Should you hire a cleaning service? Of course, you should!
It reduces stress, saves time, and can save money. But have you ever thought about the economics of hiring a house cleaning service? Let’s do some math!
It takes one person about 4 to 8 hours to clean a 3-bedroom home from top to bottom – bathrooms, kitchen, dust, mop, and vacuum. Some people say they can do it in 4 hours and neat freaks say they spend an entire day. Let’s average that to 6 hours and begin by assuming that you value your time at about $25 per hour.
6 hours X $25 per hour = $150
It seems like an easy decision to hire a house cleaning service to clean your home for about $150 or less (which is the average from homeadvisor.com, redbeacon.com and Angie’s List) but here are some other things that you might think about.
Stress
Finding the time to clean can be a hassle. You may be tired after work on the weekdays and cleaning may take half or a full day on the weekend. If you have a special event, like the holidays or a visit from your in-laws, having to clean your house may add extra stress in addition to grocery shopping, cooking, or preparing for family time.
Beyond the stress of time, you may be beating yourself up about spending more time cleaning or dealing with the stress of a messy home. Hiring a cleaning service will literally help you take those tasks off your plate!
You hate cleaning
Some people love to clean. They find it relaxing and even fun. But the people that hate it – they REALLY hate it. These people probably read right past the math equation earlier and thought to themselves, “I would pay much more just so that I don’t have to clean!” People that hate cleaning get distracted easily, and may take up to twice as long to clean their home than people who enjoy cleaning. That makes hiring a cleaning service even more economical.
Opportunity cost
Opportunity cost is an economics term for the loss of potential gain from other alternatives when one alternative is chosen. What that means for us is, what are you giving up by spending time cleaning your home?
No matter what you do, time is precious in the modern world. The time that you spend cleaning could be spent playing with your children, walking around the farmer’s market, seeing a movie, visiting your parents, working out, shopping, running errands, meeting with friends, or any other activity that you enjoy!
You might be losing money by cleaning
If cleaning stresses you out, you don’t enjoy it, or you would rather spend time on other things, you are adding a premium on your time. A premium is a sum that is added to an ordinary price or charge. For example, you might pay a premium on organic fruit. Since organic fruit is treated differently than other fruit and it is in higher demand, customers pay a little more or pay a premium.
If your time is precious to you, then there is a premium on your time. In the example above, we assumed a time value of $25 per hour. Adding a premium may make the value of your time $35 per hour so
6 hours X $35 per hour = $210
It makes sense to pay for a cleaning service that costs less than the value of your time.
What to do next?
- Think about how much time it takes to clean your house.
- Estimate the value of your time.
- Identify anything that may put a premium on the value of your time.
- Time to clean house X Value of your time (plus that premium) = Your time value.
- If your time value is more than a home cleaning estimate from 2 Green Chicks, then your decision is made!
Some content adapted from www.money.usnews.com.