Posted on 01/30/2012 1:58:58 PM PST by SeekAndFind
The life of a homemaker is one that includes an endless amount of demands and to-dos. Depending on the size of the home and family, the position of homemaker can go well beyond the usual nine to five. We examined some of the tasks that a homemaker might do to find out how much his or her services would net as individual professional careers. We only take into consideration tasks which have monetary values and use the lowest value for each calculation.
Private Chef
Meal preparation is one of the major tasks of most homemakers. From breakfast to dinner, there is plenty of meal planning and cooking to be done. The American Personal Chef Association reports that its personal chefs make $200 to $500 a day. Grocery shopping is another chore that needs to be factored in. A homemaker must drive to the supermarket, purchase the food and deliver it to the home. Grocery delivery services charge a delivery fee of $5 to $10.
Total cost for services: $1,005 per five day work week x 52 weeks = $52,260 per year.
House Cleaner
A clean and tidy home is the foundation of an efficient household. Typical cleaning duties include vacuuming, dusting, sweeping, scrubbing sinks as well as loading the dishwasher and making beds. Professional maids or house cleaning service providers will charge by the hour, number of rooms or square footage of the home. For example, bi-weekly cleaning of a 900-square-foot, two-bedroom apartment with five rooms, costs $59-$124. A 1,300 square-foot, single-story home with seven rooms runs $79-$150. A 2,200 two-story, three-bedroom home with nine rooms averages $104-$180. Additional tasks such as oven or refrigerator cleaning and dusting mini blinds can run an extra $20-$25.
Total cost for services: $118 per week X 52 Weeks = $6,136 per year.
Child Care
Homemakers provide full-time, live-in child care. This type of service from a professional provider would usually come with a host of perks including health insurance, paid vacation and sick days, federal holidays off, dental and vision coverage, and bonuses. The International Nanny Association's 2011 survey found that nannies make $600 to $950 per week in gross wages, on average.
Total cost for services: $600 a week plus perks/benefits x 52 Weeks = $31,200 per year.
Driver
A private car service might seem like a high-end luxury to most, but the beneficiaries of a homemaker get this service on a daily basis. Companies like Red Cap, which provides personal drivers that use the client's own car as the means of transportation, offer a glimpse into the cost of this homemaker task. An elite membership which includes 365 days of unlimited, round-trip service is $1,000 a year plus 33 cents - $2.03 per minute.
Total cost for services: $1,000 per year + [(estimated miles driven 8000 miles / 50 MPH) x 60 min/hr x $0.33 per minute] = $4,168 total per year.
Laundry Service
Clean clothes come at a cost when you have to pay for the service that most homemakers do for free. Professional laundry services charge by the pound. For instance, Susie's Suds Home Laundry Service, Inc. in Texas charges 90 cents to $1.00 a pound to wash, dry, fold, hang and steam your clothes. Items that take longer to dry such as comforters, blankets, rugs and winter clothes are assessed at a price of $12-$15 each.
Total cost for services: $0.90 per pound x 4 pounds of clothes per day x 5 days per weeks x 52 weeks = $936 total per year.
Lawn Maintenance
Basic maintenance of the exterior property is a less common, but possible duty of a homemaker. This could include things such as mowing, debris removal, edging and trimming the lawn. These services cost about $30 a week on average.
Total cost for services: $30 per week x 52 weeks = $1,560 total per year.
The Bottom Line
Total for a year of all services is: $52,260 + $6,137 + $31,200 + $4,168 + $936 + $1,560 = $96,261 per year.
The daily work of a homemaker can sometimes be taken for granted by his or her family members. However, these services could earn a homemaker a considerable wage if he or she took those skills to the marketplace. Homemakers in general contribute a lot more to the home in addition to these tasks, and no amount of money can fill those needs.
Sound like working class or agrarian stereotyping to me. My late father-in-law couldn't stand me because in his eyes I never worked a day in my life. I sat in chair behind a desk and played tiddly winks all day as I stared at my diploma on the wall as far as he was concerned.
So much work that a lot of men do is routine, even outside desk jobs like programming, writing, and management. My next door neighbor works for a dairy. He loads the same crates onto the same truck, drives the crates to the same stores, and unloads them every day. The joke is that he's asian, and can't even drink milk.
I own a bread route.
Well said!
I agree with you 100%. However, the real problem in this thread is that we have multiple contenders for the title of Captain Literal. The author no more meant that homemakers should be compensated to the tune of $100k a year than a man on the moon.
It’s almost laughable really. People are getting so hung up on the numbers that were supplied that the entire point of the article has been completely lost on them. They genuinely and truly cannot see the forest for the trees.
As homework, I think more than one FReeper could afford to look up rhetorical, not in the dictionary but a style guide with in depth explanations of everything from rhetorical questions, grandiloquence, or in this case hyperbolic juxtaposition.
Bitter much?
Kidding. Next time, end with /rant. When you put it in brackets < > FR thinks it's html code, and no longer preserves line breaks for you. I had to manually insert a line break just because I used "< >" in the previous sentence.
It isn't, the description may have been inadequate, but it wasn't meant to describe only physical work, it's just quicker and easier to use that.
Even when it comes to pushing a pencil, I think that the most routine, repetitious chores drift towards the women.
I have done route sales and deliveries, it is fun, and I find that vastly superior than daily house work, and the never changing routines of the daily family, house hold routine as listed at the top of the page.
Yes.
But who will care more, if the house goes to pot? :)
Now that was what you were supposed to get from the article. You get it.
Hmmm....
Cost of a shared room in a shared house: $2400 a year*
One share of food budget: $2500
One share health insurance: $2200
Transportation: $3600
Telecommunications: $840
Clothing etc: $360
Books: $300
Total: $10,220
Hours “on call”: 3948 (12 hour days, three days off each month)
Equivalent wage: $2.59 an hour.
I need a raise LOL
*not counting utilities because when I lower the heat, he turns it back up and when I raise the a/c he turns it back down.
Furnace wars deserve their thread, if not a reality TV show. I've been living it for 20 years. My wife was raised in Germany, and is comfortable in temperatures that I find absolutely frigid. If I put the furnace where I'm comfortable, she acts as though she's being roasted alive and runs through the house throwing open windows. When we left Colorado for Texas in 1994, it was heaven for me. Her...not so much.
This is the type of stupid bile the media throws against those who value motherhood highly. Nothing but pushing their leftwing bile.
I am chuckling at your last sentence. It reminded me of the gruff moving men telling my fussy grandmother when they were delivering a new sofa...
“Lady, you only get one put!”
What about the homemakers who also do plumbing, electrical and light automotive maintenance and repair?
I fixed the toilet today and the doorbell a couple of weeks ago...
Take a raise.
You deserve it.
Why is him being Asian a joke?
/sarc
Thanks for posting this. Apparently some Freepers have had some nasty experiences and tend to paint all women with the same brush.
I’ve stayed home to raise the kids and take care of Hubby for 17 years and my life in no way resembles the picture some have painted.
The house is cleaned every day. Laundry is done every day. I cook from scratch every day but Friday nights. I do all the errands. I take care of the kids. I clean the gutters and handle all the lawn care. I take out the trash. I also help with the business. Hubby lets the dogs out and takes the trash toters to the end of the drive once a week. I see the rest as my job because I’m home and it allows him too focus on our business.
No, I’m not going to send Hubby a bill after reading this. He has his job and I have mine. Although I don’t collect a paycheck, my job is every bit as important as his and he understands that what I do allows him to do what he does. It’s called a partnership.
I’m sure I’m not alone so thanks for bringing a little realism to this thread.
Since I’m the one who’s home all day and I have some wrenching skills, I try and lighten his load.
He fixes stuff all day. I hate for him to have to fix stuff when he comes home.
I just want him to relax, crack open a beer and eat a good dinner.
He knows that I can't, won't, and shouldn't do it all. However, he may know that intellectually, but emotionally he is still having a hard time not having everything done.
I'm willing to get a maid, a laundry service, and go out to dinner more, but he still thinks he can manage it. I have my doubts.
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