Save money, wash a car - save £1800 p.a.

There is an argument that if you were to cease doing the menial household chores, then you could pick up more entrepreneurial or profitable pastimes to ensure your time is well spent.

I agree that to spend time making money is better than saving money, perhaps...

Listening to a show today there was a debate about employing domestic cleaners versus doing the housework yourself? I have been raised to only buy what you can afford, and to be self sufficient as far as possible.

Well, I believe that maths is always the best way to prove a point. i.e. make your decisions based on fact.

The cost of reducing household chores i.e. pay someone to do it
:
Cost of cleaning a car = £6
Cost of cleaning your house = £30
Assuming this is done each week then the sums are:

£36 x 50 (2 weeks on hols) = £1800.

So, to create £1800 clear salary/profit you would have to:

Work for 188 hours at £12 per hour (25% reduced for tax etc.) or:

Generate £18000 turnover -  if the mark-up profit was 10% and to pay salary for the time spent generating the turnover, say £10 per £1000 turnover would be £180.

If you were to invest in shares/stocks, then the £1800 needed to pay for the chores would mean that you would have to own £60000 with a 3% yearly dividend, just to clear this payment.

So it is not quite as easy to say that contracting out your domestic chores is a no-brainer if you look at my figures.

The additional benefits of the examples above are that whilst doing your own chores you are expending energy, thus probably staying fitter.
Consumption is reduced by not having to travel to the car wash, zero conveyance for the contract cleaners.

The final point is that if your house is populated by more mature children as well, then the labor normally comes for free??

Thanks for reading