Wouldn’t it be great if we were all a little more honest about what we outsource?

Imagine if your honesty could influence someone on the verge of outsourcing [when they’re at absolute tipping point], because they see more and more people just-like-them being open about what they outsource?

Imagine if they felt like that thing that you outsource, was something that “only the rich people” outsource … and then you go and talk openly about your outsource, and it helps them to realise that help is more within their reach than they first realised.

Confession? That last point that I made was me, up until this year [2019], i.e I thought that “only the rich people” had Nannies.  In reality, we have a Nanny now and it works out to be $30 more than after-school care [a.k.a the cost of x1 coffee per day]. The difference though? … instead of hauling arse to after-school care from Monday to Thursday before it closes, and then rushing home to get dinner started at 6pm [one hour after my kids usually eat dinner at 5pm], and then racing through bath time > books before bed > followed by bed … I arrive home at 6.15pm to my kids fed and bathed, freeing me up to do the stuff I love most [and with a real sense of time and headspace to actually ask about how their day was, instead of feeling *rushed* + irritable by all-the-things I felt like I had to squeeze into the one hour we had before bedtime].

But the biggest bonus? … my son is happy [and he was *miserable* in after-school care, because we found it was designed for the “sporty kids”, i.e not my son, ha!].

I didn’t know a private Nanny was an option though, until a friend said to me, “Cherie? We have a Nanny from 3.15pm until 6.15pm, and it works out to be $30-40 more per week than OSH club”.  

And so the point I’m trying to make is this, our transparency around what we outsource … could genuinely be someone else’s “permission” that they needed, and for me? Realising that a private Nanny managing our after-school care for our kids wasn’t just financially accessible, but was also better for our children [more importantly].

So in the interest of paying it forward? I’m now going to share with you the things I’ve outsourced in 2019, outside of a private Nanny [because we now know that’s been one of my 2019 outsources].

— 

Professional organiser.  Actually, it’s the best fricken thing I did this year [personally speaking].  Now, it’s important for you to know that I had “professional organisation” as being something that women who featured on The Real Housewives of Melbourne did, a.k.a Toorak’y folk, ha!

Now, I’m not Toorak.  I live in Footscray. And 6-7 houses down from me? … they deal heroin.  I only know this because I was stationary in my car one night and a police officer told me, “you are parked in a heroin hotspot” [t’was quite the eye opener]. 

And then I got Erin from @your.organised.life in for a pantry reorganisation, and once she did that? I was like, “ok.  I need you to reorganise every-single-room within my house now”.

Now, my justification for this decision has been simple: I don’t go out socially [a lot, or at all if we’re being really honest, ha!].  I don’t spend my money on the level of “going out” that others do. Actually, spending anything related to my home is the one way I really do like to spend money.  I am a homebody. I love home.  I am happiest when I am home.  And I do like my home, but I haven’t loved it in the x6 years we’ve been there because it’s just cluttered, and messy, and disorganised, and nobody within our home really seems to respect how important it is for a house to be a home.

Inviting Erin into our home weekly? She’s made our house a home this year.  She comes on Fridays, and room by room … our house has transformed from a house, to a home.  It’s organised, and everything has a place now, and I can mofo’ing find things when I’m looking for them, and she’s even styled it, and we now have art where blank walls used to be, and she strung Christmas lights up this year [and it’s the first time we’ve done lights in my 36 years of life, so it was a real moment for me to stand out the front and appreciate my favourite time of the year … celebrated on my house like that].

She’s done all the things for my home, that I simply can’t when I work the kind of hours I work: week in, and week out.

I am a high functioning anxiety-type, and I am definitely OCD, and I am angry when the house is cluttered and disgusting, and so I can whole-heartedly say that she made me a much happier homebody this year.

Now, if I’m not ploughing through dollars with my inactive social life, and if I’m not big on spending on lifestyle’y things, and I buy my makeup from Coles … you can see why Erin has been an easy justification, yea? I don’t want the lifestyle’y stuff, or the super expensive makeup, and I don’t really care about shoes, but I do rate coming home to an ordered home.

Erin = best personal decision for 2019. #ErinforPM.

Once-per-week cleaner.  Now you might be thinking, “but … you have Erin?”.  And I’m here to say cleaning and professional organisation don’t even fall into the same category.  Our cleaner cleans our house > mops floors > takes care of the toilet, and the bathroom in general … but professional organiser she ain’t, ha!

That’s not her job.  And nor is it Erin’s to clean my house.

I want cleanliness, and organisation … and because you now know that my personality type [and yes, mental wellbeing] thrives on minimalism, and structure, and order, and cleanliness etc. you’ll be able to appreciate that these are therefore the x2 things I invest in outsourcing.

Because I can’t-pull-them-off, and believe me I have tried … but it just results in *constant* fights with Le Husband, and I’m 36, and I don’t want to spend my early years of marriage fighting with my husband about how-feckin’-messy-our-house-is, and whose turn it is to unpack the [GD] dishwasher 😉

—

That’s it, guys.

Nanny.  Weekly cleaner.  Weekly professional organiser.

And at the moment? I genuinely can’t pull off my life as a company owning / people managing working woman, with x2 children who [now] both have additional needs.

My next outsource, is that [and this is dream-land RN] TDP can afford to have a full-time personal assistant, because the Managing Director mental load is … full ON.

Until then? I rely [heavily] on my mental load being reduced via nanny > cleaner > professional organiser.  

—

I hope this helps.  I hope it either gives you a goal to work towards, or permission to outsource [effective immediately].