Attempting To Make Life Easier
Life is crazy for us right now. Work is keeping both Mr. MPB and I busy. My continued interest in writing for pleasure on My Perfect Breakdown helps keep me busy. Trying to fit in cycling and fitness also eats away at our time. Trying to cook fresh healthy meals also adds to the demands on our time. And, of course chasing around a very happy and active toddler keeps us on our toes (and brings us copious amounts of joy).
So, for the first time ever we are trying out a few things that may make our lives just a little bit easier:
- This year we have hired a company to pick up our dog’s pooh on a weekly basis. For a few years now we’ve hired this company to do the spring clean, because it truly is money well spent to have someone clean up after months of winter where the pooh freezes into the snow. But, this year, they offered a really good sale for the summer, so we decided to take one task that neither of us like doing off our to-do list.
- I tried on-line grocery shopping for the first time. We simply order online, choose a pick-up time slot and then park in a designated spot and they will deliver the groceries to our car. I’ve been nervous about trying it because I figure they wouldn’t pick the vegetables the way I do. But in the end, for the $3 surcharge, it went pretty well. We’ll probably try it again. Although I’ll admit, I forgot 3 items so we still have to go grocery shopping at some point, or wait until the next order.
We are also considering hiring someone to mow our lawn. We are still undecided on this one because it’s really not a huge time commitment. Honestly, we haven’t even looked into the cost. To be honest the real reason we want to get someone else to do this is because we cannot mow the lawn while Little MPB sleeps, which is clearly the best time for us to do it because he’s not particularly helpful when it comes to activities like lawn mowing. For some reason Little MPB always wakes up to loud cars and lawn mowers (but sleeps through thunder storms, explain that to me please!?), so it would just be easier if we could get someone else to mow our lawn while we play with Little MPB while he’s awake. So, if it’s affordable we may hire someone to mow our lawn for us. In fact, there is a teenager who lives down the street that may be interested, so we are going to talk to his parents next time we see them and ask them first.
Are there any other easy and affordable ways to streamline our to-do list? If anyone has suggestions I am all ears!
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Do you have a house cleaner? A couple of my friends use the same cleaner in our town and she comes every other week and apparently it’s quite affordable because she’s independent (not through a maid company). If there is one thing I could afford to do to simplify my life, it would be to get a cleaning service. Especially with pets.
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Oh I should have mentioned that we do have a cleaner! We went through a little stage of not having anyone regularly, but we’ve found 2 great women (young mom’s making a bit of extra cash) who are amazing and affordable too! I couldn’t survive without them!
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How about hiring a part time house keeper? Someone who comes in 4 hours daily, does the laundry, takes the dog out for a walk, cleans the house, and cooks fresh meals daily at home?
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The dog poop picker upper person is a genius idea. We have a dog and every weekend it’s either me or my husband going out into our backyard to do the pick up. It doesn’t take that long, but it’s still frustrating and annoying to have to do. Why can’t they just pick it up themselves?!! 😀
I’ve been hearing really great things about Instant Pots being amazing for busy, working families. I don’t know the whole jist of them, but my basic understanding is that they cook up your meal way faster than if you do it in the oven. I think they kind of act as slow cookers/pressure cookers.
One thing that we have been doing since October is having pre-made meals delivered to us for dinners. The guys that we use are fitness based meals and they pre-cook everything and it’s all portioned out into containers for us to toss on a plate and then into the microwave to warm up. I just order them for me and my husband. My little guy is a super, super picky eater so I usually whip him something simple up that I know he will eat. But the time saved on meal prep and then all the dishes has been really good. We pay about $13 per meal and I will get meals for 3 days of the week and the other two days I will make something in the slow cooker. It seems to be something that, if the money is there for it, that is becoming quite popular amongst busy families. For me it’s great because it’s a guaranteed healthy meal for dinner. Not that we eat bad, but on some of those nights where I’m even more exhausted than normal, I would happily settle for a bowl of cereal than cook.
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It is nice when you can simplify life in any way. Since Luke we’ve hired a cleaner, yard guy, and do the online grocery shopping every week. Our store here charges 100.00 for the year and it’s amazing!!! I was worried about produce selection but they do great and have wonderful costumer service. I usually do one big order for the week and a smaller one if I’ve forgotten something or run out. I hope you can fine other ways to save yourself some time!
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In South Africa, as middle class people we are hugely spilt because we can afford someone to do out garden and clean our house but I can assure you that having someone mow the lawn makes life a lot easier… could this person not pick up the dog poo before mowing as part of the job? And I am always very relieved that someone else does the big cleaning jobs like ironing and floors etc.
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Spoilt
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We have a lawn-mowing service and it’s awesome. Well worth the investment both based on our time mowing (we have a 1-acre lot, though, so it’s big) and based on our time and energy maintaining a lawnmower — we’d probably need a riding mower for our big yard.
We’ve also talked about house cleaning and getting someone in to cook for us once every week or two. I think if you sit down and figure out what you wind up spending the most time on that takes you away from Little MPB and that neither of you enjoys doing, those are the things to try to spend your money on.
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We have a house cleaner every other week. She was a lifesaver while I was pregnant and on leave after the birth. Such a huge help for us.
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Love these ideas. I’m all for contracting out the crap jobs. Life is for living and you guys both work full time. Better to let your spare time actually be fun time!
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Don’t tell anyone, but I swear the people who cut our lawn just run over our dog’s poop instead of first picking it up!
And I’ve been meaning to try online grocery shopping as well, but I always ponder the perfect apples in store 🙂
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It’s hard juggling everything, isn’t it? Do you have a regular cleaning service?
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Periodically I send the laundry to the wash and fold. I hate doing laundry. I wash my workout clothes and towels. Sometimes I just send the rest out and poof, its all done layer that day or the next. Love!
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I had no idea such a service exists!! That would be a dream come true, we hate laundry in this house probably more then anything else!
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Not sure how big your lawn is but how about getting a reel mower instead of a regular lawnmower, which are not only more friendly to the environment but way quieter? Then you could just pay a neighborhood kid to come by and do it in the spring, then just let it go yellow in the summer as it’s supposed to. We love our reel mower – I bought it 11 years ago for a hundred bucks brand new and it’s been awesome. 😉
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