FatFIRE participants regret not hiring household assistants

“You just have not found the right nanny. Keep searching and when you work keep you office door closed. If you’re making this kind of money you should have a big ass house and rarely run into the nanny during the day.”

“We currently have all kids in school/daycare but nanny comes for a couple hours in the morning to help get kids out the door and do some light housework, then goes home, then does pickup and is with us until dinner time. Ideal to have them around when you need an extra set of hands”

“I knew I wouldn’t like having a personal chef in our kitchen on a regular basis so we elected to go for the option where they prepare 3-4 meals ahead of time and drop them off once a week. We’re also not picky eaters so we told the chef he could pick the meals for us. Get them on a Tuesday and throw them into the freezer, thaw tomorrow’s meal in the fridge the night before, heat them up in the oven for 20 minutes at dinner time. It’s been such a time saver not having to worry about deciding what”

“It sounds like you need a new nanny. One that is flexible enough to do things like daycare dropoff/pickup as well as other miscellaneous tasks. My daughter, mother of 3, is very happy with her current nanny as she has been able to adjust to new roles as the older children started going to elementary school. The "nanny" does a lot of transportation of the kids to after school activities and has transitioned to doing a lot of general household tasks. While my daughters that have cleaners”

“I had a teenage nanny - daughter of a neighbor who came over when I wanted to do projects around the house in the afternoons after school, or for date nights on the weekend. She also traveled with us when we took school holiday family vacations. Now my daughter can babysit for her kids 💗”

“Im american and we have a live in maid AND we had a live in nanny for the first year of each baby”

“We have the weekend nanny come from 4-8/9 on Saturday and/or Sunday, sometimes we do one day and sometimes we do both depending on what social plans we have or if I need to travel for work. This gives us the daytime for birthday parties and play dates with our son, and then we can go do our own thing in the evening. The nanny usually takes our son to the park and then out to a restaurant for dinner (we’re trying to restaurant train him and the frequent exposure seems to be working), then she’ll”

“Pretty much the model we had plus nanny with kid. I somehow thought mothers helpers are teenage kids who babysit…. Don’t know where in read it before”

“Totally agree. We lucked out with our nanny via a Facebook parents post and she’s the best thing that could happen to us. She’s become part of the family practically. We (semi-jokingly) had our second so quickly after our first (~22 months) to ensure we had a reason to keep her! Point is, a great nanny is a game changer. An okay or good nanny is probably just fine.”

“I’m in a different city but the model I’ve seen is that parents pay the agency a percent of expected first year wages based on their contract with the nanny. Then the agency is no longer a party in the employment relationship. So as best as I can tell, zero downside to the nanny.”

“Parents / in-laws close by and willing to help? A good nanny can lessen the housework burden but not losing your privacy / feeling like you can't relax in your own space. Otherwise pikcup/dropoff laundry, a good cleaner and chef/meal delivery can lighten the load without getting all up in your space.”

“Do they? Doesn’t the agency take a huge cut? Or is it ok bc the nannies value consistency and the cut comes out of higher sticker costs? What are good agencies in the Bay Area?”

“Not quite at your level, but we went down the au pair route after having a few issues with nannies calling out sick excessively. I frequently travel for work, so having a second (young) adult in the household has been a great relief after hours and each of the au pairs have become extended members of our family (almost second daughters to us). It's not without its own challenges that I'm happy to share, but with their own room and bathroom, there's a better sense of separation most o”

The better nannies tend to stay with agencies for years. YMMV

“Depends how much money you're willing to throw at the problem. We found an agency that was more than happy to flip thru several nannies before we found the right fit. But cost us much more $$ than if we'd tried to find someone ourselves.”

“Also that's the other issue, impossible to do house chores with nanny if we leave house.”

“You need an office outside of the home or a swanky apartment or a place to work without the interruptions of your children AND A NEW NANNY who can drive your children as needed.”

“This is what we did (local nanny fb group) and had really excellent options. Our nanny of 2 years was amazing. It probably depends a lot on your city. We went through that transition a few months ago. Great for the kid socially. We were able to keep the nanny coming back 1x per week after work for date night. It's been great as an off-ramp from full time care and gives us a dedicated 3 or 4 hours to get out of the house every week. Our toddler and the nanny were both also clearly attached af”

“> We’ve tried the full time nanny and found it stressful, same with the home cook Wrong nanny and cook? Its a hit n miss, I only lurk fatFIRE but we have a great nanny we pay that comes 6am so we can comfortably sleep until 9 and not be like a zombie every day when she has a bad sleep Just note we had to go through 5 to find the "right one". The current one cooks (her husband is a private chief for ultra wealth and she cooks as good as him, maybe i can afford him one day too haha),”

“I love my cleaning lady, she’s truly wonderful and has fantastic intuition, I would still not want her at my house every day. Maybe twice a week in the future, I’ll consider that. My husband and I unload the dishes every morning, takes 5 minutes and makes managing it very reasonable throughout the day.”

Exactly, not everyone is sahm material, nor house wife. I can not…

“We do every other weekend date nights on Friday. We like keeping our weekends free to make adhoc plans, see grandparents, etc, plus so many events! How do you use the weekend nanny?”

“We don’t have your level of income, but with toddler, we did have cleaning lady “every day”, we outsourced basically all the organizing, loading dishwasher, clean up the mess after kids eating (at least once a day), etc etc. for 3 years, there is always enough choirs in the house. And this free us up for playing with kid and cooking (which in my culture as quite important especially for the first years of kiddo)”

“A good nanny is the biggest game changer. We have a full time nanny during the week so that we can do our jobs, and a part time nanny on the weekends so that we can have some leisure time, exercise, and run errands. Took some time to find the right fit but it’s been well worth the effort.”

What’s better about the agency nannies?

“It takes time to find a great nanny but when you do, totally worth it. Use a high end agency in your city - not care.com.”

“It sounds like you have part time help and no longer desire full time help. So your options are: 1) Find better full time help - maybe a different nanny? 1b) have you looked into an Au Pair ? 2) Wait a year for your kids to grow up a little”

Get a bigger place. Get a nanny.

“Congrats! Highly recommend a weekly housekeeper. You can afford it and it makes the domestics way better.”

“but we’d also lose a lot of career related expenses for me (nanny being the biggest, but also the fact that our very nice lifestyle involves a lot of travel due to my job, and I foot the bill on bringing family with me while my company pays for my travel). Whats the difference in cost between paying the nanny versus the travel bill? I would suspect the former is greater than the latter, but depends how often you travel. I personally would value the time with kids a lot more; they're only you”

“Depending on the age of your kids, consider a adding someone come 1-2x/week to do straightening, putting away laundry, trash, dishwasher, and ad hoc tasks (organize books, toy rotation, clothing seasonal swap) to the mix. In the US this job is called "mother's helper". I outsource cleaning and some childcare, and this is the main additional thing I'm adding to get rid of the tasks I like the least and free some time. I also spent some time strategizing my "lazy" homem”

Get a job and I'll be your househusband

“would rather pay $11 for someone good than $5 for someone I have to babysit tbh”

“Do you mean I should have been paid to babysit my grandkids when they were little? I think I’m short some $5k. LOL LOL”

“We would use that money to pay for an outside sitter if she wasn't able or willing to do it”

“Hi everyone, I’m starting the process of hiring someone who I think would function as a “household manager”. I’m wondering if someone who’s done this before can give some feedback, challenges, things I ought to know… What we’re looking for: - someone to essentially act as another grownup in the house, to handle household tasks to reset the house while we are working. - tasks we’d envision the role including: dishes (dishwasher, hand washing, cleaning the sink); getting garbage and recycling out;”

“You should consider a newborn doula/night nurse who will support the baby and mom plus help with the overnights. There is no price you can put on sleep. I have a much lower income than you and have PT house manager for about 10 hrs a week and it’s amazing. I only have one child who is 5 now. Can’t think of a better way to spend money with a newborn and 2 yr old”

“I grew up with a nanny and we were not paying her anywhere near 100K but I guess that was two decades ago at this point”

“I once heard that if you can get someone else to do it for less than half the hourly rate than you yourself make, and sacrifice nothing that you will miss, it is likely worth it. I personally think, that it only matters that YOU value to leisure it adds now more than the comfort it would provide at retirement if invested wisely. I don't know how long your hours are currently though, and that would play a huge role. Me personally, not worth it.”

“We had a nanny and paid for preschool. Our kids are now in public school. I couldn’t wait for the nanny costs and preschool costs to go away. I was sure we’d save so much money. Turns out you never save money, you just give it to someone else. Our kids are now teenagers and we spend more than ever. I recognize this is because of the choices we make and we could spend less, but we want to have a nice life with the kids and not be worried about spending. Stuff gets expensive, fast.”

“He doesn’t need a nanny, he needs a house manager or assistant now. He needs a pair of balls.”

“to be real with you, I live in a VHCOL area and pay $6k/month for a FT nanny for my baby and $52k/year for my 3 YO’s preschool. With cleaners, meal prep, and other new expenses I never had pre kids (flying parents out and paying for accommodations), it is insane how much children cost. I don’t think it necessarily needs to be this way- I still work and require lots of support.”

“It's great, but there will be a notable decrease in privacy during the day.”

“Eh honestly I just haven't been "rich" forever, it's not that I'm insanely frugal haha. Grew up in a lower-middle type environment, and NW has been climbing fast over the last 7 years, so always readjusting.”

“Fair, I think we're going to do it. But wow, to get a good person in my market you're looking at 50/hr + benefits, almost 150k all in after paying agency! I realize I can clearly do that, but I haven't been "rich" that long so it takes some time getting over the mental hurdle of spending so much lol. Reassuring myself this is a temporary thing / phase of life.”

“It does help that before that my takehome was about 70k, so I basically tripled my lifestyle, and I was relatively content with that at the time, so I kind of rationalizing that anything beyond that is over the top so this spending is pretty much a hard limit for me. But I am happy with your take as it makes me think. I dont know, maybe I want a chubby lifestyle, with a fatfire bank.”

“Where I am the takehome is about 900k and I cant hold this job intensity for more than 10 years. I live off 200k approx between mortgage and everything and I want to put aside 10M in those 10 years. Chef and full time nanny will bust that 200k by way too much a margin. Naturally if I intended to work 25 years than I wouldnt care as much about budgetting but the RE part of FIRE is really important to me.”

“We have a full time nanny and house assistant. Our kids are 6/4/2. 6 yo is in school, 4/2 are both in daycare Wife doesn't work It's easily the best $60k/yr we spend. We still employ a cleaning service, but are able to knock that down to 2x a month House stays organized, laundry is always done, dishes are done, she tutors my 6 year old after school (our nanny has a teaching degree), she makes sure the kids always have educational activities, etc. This gives me time to work late some even”

“Good lord at these discussions. What’s your job description. You’d think anyone intelligent enough would be intelligent enough to know how to hire the right person.”

“My parents had staff to help when I was growing up it was honestly so worth it. I would caution not having part time people. They usually have lower retention and you feel the need to work around their schedule which defeats the whole purpose of having help. Full time live in with weekends off is probably the best structure if you can find it.”

“I think it depends on the individual person you hire, some folks are just more industrious than others. We lucked out, as our nanny was awesome with the kids AND took it upon herself to pick up when the kids were napping. She wasn’t a live-in, though, so perhaps that helped? IMHO the priority should be getting an awesome nanny that helps you raise amazing, capable, self reliant kids. Looking only at financials, few things can derail your careful retirement plans more than adult children that nee”

“My friend has a house manager and they like it. They recently had to replace their previous one and the decision wasn't should they have one but who would they be hiring to replace their previous house manager. Not a nanny, and their kid isn't small. Their house manager deals with basically all the friction of running a household that I personally have to deal with in my own home, so compared to me their (much bigger) house is cleaner, they never have to deal with grocery shopping or kee”

“Screw that. My friend has a nanny that his wife insists they can’t get rid of (kid is 10 and they’ve had the nanny since a baby). The nanny sits around all day while the kid is at school. When my friend gets home from work he is fighting with the nanny over time with his kid. Wife refuses to make the nanny do other work. He doesn’t need a nanny, he needs a house manager or assistant now.”

“I would have no issue with this at your income and child’s age. The times I shake my heads at nanny costs are when kids are all school age and families keep them anyways (especially if one is stay at home).”

“I mean it’s all supply and demand. Pay them more and there’s usually more willingness to take on a job with extra tasks. It’s not perfect but there will be more applications at the right price if the job description is clear. I don’t think we have to attribute it to some conspiracy by nannies at large.”

“Oh yeah, those are the ones that run around announcing to anyone and everyone that “Nannies are a luxury!” And what they mean by this is that they believe they should be treated like a new Chanel purse, not that they will provide a luxury service that makes your life easier and less stressful. The ones that actually provide exceptional service and make your life better are not the ones shrieking about how they, personally, are a luxury.”

Someone to clean and meal prep is necessary

“I agree this is more work to manage than needed, not to mention how hard it would be to find people you like that fit all of these categories. One capable full time employee plus your wife as a SAHM plus biweekly deep cleaning should be enough and not too annoying to manage. For the full time, I would probably do a full time nanny who is willing to help with laundry and cooking, considering you have a newborn coming, and your wife can manage the household, instead of hiring a household assistant”

“Hire a cook and housekeeper. Problem solved”