What jobs would you hire out...

[Aerynne]

Another one- I would hire a physical therapist to exercise with me daily- not just give me exercises. I am not detail-oriented enough to get stuff exactly right so I need someone watching me every time.

[RiverRock]

If I had already paid in advance, I would definitely have more incentive to work out!

However, thinking about a personal trainer leads to me thinking about a dietician and honestly I start to feel anxious. I started this post to brainstorm ways to make my life easier and not to add more busyness. Everyone can dream their own dreams in this thread, but I need to look for ways to simplify and/or delegate household tasks. Either that, or I will need to work less.

As much as I want and need to exercise, I think another weekly appointment would be too much for me. I already have plans to go to the gym while my dk are at nearby activities, even if I just sit on an exercise bike to read a book.

[Aerynne]

Didn't mean to be overwhelming. For me exercise is a very real need now that will make my life easier because what I need the most is not more time, but more energy and less pain, and I think exercise can give me that and make the rest of my day easier so that overall I get more done. But I didn't mean to overwhelm you- we are all in different situations and I totally get that making you anxious.

[ECingMama]

If the item you want to go to the dump had even a tiny bit of metal, there might be someone who will come get it for free.

We were thrilled when someone wanted our scrap metal, even though I didn't even know what was metal on object.

I just left it on driveway. It was gone that day.

[Soliloquy]

Lots of personal trainers do Skype, now. It's much cheaper than paying for someone to come to your house.

[ECingMama]

A few of the items on your list look perfect for 10-15 year olds to do. (vacuuming/repotting plants were the first ones I noticed.....I throw a fit every time I see how much people are paying young kids/young teens for this kind of thing. I would LOVE to send my dd over to someone else's house as a job where she vacuums and is paid $3 an hour to start. And she would still think that would good money. Vacuuming isn't something that requires supervision, so it wouldn't be an extra job for you. *I* would even be willing to walk my dd to someone's house and pick her back up after I walk with my other two kids.)

Can someone on GCM who is great at organizing help you via skype?

The Trim Healthy Mama meal planner site is AMAZING. It's free for 30 days with purchase of their newest cookbook. I've cooked 390/420 of the recipes in their first book, and I thought 380 were good/great! (I'm counting all the little variations in the first book b/c I am cooking all of them.)

I know you want your recipes, buuuuuutttt; I'm telling you. They are fantastic. They were raw vegans for years but are full on meat eaters now. Low carb. So the recipes are full of veggies! The FB groups have great ideas on how to sub whatever sweetener you want if you don't want to use stevia.

The baking blend is easy to make.

http://www.meanderingwithmeg.com/tri...end-recipe-fp/

I bought my oat fiber on netrition.

[Sparrow]

To fold and put away all the laundry

To clean up the messes I make cleaning

To clean my floors twice a week

Then I'd be a happy girl!

[RiverRock]

The master list is everyone's suggestions from the thread, and doesn't necessarily reflect my needs and desires. I need to decide what I'm willing to let go of if I want to maintain or increase my workload.

---------- Post added at 10:56 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:53 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Sparrow

To clean up the messes I make cleaning

Oh my, this would be amazing! I often don't have the energy or motivation for the last 5% of a job.

[ThreeKids]

My sister has a high school girl come in to guide the kids through homework and that helps a ton. This girl has had some of the same teachers, that would be awesome.

Driving, driving, driving, even when I'm in the vehicle. (And I do for times I'm at work, but I'm weary of so much of my time "off" being consumed by it.)

Organizing ds's homework. We get a lot of help from the school figuring out what the homework is, but I still get it wrong because I'm bad at figuring it out, too.

Cleaning, which I do, but not enough.

Cooking or picking up food somewhere

Grocery shopping

Decluttering

Taking the girls to girly movies. I actually keep thinking of ways to ask my friend to do that when she's babysitting.

One note. And I'm saying this in having looked for help at my own home, to take care of my parents and our team at work trying to hire a new person, all jobs that pay far more than someone would get in most other jobs so lack of incentive to keep the job isn't an issue here. The economy is good. A lot of the workers who would be good and competent and who act with a modicum of professionalism are already hired.

It's a lot of fuss to try to get someone to do things in your house the way you want and it is looking like this "who is left to hire in a good economy" issue means trying to direct the work of "who is left" involves drama, people who can't be told to do it a different way or better without being hurt or "victimized". That's why hiring a student who has a good excuse to be available or using an agency, where there's no drama in asking for a different worker, is a good option right now.

[RiverRock]

Originally Posted by ThreeKids

One note. And I'm saying this in having looked for help at my own home, to take care of my parents and our team at work trying to hire a new person, all jobs that pay far more than someone would get in most other jobs so lack of incentive to keep the job isn't an issue here. The economy is good. A lot of the workers who would be good and competent and who act with a modicum of professionalism are already hired.

It's a lot of fuss to try to get someone to do things in your house the way you want and it is looking like this "who is left to hire in a good economy" issue means trying to direct the work of "who is left" involves drama, people who can't be told to do it a different way or better without being hurt or "victimized". That's why hiring a student who has a good excuse to be available or using an agency, where there's no drama in asking for a different worker, is a good option right now.

Can I relate to this! I tried hiring a professional company to clean and it lasted for a few months until one of the ladies coming to my house quit to go to school, and the company couldn't find anyone to replace her. First the owner of the company reluctantly stepped in to clean, but she became weary of working so much and raised her prices 20%. I stayed on. Still her work load was too great so she quit a number of clients and gave referral names. I tried one of the referred companies and it was horrible quality work. I learned that the original company was getting a kick-back from the new company if clients stayed for longer than three months. That's when I decided to find my own individual person who was a good fit. I don't want to pay to train anyone right now. I want to hire someone to come in and be professional. I think I found that, but it took some time and I had to know what I wanted.

Now that I think about it, I don't think I was ever invoiced for the company that I tried once and it has been over a month. I don't want to put in extra work to pay, either...but I want to pay. Ugh. The lady starting that company was in over her head in so many ways. I'll send a text and offer to pay her cash if she picks it up. That's about the effort I want to put in and it should be worth her while.

[Soliloquy]

Plate Joy is a great, healthy menu planning site. You can check off what foods you can't/won't eat and also check off an eating style (grain free, vegan, etc). It kept giving me salmon recipes which are outside of our budget so I added salmon to my no list.

I did the free trial. I may go back and pay for a year.

[Llee]

For me, having someone to come in and do the deep clean would be fabulous.

[RiverRock]

A bit of a follow-up. Since this post I've done the following:

-hire an arborist to prune 7 maple trees...and take the branches away (in the past I would have saved $ but not time to add the branches to our burn pile)

-hire a landscaper to trim other bushes, and clean up

-have two pictures professionally framed instead of shopping to find the best frame for the best price (well, I started but then remembered my need to hire out some jobs)

-make an appointment to have my car detailed. It hasn't had a decent cleaning in 4+ years!

-today the cleaning lady is staying an extra hour. Four hours every other week isn't quite enough time so when she can stay longer (non-holiday Fridays) I will take advantage of that.

-cooking easier meals (my family was very happy with a recent meal of gnocchi, mushroom rose sauce and italian sausages. It was so easy to make and the items are all available for home grocery delivery if I ever get around to doing that!)

-hire a math tutor (my ds is at 97% right now! )

-call to have blinds repaired (still waiting for the return call, but I have needed these blinds repaired for years and thought I could do it, so it is good to reach out for help).

[RiverRock]

Because I hired help for the inside of the house I was able to spend time cleaning out the garage (1/3 of the job is done) and hosing down the porch. I want to have a work bee morning at our house tomorrow and I hope I can get others on board. I feel stress lifting just by having a nice porch entry where I can greet visitors.

[ECingMama]

Awesome update!

The wind is horrible here, but I just found out the professional tree trimmer is going to be on my street today. Praying he can do our tree too. He did one for us 3 years ago. I've been meaning to call, but I was also hoping my husband would just do it. This thread is a good reminder. This guy has the mulch truck with him! Boom. Done.