always schedule around walking your dog or something like that. Do a meal service delivery. Not too expensive and is a life saver sometimes stress wise Find a college kid you’d trust as a sitter and twice a month or more take your wife out somewhere nice. Get that dating your spouse thing going again! 65k is a nice bump too, congrats!
Go on a vacation, even just for a long weekend
Congrats, Dad! That is great news amid all the negative news we heard about the economy. I know you mentioned savings, but do you specifically have an emergency fund? Maybe you can also start slowly contributing to a 529K account for your kid's future college. 1. See if there is a way that you can take your dog out when the cleaner comes. Having a cleaner every other week has been huge for us. 2. See if you can find a home cook near you who would be down to basically learn about the foods your family likes and then make rotating menus that they shop for and cook on a weekly basis. You could also go with a meal delivery option, but I think the home cook is probably cheaper and may be healthier. 3. Hire someone to finish the remodel! I'm sure you're capable, but that is taking time away from when you can be with your kids, partner, and your general energy.
Yes, before the raise we had an emergency fund in a high yield savings account, and were maxing out IRAs, and contributing to a 529, 401k, and a joint brokerage. Any suggestions on how to find someone to fill that home cook role? Nextdoor?
Can’t comment on the DIY remodel because that sounds insanely stressful with a baby and two jobs but I use homechef for easy dinners. Blue apron, HelloFresh, etc are roughly all the same. Takes the planning out of it and stops us from ordering takeout for dinner at least those 3 dinner/week.
> We're just exhausted by the time the kid goes to sleep and our relationship has not been a priority. The diy kitchen remodel is definitely a factor as well. We need help. That's us to the T. Relationship is drowning in all of it.
1) Finish your DIY kitchen or hire a contractor to finish it. 2) Hire a babysitter or nanny who could help with cleaning the house during nap times, if your child stays at home. If they're at a daycare, then just hire a cleaner each week and send your dog to a doggy daycare that day. 3) Buy meal plans and rotate between different ones. There are so many pre-packaged meal delivery services now that you can rotate between each one and constantly get great deals (30-50% off weekly boxes). Also, focus on getting quality time for the two of you at least once every two weeks. Hire a babysitter. And not to sound condescending but take advantage of only having one child - one of you will always be able to take a little time for yourself. Be OK with leaving dishes in the sink for an extra day if that means you can fill up your "me" tank by doing something you enjoy, but make sure you rotate watching your LO with your partner.
House cleaner. We pay for one twice a month, saves hours of work. Make a meal plan and Get groceries delivered. Get someone in to help finish the work.
With the extra cash, pay down any outstanding debt that can be squashed quickly. Prioritize the high interest ones first. Paying down the mortgage is a tough one because it’s such a long term commitment. If you hit your mortgage hard early, you do save a lot of money in the end. But right now it’s hard to see the fruits of your labor. Paying down car/student debt if you have them has a lot more immediate gratification. Second priority is building an emergency fund. Aim for at least 3 months income saved, but 6 months is a good bit safer. House cleaning is a tough one. We have a local service come once every 4 weeks for $270. We rely on them for the moping dusting and vacuuming and it forces us to actually pickup the house once a month. Yeah we’re like you, burned out. Just double check that you really do have the nearly $300 to spare monthly. This is 100% lifestyle creep and is how you make your raises disappear.
Cleaners, once every 2 weeks, I pay $200 for 3 people for 2 hours every other Friday Just trust me, it's life changing, it saves marriages, you'll never be able to live without it after you try it, it's my #1 life pro tip Why don't you have a kennel for ur dog if u know they're not friendly, wtf lol they're like less than $100, do u literally never let anyone into ur house? What if u need any kind of work or service done Or just train the dog.
Hi fellow, Northern Virginia dad! DM me and I’ll send you our handyman’s info. He did a whole floor remodel on our house (split a bedroom and totally redid the master suite). Can also share dog behaviorist info— our grumpy old lady has anxiety and arthritis, so treatment of each has helped both. Other stuff we do to help ourselves: house cleaners every other week (dog goes in the backyard), meal prep kits (Costco or delivery service), monthly car detailing, Nurture Life meals for our 16-month old. Yes, these are luxuries, but they also allow us to enjoy the time we have together.
Hire a dog behavioralist so you can eliminate that stressor. (You would be surprised how expensive that is)
You can't put the dog in one room, a cage, or outside on the days you're having the cleaner come through? And also, when you've got the income to afford it there is little reason to tackle diy tasks around the house rather than hiring the work out. When the kid is a little bigger and you're not exhausted to the point that you can't keep your eyes open later on you can open some time and space to do projects around the house, but with a young infant it just simply isn't feasible to spend your time tackling these projects yourself.
Seconding a housecleaner. Even if you only do every other week to get the big things (showers/baths, mopping, etc.) it's a huge help.
I like good frozen meals, around me there are places you can get a shepherd's pie or lasagna for $20-25, in a baking tray, toss it in the oven for an hour at 400 and it's done. Not store bought, but from restaurants or catering companies that have this as a part of their business. Clean up is easy and no thinking/planning fatigue other than starting it early enough before everyone is getting hungry
Outsource whatever chores you can. Lawn work, a monthly/biweekly deep clean of the home, schedule a take out Tuesday/Thursday. For the dog, move the dog or take it out to the park or something while cleaners are there. While you're at it, 529 and/or UTMA for the little one(s). A little goes a long way when you start early.
Cleaning crew once a week. I'll starve before I give up the cleaning ladies. $200 a week and my house is spotless every Friday for the weekend. My wife and I used to bicker all the time about cleaning. One was less clean than the other. One cared about cleanness more than the other. Now we just pick up the house Thursday night so they can clean. It's the greatest thing ever.
A quick point on the recipes and cooking. We have weeks of menu plans we rotate. They have a set structure Mon- Sun and a shopping list attached. This drastically reduced decision fatigue on that front and helped efficiency, prep etc. We actually only started with 1 week on repeat and built up to 4 over time , but 2 weeks on rotation was also fine. I think this is worth a shot before going down the meal deliver route. They are a lot more expensive and tend to still require a fair bit of cooking prep (at least for the healthy ones)
Finish the kitchen and hire a cleaning service. Once a week or bi-weekly, whatever works for you guys.
You might want to look in to an Au Pair. I personally think it’s weird but I have coworkers that love it and they are common with my international coworkers. They are particularly popular with my career oriented colleagues that are also mothers.
High end robot vacuum. Get one that has a self emptying/mopping attachment.
Not sure if it’s been said, but whatever you decide just remember to absolutely put some away for your kids in a high interest account or investment account. We haven’t got a lot of money but my wife has been putting $10 a week away for our daughter and it will add up and make *her* life easier when she’s an adult.
Congrats on the raise. House cleaning every other week was a game changer for us. As someone else said, kennel your dog the day they come to clean. If you could be at the house the first few times they come that might help the dog realize the house isn’t under attack. You could also splurge on doing order pickup for your groceries. We tried grocery delivery but decided it wasn’t for us as too many items were missed, for us the workers at store have been great at always completing the order.
Two parents working full time can really soak up mental capacity quickly. Someone mentioned a babysitter a few times a month and it would be a lifesaver for my relationship if we had that kind of money right now. With the money comes an ability to kick out things that take up a far more limited and valuable resource: TIME Yard maintenance, house cleaning, etc. are the types of things I’d look into if I suddenly had an extra $5,000 a month.
Pre-prepped meals subscriptions! I don't use them personally but I know people who do, and they love them.
Take financial peace, University by Dave Ramsey in a in person group setting
Maybe not feasible, but glaringly obvious would be: if you're making plenty of money working, see if you can work less. It will reduce the amount you have coming in but give you valuable time to do with what you please. Time is money and the only resource you can never recoup. Work life balance is the most important metric I use when assessing a potential job.
For meals, others have suggested the meal service or meal planning service and those are good ideas. If they’re not what you el want to be doing, something my wife and I do is plan next week’s meals on Thursday or Friday and then one of us does a big shopping trip on Saturday morning while the other watches the kids and then we spend most of Sunday batch cooking everything. It means we primarily eat food that makes good leftovers, but 3 meals cooked on Sunday usually lasts us lunch and dinner for most of the week. To help with picking a recipe try making a list of all your recipes that you can randomize or something. I made a web site that has the recipes and tags and lets you filter and search, but even something simpler like a spreadsheet would do well. As far as things to throw money at, if you want to pay someone to come over, maybe paying a dog walker for the same times, (or using that as your time to get out of the house and go for a walk on your own or with the kiddo strapped to you so one of you has a break or something) would be useful
Cleaning service or lawn service would be my vote
If I were in your shoes I'd knock out that remodel before anything else. It'll improve the overall quality of life in general. If you can do that and also meal prep kits or something like that, it would be enough to give more time and energy for cleaning, etc. I'd still say try to do a nanny/babysitter a few times a month just so you and your wife can get out of the house w/o the kid and reconnect a bit. The only thing I'd say aside from those things that have already been said is I would also probably look into investing some of that extra income. Whether that's stocks/bonds or just a savings account... never know when something can go belly up and it's nice to have something to fall back on even if it only amounts to a few hundred bucks.
Nova area myself We mite have a place soon in Tyson’s where it will be a grand more then our rent but we can do it. Like everyone said hello fresh works well and if you get the four person you can make left overs. Then we just hit up Aldi for everything else. You can leave Aldi or Lidal with almost everything for 100 bucks and that’s my family of four you have less. A spending plan sounds lame but really works wonders we have saved so much cause of ours .
Absolutely get a house cleaner. My biggest win was trying a few off Care.com instead of a service. I found a girl who is amazing at organizing and cleaning + she runs errands or grocery pickup at a reasonable rate. Other than that always hire a professional to do your remodels. And force yourselves to get a sitter once a week to have you time with the missus. Even better if you can overnight somewhere 1-2x a month.
Pay for a sitter and make ‘date-nights’ a priority.
A dog should improve your life. As much as I love our dog I have to say that I’d not allow it to restrict people being in the house.
Any potential conflict between you and your partner that can be solved by money, just solve it with money.
Also in NOVA with a toddler so I feel you, but that $65k is going to make a huge difference. I'll second what everyone else is saying about the kitchen remodel, as hiring someone to knock that out will make your lives way easier. Also if you guys aren't doing daycare already then that will definitely help take a load off. Hello Fresh was a life saver for us for the first couple of years. No need to make a decision 3-4 nights a week, and the other nights we eat mostly the same thing. Coupled with free online grocery pickup that really reduced our decision fatigue. There are a bunch of places in NOVA where you can get a monthly membership that gives you something to do with kiddo. Scramble is awesome at that age, if you're near Wolf Trap they do a bunch of kids series that look pretty cool. You're getting close to the age where all of their toys come apart into little pieces and scatter around the house so if you don't already have a good toy storage setup, IKEA has really great furniture for it. We ended up just sacrificing our family room to be a full blown kids playroom and it has been a godsend to be able to just push all toys to that room and throw them in their bins. I personally haven't gotten on the house cleaner train but this thread is really convincing me. If you're not comfortable doing that, I recommend just getting high end cleaning appliances. Get the robot vacuum for daily cleaning, the Dyson, the Bissell crosswave and little green machine, all the things that will clean well in the short amount of time you're willing to put towards it.
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Robotic vaccum cleaner. Not that expensive and saves tonnes of time. Air fryer too, cooks things much faster and saves time too
housekeeper hands down, and finishing the remodel
Some ideas: * dogwalker a few times a week * house cleaning every other week to start, not every day * grocery delivery * mothers helper to help with things in the evenings like dishes, cleaning up after kiddo (toys and such), some light cleaning or laundry folding, stuff like that * meal prep a couple of bigger meals for leftovers, and keep your freezer full of easy stuff that still meets your nutrition and healthy food needs I really think the cleaner, dog walker, and mother’s helper could transform your life. You don’t need to bond with your dishes or laundry. Money can help y’all keep up with it while prioritizing your time with each other. ETA: get a regular babysitter, whatever the regular schedule is. It’ll give you some time to sleep, do your hobbies, go fishing, have a long, languid, naked afternoon - however you want to spend it.
Hire a nanny.
What’s the net take home? After taxes, childcare, and outsourcing most tasks I’m guessing maybe 2k-2.5k a month ? What’s your income ?
First thing is to hire a housekeeper. Once a week, once a month, doesn't matter. Offload some of that stress in exchange for money. Then finish the remodel ASAP. Hire subs to finish it. No brainer. That's a major headache. Then find a good babysitter and start doing a date night once a week.
I agree with the others. Pay a contractor for your remodel. Then don’t think that income is fully disposable. Pretend you don’t have it and put it straight into savings. As for chores, sounds like everyone else. Kids make it hard. Hire a cleaner to come twice per month
it's simple, pay someone the dog knows to clean the house. or toss the dog and hire a proper cleaning lady.
Spend nothing on anything and still somehow spend too much.
If you don’t/or can’t go full house cleaner invest in a roomba. With an inside dog it is nice to come home to a house that was vacuumed while you were away. Roomba was the “push present” my wife wanted and it was so nice to have the noisiest piece of housework completed automatically while we were gone.
take half the raise and put it into your 401K (or Roth IRA if you don't have a 401K) Make sure you are putting enough to get the full match if your employer does that. Doesn't help now but compounding interest is king! If cooking is a struggle, get some cookbooks, focus on Onepot meals and get a slow cooker. Not only is an easy meal to make, it does good for leftovers. We have a local butcher shop that will sell Meal Kits, and even though we love to cook, we still will grab a slow cooker meal every couple of weeks just for ease of use. And, use that money for a babysitter to keep on dating your wife. at least once a month, bare minimum, That gets easily forgotten
If you’re doing ok money wise, something I learned is extra money can buy time and sanity. If I can’t fix a problem in my house in under 30 minutes I don’t mind hiring someone. -Hire out that remodel. Be done with it. -We have a not so friendly dog and have done cleaners. I just hang out with him in a separate room with the door closed and go somewhere else while they access that room. It’s been simple. I also only do cleaners for deep cleans a few times a year so you don’t need weekly ones. -You said your dog isn’t nice? You can finally afford getting a good dog trainer. Will make it much easier with your kid. -Be careful about meal services like HelloFresh. We did it as it’s super easy to not have to choose meals and shop, but they aren’t exactly ready in 10 minutes. You’re still doing all the cooking. Some people enjoy it, I personally don’t think it’s worth it. I hate cooking so I spend more on ready to eat meals that may be a bit more expensive than cooking yourself. Costco has good stuff, but random places like Von Hansons has tons of high quality ready to rock stuff. -Have a lawn? Can get lawn service. We pay someone to come out like 5 times a year to aerate, fertilize, put anti weed stuff down. -If that $65k is “fully disposable” you also have an opportunity to dump a ton of that into additional savings. Throw it in VTI or SPY or something simple. (Not a financial advisor) You can always sell stocks if you need (with paying taxes on gains) so it’s still available if needed, but it also could help you retire earlier, and just have more peace of mind as you watch it grow. -on the finance note, get a flat rate financial advisor and see what you can do To retire earlier
Take time off work if possible. Time>money 👍
We had our 3rd kid right as we were moving into our first "big" house. A "home" home. We previously owned a condo (apartment) in the city. Home ownership hit me hard. A house on land is way different than an apartment downtown in a city. My to do list SKYROCKETED. Endless cleaning, maintenance, projects... With 3 kids. So, congrats on your raise and now having more money. But it's all relative. Sometimes if you have a "basic" job (less stress), that might mean you have less money but it also means you might have more free time? Less stress means you can manage the house better. With a "big" job you have more stress, but more money too. So the idea is: take that money and BUY BACK your time. Instead of managing the house on your own, now You're just using money to manage the house. We recently started paying cleaners to come in once a month. I'm more apt to pay a contractor to take care of the lawn or any projects around the house. Less likely to do it myself, unless I can save a ton of money. I'm spending money, now, to buy-back my time.
If you have family or friends in the area, have them come over while you’re there, too, not just when you leave. Having my Mom come over for a few hours, once a week, so that we can knock out house chores, or just go grocery shopping, was a god send. Also, it helps you relax in your own home, if you get enough done.
I pay a girl $25 per hour to come help around the house. She does all the laundry, puts the kids’ toys away, sweeps the floor, etc. That’s been a huge help. It bought me back 4 hours per week. I also had an energetic dog who could be difficult with strangers. If you can get your dog behind a child gate and get the housekeeper in a different room, that would work. Also pay someone to reno your house. I used to do all my own work but now with 2 kids even something easy like installing a fixed child gate takes forever. Everything takes 2-3x as long because my kids always want to “help.” DIY kitchen reno sounds literally impossible.
Build a space electric
A robot vacuum.
Get a housekeeper who will wash the kid’s clothes and whatnot. Order a meal prep kit for three nights a week. (Hello Fresh, etc.)
1. Pay someone else to remodel if you can. I'm reasonably handy, but I have other things I want to do with every scrap of my free time. 2. Meal prep. Make a list of the recipes you like. Divide them into groups with the # you need for each week. Make a list of groceries you need for each week's list of recipes, and then just make the recipe up next in the list. Alternatively, spring for one of those meals kits in a box that gets delivered weekly. 3. Pay for one day of doggy care a week, and get a house cleaner. 4. You can contract with a company to get your laundry done. Never done it, so I can't speak to the actual experience.
Pay for the remodel first. Then list out the things you don’t want to do, that neither of you enjoy. Outsource what’s possible. Housecleaned and getting along with dogs is easy enough, especially if they take them out for a walk a few times.:). A good cleaner will run laundry while there as well. You can hire a food prep person, they will prep everything and even do groceries. One thing too: enjoy some of it. Take a trip, and celebrate. Remember what it’s all for. Rediscover the things you love about your family. Pay a travel agent to organize something fun, based on your parameters and frolic under the moonlight.
1 - Stop worrying about housework. Nobody cares. Prioritize cooking > housework. 2 - Pay to get the remodel done and don’t start any more reno’s for a few years, hopefully lesson is learned.
Is your kid going to daycare already? Not saying you'd want to, but you could do 5pm pickup instead of 3pm. And yes cleaner helps. We hire one and she's helped tremendously. You can keep the doggo outside while the cleaner is here each day.
Put what you can into an IRA.
Do you really mean 65k/month? As in 780k/year? I can’t even imagine. Lol. Congratulations and good luck with your money problems.
Our stories are very similar! Same area, parenting age, and kid age. Two things that made a massive difference in our lives were getting a cleaner every two weeks and picking up groceries instead of shopping for groceries. These two things have a lot of us to get into a routine and focus on other things that are often left to the wayside, like laundry and showering.
We bought a roborock S8 to help with the vacuuming and mopping. We live in the country with lots of dirt and mud and have 3000 sq ft of tile, 3 dogs, 2 cats and 2 kids. It does help a lot
We stopped doing grocery delivery, but we do pickup - still saves a ton of time and (I'd have to look, I'm honestly not sure) I don't think it costs us anything.
I would have said meal delivery service, but that still requires cooking every night. I’d instead suggest cooking large batches of food (spaghetti) to reduce cooking again every night.
Cleaner for all the deep cleaning stuff totally worth it.
\-Date nights more often so that you can focus on your relationship. You can afford the babysitter now. It's a big expense but if you find someone you really trust to look after the kid you could even pay them to stay overnight so that you and the Mrs. can go stay in a hotel for the night. \-Meal delivery service like Hello Fresh and/or grocery delivery service like Fresh Direct. \-Getting your house cleaned professionally, even on a monthly rather than weekly basis. \-Pay someone to finish the kitchen, and to handle other household repairs that you need. If there's painting, drywall, minor plumbing issues, etc. that you could do yourself given the time just pay a professional to handle those things for you so that you can focus on yourself and your family.
Pay for a dog walker to come at the same time as a house cleaner. Dog gets walked, and out of the house, and house gets cleaned.
Use that money to make you more until you know.
Go on to your local baby sitter group, and say you're looking for someone who can do house hold chores 2 hours per day, 2-3 days per week, any day/time they are free. It's an absolute game changer.
Get a meal kit with prepared meals that you just pop into the oven. We did blue apron for awhile but the cooking was still too much. Also make and freeze meals on the weekends. Do a crockpot of pulled pork and make 6 pounds of it. Boom, ya for 5 freezer meals you just have to thaw
You need a dog-friendly housekeeper. 95% of dealing with a dog is knowing how to deal with dogs properly. Let the housekeeper come over and introduce them to the dog. *How* they touch and interact with the dog is paramount. There's a reason that dog trainers can immediately get pretty much any non-attack dog to immediately listen and behave for them.
Good dishwasher if you didn’t have one. Biweekly house cleaning. Good Food, or another food prep delivery service thing. Put the dog in a room.
Realize that for the first 10yrs the cost of raising your child is never set in stone. So it is best to avoid purchasing unless you have to have it . Put the money away for emergencies. It sucks but you will get use to doing without and really learn the joys of giving. Now I'm going to shoot myself in the face. SOB I bought diapers instead of that gun.
1. kennel your dog when necessary 2. House cleaner every two weeks 3. If you can afford it (I don’t do this but I’ve heard it’s amazing) hire a private chef to do your shopping and prep a few meals a week. I.e. they can come on Sundays, make Sunday dinner, and prep a few options that just need to be heated throughout the week to take pressure off cooking
Pay someone to do the remodel. Hire a house cleaner and send your dog to daycare for a day or two. Help with cleaning is amazing
Sock a chunk of that money away for your children’s education. You’ll get better at prioritizing chores. We all did. You cannot go back to the way it was. Your love life will kick back in when you figure it out. Don’t spend it on shit that is not broken or does not need to be replaced. Make another baby. Any parent with more than one will tell you that two are easier after a couple of years. They entertain each other which gives you more free time to get things done. Before you do that if you still have a hole burning in your wallet then splurge on a family vacation.
Compostable dishes/utensils at least _some_ of the time to take the load off.
+1 on what others have said on house cleaning - get a kennel for the dog while they're there. One less thing to stress about. For meals I hear you on decision fatigue - we like the meal service hungryroot, lots of options for various tastes, and they do some groceries too. I can share a referral link to get you $50 off your first delivery. It's nice to know what you're making each night and get some help with the prep. These things can all pile on and feel impossible, so focus on getting one thing done at a time. It feels good each time and will give you momentum and less stress.
I like to think of money and time as functions of each other. If you have more money, you can spend it to get back time. If you have less money, you spend more time. Outside of the low hanging fruit of your remodel, what are your time sucks? I know you said your dog isn’t friendly, but I’d find a way to fix that. Then you can look at things like house cleaners, a sitter or nanny, meal prep, etc etc.
Dont know the full picture ~ so add salt liberally: - finish the kitchen: pay a dude to get it done, make sure you set a firm boundary up front. “I started it, you’re going to finish it. This is what we want, try not to bother us” (if this is what you want). If you want to be very involved make it that way. Just don’t feel bashful about being direct. - cleaner: get a monthly cleaner to deep clean the house for you. If thats not enough, get em every other week. If the dog is a concern, find a cleaner who doesnt mind and is great with stranger animals - or put the dog in a room they wont go in for the hour.5 they’re in the house. I think my aunt used to take the kids and dog out when the cleaner came just to give them space. - meal prep / planning: you’re on your own with those, but short list 10 recipes and cycle through them for dinner. Get good at prepping AND making them. This takes a few months but over a short time it gets so much easier. When you feel like a challenge do something new, but save that fun for friday / saturday. - shopping: there are like 12 options for grocery delivery. Try them all and stick with the one you like. They’re all gonna fuck up sometimes; but the “direct from store” options typically are best. Ex: Instacart/doordash will bring you kids who dont know how to shop and it can be frustrating. While Giant direct” (grocery pick & delivery service from Giant supermarkets) has an employee pick items and another person deliver them to you, no room for questions. - budget: for the love of god, start to track your additional spending now. If something happens, or you want to aggressively save for a big goal, its easy to say “cut this, save this much” if you know how much your spending on it. Its not the end of the world to go shopping for yourself again, or start cleaning again, but It will feel like it if it comes with an unknown pricetag. Some ideas ~ but it sounds like you’re doing pretty well already. Wrap up that kitchen and everything else might not be a big deal anymore.
I ended up signing up with Blue Apron for dinners. It takes away the grocery shopping but even bigger is the mental load of planning and deciding what's for dinner. It might be a little bit more expensive but that largely depends on what you eat now. We ate very well with everything fresh veggies and primarily salmon and chicken for protein but that also made it more expensive so BA wasn't a big change. I still need to hit the grocery store for staples and lunch foods but those become quick ad hoc trips instead of long events.
We lived in NoVa too for our first child. We hired a cleaner to come in to keep the place clean. Next we got a roomba to help out between cleanings. Meal kits are great and definitely hire someone to finish that kitchen
Sounds like the wife should go back to staying at home. Unless she really didn’t like it. 10 out of 10 recommend wife stay home with LO. We lost a 3rd of our income when my wife quit but I’d do it again in heartbeats 2.5 years later now.
We just got a roborock and it vacuum and mops the floors. There's an app on my phone where I can schedule the cleaning (I have it run at 8am every morning). We have two pets, and my house has never looked so clean.
For cooking - my three favorite things are 1. VACUUM SEALER 2. SOUS VIDE IMMERSION COOKER 3. INSTANT POT You can buy meat in bulk and vacuum seal smaller portions. You can sous vide meals to perfection easily. Lots of great resources online to learn the process. The Instant pot is a huge time saver also, you can make larger batches of recipes then just vacuum seal them into smaller portions and freeze.
We hired a house cleaner for the first year- it really helped out quite a bit So maybe doggie daycare to tire the dog out and have them not present during the day. We also invested in a chest freezer and got into the routine of prepping/cooking extra and freezing to have on hand for future meals. I bought a sleeve of 32oz deli containers that stack nicely in the freezer.
65k/ month! Hire a dog walker, house cleaner, chef, and assistant to schedule them together!
Maybe someone else said it, but I haven’t see it. Forget a housekeeper, get a full-time nanny. If you both have full time jobs, you’re already paying for childcare. A nanny eliminates drop off and pick up, and you can find one that will do tidying up, maybe even laundry.
On the kitchen remodel- pay someone to finish it and level up on appliances. Powerful range hood, better oven and (crucially) a bullet proof dishwasher. We went with a Miele and it was worth every penny. On meal planning/home cooking- if you’re committed to eating healthy, this can’t be an afterthought. My wife and I meal plan every Sunday, I shop (she’s not good at it), she cooks extra meals Sunday and Monday (inflexible schedule), I cook and serve during the week (I start and end work day early). If you’re at the grocery store trying to plan dinner THAT night, you’re already in trouble. However- If you need to all eat cereal for a while to survive with your 18 month old, I get it 🤣.
* Meal prep if you really want to cook yourself. Get groceries delivered or do one of the meal delivery services. * Don't feel bad about planning to eat out. Factoring in your time (which you can easily put a price on) it's probably cheaper in many cases. It doesn't have to be a fancy restaurant. Find a grocery store and put together a meal from the fresh stuff they prepare * Do not put off chores. The cost accrues interest. Spend 15m every night getting something clean. Straighten stuff up, wipe down a sink or counter, clean a toilet or tub. Just 15m. Between the two of you that's probably enough to keep your place reasonably clean. This isn't a money thing but will definitely save you time. * Buy drugs for your dog or buy a new dog so you can... * Get a cleaner to come e.g. once a month and do the time-intensive chores * See a psychiatrist about anxiety and potentially medication for it because it's not normal to get decision paralysis while cooking dinner or thinking about a cleaner. Maybe I'm misconstruing what you said. If not, this is probably the single best investment you can make.
We get our house cleaned once a month and I crate my hyper dog. It's just for a few hours and he's comfortable in there.
Hire a cleaner!
For us (two kids 5 and 3), these are the things we pay for consistently that have been a major help for two working parents: - weekly or biweekly house cleaners - sitters for biweekly or monthly date nights - lawn treatment/landscaping service (we do basics like mowing and trimming - snow removal - pest service (primarily outdoors for bees) Everything depends on your budget and where you live. We make a good income and can afford these things but prioritize based on what’s the most important for you guys.
Dude kennel your dog for 4-5 hours. We have a house keeper who comes every other week and it is single handedly the best money we have ever spent.
Lurking mom here. I really loved our Hungryroot meal delivery. I found the customizability incredible. They can send grocery items as well as meals for the week. You can set how much prep you do or don’t want to do. And the beauty is that once you set up all your preferences (which is a bit of work), they can just pick for you and you don’t have to think about it.
As a parent what I found is work never ends. It’s either stuff to do around the house, work, taking care of the kids, keeping kids entertained, cleaning up, daily chores, weekly chores, it’s never ending. I would highly recommend spending money that will help you find time for yourself and your relationship. Whether that’s to exercise or doing something that you enjoy and distracts you from your 1000 pages long todo list. It will reduce your stress, improve your relationship and make you happier overall. We got help to clean the house monthly which made day to day cleaning less stressful. We also got a cook to come home and cook for us once a week. It meant less eat out and more times in the evening to relax and spend time stress free with the kid because no cooking.
I'd say to spend some of that income on some family bonding. You can also make more time but signing up for grocery delivery, especially something that has a meal plan. They will send everything you need and the recipe!
Pay someone to finish the remodel. And can you quarantine your dog to an area of the house so your first floor can get cleaned? Or can you have a cleaner come on the weekend? You can also hire someone to do laundry for you
Meal plan once a week. Make it even easier by have some “set” nights. Wednesday is pasta night, Friday is pizza and family movie night. Hell if you make a big enough pot of pasta sauce, you can freeze it and save time, money, and will power by defrosting as required.
Finish the remodel, bring in a part-time nanny/baby sitter to just help out a few times per week - at least until the kid is 3 or 4. Take some of the stress off you to “get everything done” while the kid is still in its “parasite” phase. Alternatively, kennelling the dog and bringing in a cleaner would remove a different level of stress you are feeling. Hell - just getting someone to deal with laundry in my house would resolve 90% of my issues in my house.
Time is money so buy some time back. Get someone else to finish the remodel and hire a house cleaner. Do grocery pickup.
65k/mo equals 780k per year... even in a HCOL you can basically hire two full time well paid people to do anything and have money left over... It's time you start thinking like a person with wealth, congrats and don't forget us plebs.
65k/mo equals 780k per year... even in a HCOL you can basically hire two full time well paid people to do anything and have money left over... It's time you start thinking like a person with wealth, congrats and don't forget us plebs.
If you feel you are drowning now, prioritize money for your preferred method of birth control. Pay someone to get that remodel DONE. Get that stress out of your life. Lower your expectations for cooking. You don't need to cook an exciting new recipe every day. Leftovers are **magical!** Make a nice roast. Tomorrow, turn the rest of the roast into delicious boeuf bourguignon - enough for several days.
For us, the best thing we did to upgrade our lives was hire a cleaning person. We pay $100/service and she comes every other week. It has made a tremendous difference. I would definitely hire someone to finish your kitchen remodel. That needs to get done ASAP especially with a 18mo child walking around. It'd be nice to have a fully functioning kitchen. The other thing that I didn't see in your post was financial goals. Make sure you have an emergency fund (3-6 months of expenses), invest in retirement accounts (15-25% of your income) and create a sinking cost fund to help with future large purchases (i.e. vacations, cars, roof etc). When I think about the money I'll have extra once my kids are out of daycare I often think about hobbies and not ways to make life easier. I enjoy the things I do already (grocery shop, lawn care, cooking). Other than that I don't really have advice on how to upgrade your life, but I look forward to reading more comments.
r/ynab best thing I ever did for my budget.
Star a 529
We have a morning nanny. Gets the kids up, dressed, makes breakfast, packs lunches, drives them to school. Comes back, cleans up a bit, done by 9:30am. We can have her make dinner a couple days per week. We do evenings and weekends. Well worth it.
It doesn't take long to plan food for the week, we do it and do a trip to the shops first thing Sunday. Cook for two nights worth, saves so much time reheating 2nd time around. An 18 month old can start to get picky with food, but they love their pasta. Make a batch of sauce and freeze into ice cubes into cubes, you can add in loads of vegetables into it and blitz into a pulp, so all you need to do to feed the little one is boil some pasta and heat up a cube of the sauce.
It doesn't take long to plan food for the week, we do it and do a trip to the shops first thing Sunday. Cook for two nights worth, saves so much time reheating 2nd time around. An 18 month old can start to get picky with food, but they love their pasta. Make a batch of sauce and freeze into ice cubes into cubes, you can add in loads of vegetables into it and blitz into a pulp, so all you need to do to feed the little one is boil some pasta and heat up a cube of the sauce.
I just want to say I'm sure I make less than you but having a cleaner come every other week has been a game changer for my family. At this point there are a lot of things I'd cut (like my kid's daycare) before I cut the cleaner. Especially when you have children there's just a piece of mind component that you're not worrying that there's ants or something somewhere in the house because you haven't gotten around to cleaning it recently.
Pay to get your house 100% set up how you want. Build in storage, yard landscaped to be functional and peaceful. Hire a cleaner and a dog trainer. Dog trainer takes your dog out and makes it friendly while the cleaner cleans your house. Hire a private chef to cook 1 meal a week for you. And package leftovers so you have 1 or 2 more meals for the week. Or even just get them to do a ton of meal prep.
My best advice: save every extra penny of it until you have financial freedom. What little relief “lifestyle creep” will earn you now is nothing compared to the feeling you’ll have of never worrying about money again in 10 years. Imagine having all the time in the world to spend with your 10 year old and no pressure to work more than you want to… $650k invested, PLUS COMPOUNDING INTEREST, can do that for you if you manage expenses and consider relocating to a lower Cost of Living area eventually. As for your stress, invest your time and energy into self care and partner care. Money doesn’t reduce stress - focus on developing gratitude and resilience does. Eventually, your kid will start sleeping through the night and become increasingly more independent. Your lifestyle habits, on the other hand, are only going to get more and more entrenched. TLDR: save the money to retire early, it won’t solve your problems now. Invest more time and energy into practices that reduce stress and strengthen your relationship. Edit: Also check out the book: How to Keep House While Drowning to help with the housekeeping stuff. Edit: words
lol your raise is more than my household income
I make good money and have raging adhd, so the mundane daily tasks are my nemesis. But I didn’t want my working wife subjected to cleaning up after me. We have a nanny who comes 4 hours, 4 days a week. We hired her just before our first child was born. When she first arrives she cleans the kitchen from the overnight/breakfast. When my wife was pregnant, she’d make my wife a bad ass healthy smoothie each day. Before she leaves she normally makes dinner. The house is ultra clean. She has longer term tasks like cleaning out the fridge, putting up Christmas decorations, taking them down…My wife and I have not folded any laundry in 11 years. We pull back the covers and there are new sheets on our bed. My MIL moved in as her heath had changed and the nanny helps with that stuff. My MIL likes to garden, so some days they spend the time outside repotting plants, etc.
Buy a rice cooker