After two years of living in a larger house and cleaning it ourselves, we finally got to the point where we considered hiring a cleaner. As a frugal person, I’m not willing to hire someone else to do something I can do myself, especially since I don’t have a job. So I always do my own gardening, cleaning, driving etc. Additionally, I have loved the smell of pine alcohol every time I wipe my toilet for the past 26+ years!
However, the disadvantage of living in a larger house is that there are more things to clean. After a while my wife and I started to feel unclean and disorganized. We would rather spend time with our children playing or watching morning show Four hours better than Clean on Apple TV.
However, just like paying $300 to $500 to have someone service your car, I can’t get over the feeling of waste. Cars get dirty easily after a week or two. Therefore, I have never paid anyone to clean or service my car. I just get a hose and sponge and do it myself for 15 to 20 minutes. Although the car is not completely clean, it is 80% clean enough!
So, in this article, I want to find a way to overcome our reluctance to spend about $450 a month to deep clean our house. Because frankly, I feel like a lazy person considering hiring a cleaner.
Not willing to hire a cleaner to clean our house
The first thing I did was find out what other people were doing. I’m shocked by what other people do when it comes to hiring cleaners. Maybe you can also join in and share what you do.
I talked to a cleaning lady on my way home the other day. She was cleaning one of my neighbor’s houses, so I asked her how often she cleaned her house. She said she and her team Clean the house every week! The parents, both working professionals with two young children, have been cleaning their house almost every week for the past 13 years.
Holy moly! Even with a few kids, does the house really get that messy after just a week? If parents spend 15 minutes cleaning every other day, and maybe 30 minutes on weekends, the house must be clean enough, right?
If you are willing to pay for a weekly cleaner, then you will definitely be willing to allocate 15 minutes a day to cleaning. Your tolerance for uncleanness is low, so you naturally take action.
Why guilt is real and why it matters
For many of us who grew up frugal and in middle-class homes, hiring help can feel like admitting defeat. If you can do it yourself, you should. Doing housework is a process of developing character. Scrubbing the toilet allows us to appreciate our treasure and also helps us keep the bathroom clean when we use it.
If you’re a FIRE practitioner, every dollar you don’t save or invest after covering basic living expenses can feel like a waste. Spending money on something like a monthly cleaner can feel particularly painful because it means you have less time and freedom in the future.
Living in America softens us over time. We have plenty of food, so we overeat. Our parents gave us everything we asked for instead of making us work hard to earn what we deserved, so when it came time to pay off our college loans, we rebelled. When we need money, we don’t take a minimum wage service job and turn to the Bank of Mom and Dad for another bailout.
In Japan, cleaning one’s own home is seen as a sign of respect for our space, ourselves and others. It reminds us that life always slides into chaos and it is our responsibility to control it. The last thing I want to do is develop an entitlement mentality where I start expecting others to handle all the tedious work for me.
But frugality is a tool, not a religion. At some point, spending money to buy time and sanity becomes the rational thing to do. Mathematics is not just about money versus chores, it’s about money versus time, stress versus relationship bandwidth.
The Hidden Costs of Do-It-Yourself
- time: It may take 1-3 hours for a professional to clean 1,000 square feet. The bigger your home is, the more time or labor it will take to clean. This is time you can use to work, sleep, exercise, or spend time with your kids.
- vitality: After a long week, cleaning requires energy reserves you may not have. This affects mood and patience. The worse your mood is, the less happy your marriage will be.
- quality: Professional cleaners with experience and the right tools can perform deep cleaning faster and more efficiently.
- opportunity cost: How much is your time worth? Even if you estimate conservatively ($35-$50/hour), regular cleaning will pay for itself quickly.
A Practical Spending Framework (Financial Samurai Style)
I’ve been thinking about financial disciplines to follow to optimize our spending. So let’s consider how much to spend on a cleaner based on household income and net worth. Here’s a simple framework I recommend when deciding whether a service is worth outsourcing:
- A monthly cleaning budget is approximately 0.5% – 1% of your gross monthly income (increases based on home size and care needs).
- Or think about the net worth range: the higher your net worth, the more you should be buying back time instead of doing low-value chores yourself.
Rough guide:
| family situation | annual income | Recommended monthly cleaning budget |
|---|---|---|
| Frugal/Lean Fire | <$100,000 | $0 – $85 |
| middle class family | USD 100,000 – USD 250,000 | USD 40 – USD 200 |
| high income families | US$250,000 – US$700,000 | $100 – $600 |
| Wealthy/top 1% of households | US$700,000 – US$2 million | $300 – $1,700 |
Example: If you make $250,000 per year (approximately $20,800/month), a monthly cleaning expense of $200 is approximately 1% of your gross monthly income. If you take into account the value of the whole family (fewer fights, more sleep, more free time), this rate is within the guideline range of 0.5-1%.
If you have a high net worth (e.g. $2-$5 million+), spending $1,000+ per month to maintain a large house is often a very efficient use of your time. On the other hand, if you’re still building wealth and your income is tight, you can do monthly deep cleaning + DIY maintenance.
Calculate cleaning expenses based on net worth
If you are financially independent or FIRE, your net worth is a better guide than your income in deciding how much help to hire.
Here’s a simple rule of thumb: Annual cleaning budget = 0.1% of your net worth
That’s enough to sustain your home and sanity without feeling like a waste. In other words, if your net worth is $1 million, your annual cleaning budget is $1,000.
| net worth level | lifestyle description | Recommended annual cleaning budget | Typical cleaning frequency |
|---|---|---|---|
| <1 million USD | Still building wealth/Fire in progress | $0 – $1,000 | DIY+ Half Yearly Deep Cleaning |
| USD 1-3 million | Lean Fire/Moderate Comfort | USD 1,000 – USD 3,000 | Monthly deep cleaning |
| US$3-5 million | Regular FIRE/Mid-upper level comfort | USD 3,000 – USD 5,000 | Deep clean every two weeks or alternately |
| USD 5-10 million | Fat Fire/Lifestyle Optimization | USD 5,000 – USD 10,000 | Weekly cleaning or monthly full service |
| Over US$10 million | Fat Fire/Maximizing Efficiency | $10,000+ | Full service + organizational help + four body massages per week + personal chef every two weeks |
Benefits of hiring a cleaner
- turn back time: Instead of scrubbing your baseboards, you can enjoy family time or productive work time.
- mental health: Less clutter = less cognitive load. A clutter-free space can lead to calmer conversations.
- interpersonal relationships: Fewer fights over household chores means higher returns on your marriage.
- Professional quality: They hit where you wouldn’t. Deep cleaning, grouting, aeration – the jobs.
Negative Effects of Hiring a Cleaner
- recurring expenses: Once outsourced, it becomes a growing project.
- guilty: You may feel like you’re buying comfort rather than earning it.
- Security/Privacy: Letting strangers into your home requires vetting and trust.
- dependency: If the cleaner quits, you will have to go back to DIY mode or find a new cleaner.
How we will test this new fee
We will conduct a simple experiment: $450 for deep cleaning after 27 months and 5 minute daily cleaning by everyone in the household. Why a mixed approach? Because a deep cleaning can take care of the heavy lifting, and small daily victories can prevent the house from descending into chaos or turning into a Lego minefield again by Thursday.
If a $450 deep clean feels like it’s worth it, we’ll wait three months and then reevaluate whether to do it again. My theory is Quarterly deep cleaning is the sweet spot, enough to maintain order without going over budget. At $1,800 per year, it feels like a reasonable price for 12 to 16 more hours of free time.
Metrics I care about:
- Hours recycled per week (with simple log tracking).
- stress level (My wife and I conduct weekly family stress assessments).
- relationship friction (Are we happy or unhappy).
- net effective cost (Time saved vs. dollars spent).
Try a deep clean and reduce the amount if needed
We will reframe this spending as an investment in family time, sanity, and the life we want. If you’re on the fence, run the numbers for your household. Try a short experiment and make your decision based on time saved and friction reduced rather than guilt.
Who knows. You may find that hiring a cleaner is the best use of your money!
Readers, I’d love to hear about your cleaning habits. Do you hire professional cleaners for your home? If so, how often and how much does it cost? How do able-bodied people get over the guilt of not cleaning their own house?
Carefully track your finances
Hiring a cleaner is one of those lifestyle upgrades that feels small but quietly adds up. A few hundred dollars a month doesn’t seem like much until you look beyond it and realize that this could mean tens or hundreds of thousands less in your net worth over time if you’re not careful.
That’s why I used Empower’s free financial dashboard Since leaving my day job in 2012. It helps me understand, in one place, exactly where my money is going and whether my spending choices are truly aligned with my long-term goals.
If you’re debating whether a cleaner is “worth it” at your income or net worth level, figure that out first. When you can clearly see the trajectory of your cash flow, investment expenses, and net worth, spending decisions become less emotional and more rational.
If you haven’t reviewed your finances in the past 6 to 12 months, now is a good time to do so. You can do a DIY inspection using Empower’s free tool, or choose Free financial review. Either way, you’ll likely find opportunities to optimize and free up money for the things that matter most to you.
Live today intentionally so that you can live freely tomorrow.
Empower is a long-term affiliate partner of Financial Samurai. I’ve personally been using their free tools to track my net worth, cash flow, and investments since 2012. Click here to learn more.
Subscribe to Financial Samurai
Pick up a copy of the USA Today national bestseller, Millionaire Milestones: Easily Reach Seven Figures. I’ve combined over 30 years of financial experience to help you accumulate more wealth than 94% of people and get out of your shell faster.
To accelerate your journey to financial freedom, join over 60,000 others and subscribe Free Financial Samurai Newsletter. You can also have my posts sent to your email inbox as soon as they are published Register here. Founded in 2009, Financial Samurai is one of the largest independent personal finance websites. All content is written based on first-hand experience and expertise.
