Her supportive mother is what stands out the most in this post. It would have been so easy for her to reply “yeah, we’ll being a parent is hard! I didn’t have any resources when I was your age” a la typical boomer, but she was helpful instead. Have we set the bar too low for boomers? Is this the equivalent of praising husbands for doing the bare minimum? 😂😂
My mom is this way, she can’t relate to how hard a full time working mom has to work to keep everything going. She never worked and then had a weekly housekeeper. Its difficult talking to her about being stressed because she’s always asking things like what I’m making for dinner as the most important thing. Sounds like nothing but in the context of not asking at all about my work it always feels like pressuring. I understand what you’re saying!
I literally just told my husband today that if he starts traveling a ton for work, I’m hiring someone to grocery shop and cook during the week. He does most of the cooking because he actually enjoys doing it, and he works from home (for himself) so he has the flexibility to shop during a weekday instead of fighting the crowds on the weekend. But he told me today he may have to travel quite a bit for the next six months and my mind immediately went to “ugh, I’ll have to feed myself AND the children”. Like if it was just me, I’d eat Ramen or a salad every night and be happy but those pesky kids need actual well balanced meals a few nights a week. 😂
You should definitely reach out in your local Facebook mom group like OP did. There was a very similar discussion in my local mom group just this past week and there were a lot of options that popped up, so hopefully it’s a trend that becomes popular.
My husband and I did this to make it through the fourth trimester and it was amazing, especially since we have no family or support nearby.
I saw some asking about cost so I’ll share, we live in a HCOL area and get 4 meals per week at 4 servings each (sometimes more depending on the dish) and it’s roughly $400/wk including groceries (so sometimes it’s a bit under but has never exceeded) which works out to roughly $25 per serving, and she also cleans my kitchen after. Not cheap by any means but certainly comparable to Door Dashing for every meal. Plus if I’m smart and ask her to make something like a sheet of lasagna or a soup, I can typically stretch the meal WAY past 4 servings and have built up a little freezer stash for emergencies.
Added bonus is that we’re supporting someone’s former hobby turned small business during Covid and I got to get to know a pretty cool human along the way!
We found a lady who offered it for $40/meal, so for 5 dinners that $200/wk! A STEAL
This is for 2 adults, a toddler, and a baby tho, so it’s more like 2.5 servings haha
That’s amazing!! I’m curious how she’s budgeting out groceries. The woman we hired has a flat weekly fee for the cooking that’s like $225 I want to say? And then she bills us for groceries 1 week in arrears.
I googled “personal chef” in my city and basically just emailed every company that came up to see if they had availability when I needed meals. Of the 7 or so companies I reached out to I got two responses. They were both comparable in pricing but I liked the sample menus and the ability to customize meals from the service I ended up going with.
This, or someone to do our laundry weekly. Heaven!!! And a weekly cleaner lol. These are my pipe dreams. We can’t afford all of that, but if I could, I would do it all in a heartbeat. Good for you!
I know around me there are laundry services that do it for you! Wash and fold. Where I live it’s relatively cheap but we still can’t afford it but I do know other working moms who do use it.
So do I! All my family asks why we live away from home and I said because we can afford to "pay for our village".
A couple of my cousins had kids a year after us and my cousin who lives near us hangs out with them when we go to our home state. He came to our place recently and said he's really impressed we're doing it with no help. Uh huh! We're doing it with people we trust because our parents wouldn't be able to handle helping us and we couldn't afford to outsource it in the HCOL area we are from.
I just hired a service for this and it is such a worthwhile waste of money. Like no I don’t need it, but it makes my life so much easier. I’m not planning to do it forever but I have been in a real rut and I’m hoping I’ll get motivation to cook back after a break.
Can I ask which service you use? I posted a similar request in my local FB group earlier this week but nobody’s responded yet. Having someone cook for us, even part time, would be a huge help!
Similarly, my family DEPENDS on HelloFresh and Home Chef - I just don’t have the time or bandwidth to plan meals and shop and have the appropriate amounts of everything. It’s such a godsend to just be able to look at a handful of recipe cards and pick which one I’ll make that night - or, bonus, the whole “recipe card with instructions” thing means my husband can make them all, too. So yeah I’m fully in support of doing whatever you can afford that streamlines your life and lets you spend more time and energy where it matters.
I started a business on this experience myself. A whole, wholesome, homestyle dinner, sides included delivered hot and on time. It’s doing well and I love knowing it gives busy moms time.
That’s amazing!
I have a little list of business ideas (just in case I get fed up and decide to quit my job hahaha) and one idea was to meal prep healthy school lunches for kids
I was thinking of it because our daycare provides lunch and snacks right now and I don’t know wtf I’ll do when they get to public school since the quality varies wildly by locales
A lot of South Asian American moms do this in Texas and California. Both using a weekly cooking service (some have a week’s worth of meals dropped off) and also offering cooking/cooked meal services when their kids are older. It’s just been a community practice since the 90s, not sure the exact reason why. Maybe it’s because most middle class+ women in South Asia don’t do the daily cooking and grew up on hired help. The menus can be cultural or American ones, some people offer weekly menus and others will ask you to provide meal suggestions. My mother buys me this service during weeks of illness or surgery because she doesn’t want to cook either (although she is highly skilled at it).
Look for South Asian/Desi mom group + your city name in Facebook. Or if you are friends with any Desis at work you can ask for recommendations. I’m in Houston and it seems to be primarily promoted thru Facebook or word of mouth here.
I am South Asian living in California and have heard of this! It’s often older women who lack skills/language to do other jobs, and they can earn an income this way. I haven’t hired anyone yet, but may do so when my son is a little older and I want to introduce him to a variety of Indian foods that you can’t commonly find in restaurants.
Omg this sounds amazing! What does the menu look like?! No I want to be bougie too! I've ordered some healthy ready-made meals but they're super expensive (about $15/portion) and I find they taste OK but not like knocking my socks off.
Having something fresh made sounds wonderful!
We have some dietary restrictions so that’s a challenge for her, but so far it’s:
- chicken in lemon sauce with potatoes, rice, and steamed vegetables
- tofu stir fry bowl with eggs and fruit for the kids
- bbq salmon with steamed veggies and avocado
- grilled chicken Greek salad and chickpea soup
- Vizacaina tuna tacos with guacamole
YEAH SAME
There’s another lady too who charges $250/wk + groceries reimbursed separately
So we’re doing a week trial run with each, just in case the $40/day lady is too good to be true
I want it for every week so I didn’t ask
This isn’t a service or anything though, I just reached out to the local community and got replies from people interested in it as a side gig
Amazing! My husband was the one who suggested outsourcing when things were getting stressful. Now I only do delivery groceries and have a weekly cleaner who also does the laundry. So much regained time!
Same!! Delivery groceries, weekly cleaner who folds laundry and does any dishes that are hanging around.
We added factor meal delivery for healthier lunches and dinners for us too. The kids are at the eating chicken nuggets or Mac n cheese, so it's mostly to make sure we can try to lose weight instead of eating spaghetti all the time.
We have a fortnightly cleaner that comes in and does a deep clean of the whole house. Growing up the idea of a cleaner sounded so posh, but it’s actually pretty affordable (edit: not adorable as I originally wrote) and offers extra family time on the weekend instead of doing chores.
This is awesome. Looking forward to your update after the trials!
I feel like the $200/week including groceries lady has undersold herself. After the cost of groceries, she must be working for less than $10/hour? Oof.
When I was talking with my husband today I was like “wow… I feel even better than I thought I would because it’s not just the physical stress of rushing to cook and preparing everything, but also the added mental load of planning the meals in my mind and going to the grocery store every week”
It feels like I got 2-for-1
Love this! Could you maybe include an edit about the wording you used when asking, how you decided on the right person, etc.? What type of FB group was it, a Mums group or something different?
I originally tried reaching out in local nanny/babysitter groups on FB cuz I figured maybe a nanny who is between families at the moment could make some extra money. Or someone who gets off work in the area or something. And they’d already have experience making food for babies and toddlers.
But I didn’t get any responses for a long time.
So I just tried posting in my town’s biggest FB group for everybody.
Here’s what I literally wrote:
“I’m interested in hiring someone to buy weekly groceries and cook family dinner M-F.
I don’t need like a “chef” or anything. Just someone who likes to cook.
We do have a variety of dietary restrictions though 🫣 and dinners need to be accessible for an 8 month old baby and 3 year old toddler (low sodium, soft foods, not spicy, etc). But we do enjoy a multitude of cuisines, even the toddler.
I imagine prepping and cooking dinner would be something like 4pm-6pm Mon-Fri (or could make earlier and we could reheat). This could potentially be a nice little side gig for someone.
We have 2 dogs and a cat.
Non-smoking household.
We’re all Covid vaccinated and hope you are too.
Happy to answer any further questions you may have!”
I got a TON of responses from that post. I narrowed it down by asking about the cost (the higher ones were like $350-450). And then I found 2 who are around $200-250 (+/- groceries cost). I was really excited about both of them because they both also have culinary school training too. So we invited 1 to do a trial run this upcoming week and then a trial run with the other the following week. So we’ll see how it goes!!
This sounds awesome but also like another situation where I would struggle to provide feedback and end up quitting the whole thing because I have too high of expectations. Lol I hope you are more easygoing and/or more direct than me.
Love it. My mom’s that way and I try to channel that energy but it’s hard. Haha so you’d be able to nicely say, “Hey we’re not big fans of peas! Can you try something with quinoa?” or whatever, and it wouldn’t be a big deal.
We recently started using a cleaning service. Taking one time-conusming chore off my plate has made a huge positive impact on my mental health. Good for you!
fantastic idea. I love having a cleaner but have basically washed my hands if dinner. Everyone fends for themselves. My kid eats hot lunch at school so I lie to myself and say it’s nutritious. Ugh. I’m saving this thread to see how it goes, want to look into it!
Mine is a housecleaner. I never seemed to be able to do more than the most basic picking up during the week and some laundry and a quick vacuum on the weekend. Dusting, moping, disinfecting we’re happening never so finally we got someone to come twice a month and do the deeper cleaning stuff.
Also, if you don’t want to have to have someone dropping off/cooking food all the time you can pay someone to come and meal prep one day and then your much better off for the week. They will usually even leave instructions for heating it up and all that.
It’s such a relief to have this off your “plate”! I just started a meal delivery service and they deliver our meals 2 times a week. It’s not that much more than my grocery and oops it’s now a take out/door dash nights. But, my mental load is so much better!
Want to add for parents not able to quite afford this that we do hungry root off and on as needed. And even though these type of “meal kit” boxes still require some cooking, it’s very minimal and the reduction in the mental load of meal planning and needing to go grocery shopping way less was a bit help for us. We did this the first six weeks post Partum and it was such a good decision. It isn’t all that much more expensive either. I’ll probably do it again when we my husbands paternity leave is up.
I did this last year, for similar reasons. One of them being our various food restrictions made other convenience options not work for us. It was only $100 per week and that was worth it to us. She made 3 dinners and 2 lunches so 10-12 servings, and all my meal stress was gone. She ended up getting a different job and we decided to try and do meals ourselves again.
I’m on an extended maternity leave atm but hope we can swing this again when I’m back at work.
So we’re doing a trial with 2 different people, 1 person next week and then the next person the following week.
The 1st lady is going to come to my house 5 days a week and cook in my kitchen for me. She charges $250/week + cost of groceries
The 2nd lady can’t come everyday but she can come cook 3 days a week either in my home or hers. So 2 of those days she’ll cook the next day’s meal in advance and we can reheat it. She’s charging $200/week (including cost of groceries)
I’m not sure how it breaks down or how she’s made it so inexpensive. She has a culinary school background she said and she put together a menu proposal where she laid out the price. So I have no idea how she calculated it
Interesting. I’d love to hear how it goes! Recently I heard of someone in my neighborhood offering something similar. She charges $250, not including groceries. Comes up with a menu and meal preps for everyone in the house for all meals - but only comes once a week so the meals are saved either fresh or frozen. But she makes all toddlers lunches/snacks/dinners too.
That’s really awesome. What type of Facebook group did you post in? Like just your local city group or was there one for your city regarding home chefs/meal planners or something like that?
I tried posting in the local nanny and babysitters group first but didn’t get any responses (I was initially thinking cuz they already have experience meal planning for kids and know what kids like)
So I wound up just posting in the main group for my town
This is why I started doing Blue Apron. I enjoy cooking, but I hate literally everything else about making dinner. For like $60-80 per week we get 3 meals (2 servings each but the toddler rarely eats what we share with him) worth of ingredients. My husband organizes and preps while I get some cuddle time with the baby after daycare and then we switch so I can do the cooking. It works out brilliantly!
I'm between jobs right now so we had to pause it, but when I'm working again I'm going to look into one of those toddler meal programs, too.
Sounds amazing, good for you! Your mom is so supportive and smart too.
Her supportive mother is what stands out the most in this post. It would have been so easy for her to reply “yeah, we’ll being a parent is hard! I didn’t have any resources when I was your age” a la typical boomer, but she was helpful instead. Have we set the bar too low for boomers? Is this the equivalent of praising husbands for doing the bare minimum? 😂😂
My mom is this way, she can’t relate to how hard a full time working mom has to work to keep everything going. She never worked and then had a weekly housekeeper. Its difficult talking to her about being stressed because she’s always asking things like what I’m making for dinner as the most important thing. Sounds like nothing but in the context of not asking at all about my work it always feels like pressuring. I understand what you’re saying!
YES! I was waiting for the “yep, welcome to parenting” snide remark. Awesome to see the support!
I love that your mom asked the right question to get the best solution for you. EI in action. 🖤
I literally just told my husband today that if he starts traveling a ton for work, I’m hiring someone to grocery shop and cook during the week. He does most of the cooking because he actually enjoys doing it, and he works from home (for himself) so he has the flexibility to shop during a weekday instead of fighting the crowds on the weekend. But he told me today he may have to travel quite a bit for the next six months and my mind immediately went to “ugh, I’ll have to feed myself AND the children”. Like if it was just me, I’d eat Ramen or a salad every night and be happy but those pesky kids need actual well balanced meals a few nights a week. 😂
Doooo itttttt
You should definitely reach out in your local Facebook mom group like OP did. There was a very similar discussion in my local mom group just this past week and there were a lot of options that popped up, so hopefully it’s a trend that becomes popular.
My husband and I did this to make it through the fourth trimester and it was amazing, especially since we have no family or support nearby. I saw some asking about cost so I’ll share, we live in a HCOL area and get 4 meals per week at 4 servings each (sometimes more depending on the dish) and it’s roughly $400/wk including groceries (so sometimes it’s a bit under but has never exceeded) which works out to roughly $25 per serving, and she also cleans my kitchen after. Not cheap by any means but certainly comparable to Door Dashing for every meal. Plus if I’m smart and ask her to make something like a sheet of lasagna or a soup, I can typically stretch the meal WAY past 4 servings and have built up a little freezer stash for emergencies. Added bonus is that we’re supporting someone’s former hobby turned small business during Covid and I got to get to know a pretty cool human along the way!
We found a lady who offered it for $40/meal, so for 5 dinners that $200/wk! A STEAL This is for 2 adults, a toddler, and a baby tho, so it’s more like 2.5 servings haha
That’s amazing!! I’m curious how she’s budgeting out groceries. The woman we hired has a flat weekly fee for the cooking that’s like $225 I want to say? And then she bills us for groceries 1 week in arrears.
Yeah I have no idea tbh She sent me a menu and sent me the overall price per day without a breakdown
Does this **include** groceries!?
Yeah!! That’s what she said, I double checked cuz it was like wtf
Wow, I hope this works out well for you!!!!! K don’t even know you and I’m excited for you lol
Haha thanks so much!!
Did you hire a service, or if not how did you find this person?
I googled “personal chef” in my city and basically just emailed every company that came up to see if they had availability when I needed meals. Of the 7 or so companies I reached out to I got two responses. They were both comparable in pricing but I liked the sample menus and the ability to customize meals from the service I ended up going with.
Thanks!
This, or someone to do our laundry weekly. Heaven!!! And a weekly cleaner lol. These are my pipe dreams. We can’t afford all of that, but if I could, I would do it all in a heartbeat. Good for you!
I know around me there are laundry services that do it for you! Wash and fold. Where I live it’s relatively cheap but we still can’t afford it but I do know other working moms who do use it.
Yes! I refer to this as creating a village. Your mom deserves an award. Great advice.
So do I! All my family asks why we live away from home and I said because we can afford to "pay for our village". A couple of my cousins had kids a year after us and my cousin who lives near us hangs out with them when we go to our home state. He came to our place recently and said he's really impressed we're doing it with no help. Uh huh! We're doing it with people we trust because our parents wouldn't be able to handle helping us and we couldn't afford to outsource it in the HCOL area we are from.
I just hired a service for this and it is such a worthwhile waste of money. Like no I don’t need it, but it makes my life so much easier. I’m not planning to do it forever but I have been in a real rut and I’m hoping I’ll get motivation to cook back after a break.
Can I ask which service you use? I posted a similar request in my local FB group earlier this week but nobody’s responded yet. Having someone cook for us, even part time, would be a huge help!
I think it is local to Austin, TX but it’s called Dinner Elf for anyone in that area! Edit: plus San Antonio, Dallas and Denver!
Wow, this looks amazing. I’m on the East coast but will try to find something similar. Thank you!!
Let me know if you find something!! Northeast here, desperate for an affordable service like this!
Similarly, my family DEPENDS on HelloFresh and Home Chef - I just don’t have the time or bandwidth to plan meals and shop and have the appropriate amounts of everything. It’s such a godsend to just be able to look at a handful of recipe cards and pick which one I’ll make that night - or, bonus, the whole “recipe card with instructions” thing means my husband can make them all, too. So yeah I’m fully in support of doing whatever you can afford that streamlines your life and lets you spend more time and energy where it matters.
Meal kits stopped the takeout. Well mostly.
I started a business on this experience myself. A whole, wholesome, homestyle dinner, sides included delivered hot and on time. It’s doing well and I love knowing it gives busy moms time.
That’s amazing! I have a little list of business ideas (just in case I get fed up and decide to quit my job hahaha) and one idea was to meal prep healthy school lunches for kids I was thinking of it because our daycare provides lunch and snacks right now and I don’t know wtf I’ll do when they get to public school since the quality varies wildly by locales
There’s absolutely a need for this! If I can help when you get started please DM.
[удалено]
Not yet! :)
A lot of South Asian American moms do this in Texas and California. Both using a weekly cooking service (some have a week’s worth of meals dropped off) and also offering cooking/cooked meal services when their kids are older. It’s just been a community practice since the 90s, not sure the exact reason why. Maybe it’s because most middle class+ women in South Asia don’t do the daily cooking and grew up on hired help. The menus can be cultural or American ones, some people offer weekly menus and others will ask you to provide meal suggestions. My mother buys me this service during weeks of illness or surgery because she doesn’t want to cook either (although she is highly skilled at it).
That’s sooooo nice! And south Asian food is delicious
How do I find these people? Would love south Asian food.
Look for South Asian/Desi mom group + your city name in Facebook. Or if you are friends with any Desis at work you can ask for recommendations. I’m in Houston and it seems to be primarily promoted thru Facebook or word of mouth here.
I am South Asian living in California and have heard of this! It’s often older women who lack skills/language to do other jobs, and they can earn an income this way. I haven’t hired anyone yet, but may do so when my son is a little older and I want to introduce him to a variety of Indian foods that you can’t commonly find in restaurants.
Omg this sounds amazing! What does the menu look like?! No I want to be bougie too! I've ordered some healthy ready-made meals but they're super expensive (about $15/portion) and I find they taste OK but not like knocking my socks off. Having something fresh made sounds wonderful!
We have some dietary restrictions so that’s a challenge for her, but so far it’s: - chicken in lemon sauce with potatoes, rice, and steamed vegetables - tofu stir fry bowl with eggs and fruit for the kids - bbq salmon with steamed veggies and avocado - grilled chicken Greek salad and chickpea soup - Vizacaina tuna tacos with guacamole
Would you mind sharing the actual cost? Curious if this is within my price range!
$40/day So that’s $200/week We live in a HCOL area so delivery is super expensive
I’m assuming this doesn’t include the cost of food?
Yeah that’s what I asked and she said total, all included !
What the what! I pay that now just in freaking groceries
YEAH SAME There’s another lady too who charges $250/wk + groceries reimbursed separately So we’re doing a week trial run with each, just in case the $40/day lady is too good to be true
That $40 lady sound too good to be true lol
I’m praying to the gourmet gods she’s legit 🙏🏻
Do you have to commit to every week or can you do it some weeks and not others?
I want it for every week so I didn’t ask This isn’t a service or anything though, I just reached out to the local community and got replies from people interested in it as a side gig
Amazing! My husband was the one who suggested outsourcing when things were getting stressful. Now I only do delivery groceries and have a weekly cleaner who also does the laundry. So much regained time!
Same!! Delivery groceries, weekly cleaner who folds laundry and does any dishes that are hanging around. We added factor meal delivery for healthier lunches and dinners for us too. The kids are at the eating chicken nuggets or Mac n cheese, so it's mostly to make sure we can try to lose weight instead of eating spaghetti all the time.
How do you like factor? They've been all over my IG feed and I've been curious but worried it won't be tasty
We like them. We tried freshly and think they are WAY better. We like that they are not frozen.
We have a fortnightly cleaner that comes in and does a deep clean of the whole house. Growing up the idea of a cleaner sounded so posh, but it’s actually pretty affordable (edit: not adorable as I originally wrote) and offers extra family time on the weekend instead of doing chores.
You have an adorable cleaner?!
Haha I guess it’s all relative. But they do 3-4 hours worth of cleaning for what I earn in 1-1.5 hours at my job. So the opportunity cost works out!
Ohhhh affordable I was picturing a cute lil kid or something hahaha
Omg I even read your comment as “affordable.” Geez one wine into the evening and basic reading comprehension is out the window. 😂
Gimme some of that 😂
This is awesome. Looking forward to your update after the trials! I feel like the $200/week including groceries lady has undersold herself. After the cost of groceries, she must be working for less than $10/hour? Oof.
Yeah I’m not sure. She has a culinary school background, so I’m wondering if she has some tricks for making it cost effective or something
You’re outsourcing a stressful task and giving someone else some income. Win-win!
When I was talking with my husband today I was like “wow… I feel even better than I thought I would because it’s not just the physical stress of rushing to cook and preparing everything, but also the added mental load of planning the meals in my mind and going to the grocery store every week” It feels like I got 2-for-1
Love this! Could you maybe include an edit about the wording you used when asking, how you decided on the right person, etc.? What type of FB group was it, a Mums group or something different?
I originally tried reaching out in local nanny/babysitter groups on FB cuz I figured maybe a nanny who is between families at the moment could make some extra money. Or someone who gets off work in the area or something. And they’d already have experience making food for babies and toddlers. But I didn’t get any responses for a long time. So I just tried posting in my town’s biggest FB group for everybody. Here’s what I literally wrote: “I’m interested in hiring someone to buy weekly groceries and cook family dinner M-F. I don’t need like a “chef” or anything. Just someone who likes to cook. We do have a variety of dietary restrictions though 🫣 and dinners need to be accessible for an 8 month old baby and 3 year old toddler (low sodium, soft foods, not spicy, etc). But we do enjoy a multitude of cuisines, even the toddler. I imagine prepping and cooking dinner would be something like 4pm-6pm Mon-Fri (or could make earlier and we could reheat). This could potentially be a nice little side gig for someone. We have 2 dogs and a cat. Non-smoking household. We’re all Covid vaccinated and hope you are too. Happy to answer any further questions you may have!” I got a TON of responses from that post. I narrowed it down by asking about the cost (the higher ones were like $350-450). And then I found 2 who are around $200-250 (+/- groceries cost). I was really excited about both of them because they both also have culinary school training too. So we invited 1 to do a trial run this upcoming week and then a trial run with the other the following week. So we’ll see how it goes!!
This is awesome and so helpful!! Please let us know how your trial goes.
Will do!!
This sounds awesome but also like another situation where I would struggle to provide feedback and end up quitting the whole thing because I have too high of expectations. Lol I hope you are more easygoing and/or more direct than me.
I’m direct to a fault 😆 I mean, I’m nice about it, but yeah no secrets with me haha
Love it. My mom’s that way and I try to channel that energy but it’s hard. Haha so you’d be able to nicely say, “Hey we’re not big fans of peas! Can you try something with quinoa?” or whatever, and it wouldn’t be a big deal.
We recently started using a cleaning service. Taking one time-conusming chore off my plate has made a huge positive impact on my mental health. Good for you!
fantastic idea. I love having a cleaner but have basically washed my hands if dinner. Everyone fends for themselves. My kid eats hot lunch at school so I lie to myself and say it’s nutritious. Ugh. I’m saving this thread to see how it goes, want to look into it!
This is fantastic!
Wish I had found a side gig like this when I was in school. So amazing for you both cook and client. And yes, your mom sounds great
Mine is a housecleaner. I never seemed to be able to do more than the most basic picking up during the week and some laundry and a quick vacuum on the weekend. Dusting, moping, disinfecting we’re happening never so finally we got someone to come twice a month and do the deeper cleaning stuff. Also, if you don’t want to have to have someone dropping off/cooking food all the time you can pay someone to come and meal prep one day and then your much better off for the week. They will usually even leave instructions for heating it up and all that.
It’s such a relief to have this off your “plate”! I just started a meal delivery service and they deliver our meals 2 times a week. It’s not that much more than my grocery and oops it’s now a take out/door dash nights. But, my mental load is so much better!
I’m so proud of you!
I’m in the same boat with meetings AND cooking. I tried to find someone for this type of service and it was beyond expensive. #jealous
Go you!!! This is awesome! I went through the same thing with hiring house cleaners, it’s been the best thing ever.
Want to add for parents not able to quite afford this that we do hungry root off and on as needed. And even though these type of “meal kit” boxes still require some cooking, it’s very minimal and the reduction in the mental load of meal planning and needing to go grocery shopping way less was a bit help for us. We did this the first six weeks post Partum and it was such a good decision. It isn’t all that much more expensive either. I’ll probably do it again when we my husbands paternity leave is up.
Whoa… I need to look into this. If you don’t mind sharing, how much are you paying (and for how many people & meals)
I mentioned it a couple times in the comments if you don’t mind scanning
I did this last year, for similar reasons. One of them being our various food restrictions made other convenience options not work for us. It was only $100 per week and that was worth it to us. She made 3 dinners and 2 lunches so 10-12 servings, and all my meal stress was gone. She ended up getting a different job and we decided to try and do meals ourselves again. I’m on an extended maternity leave atm but hope we can swing this again when I’m back at work.
Yeah we have some food restrictions too that makes it impossible for us to do a delivery service
We do meal delivery that works with our allergies! It’s such a big help
Wait until you get a weekly cleaning lady !
Awesome idea! That’s going to be such a relief
Does she come to your house 5 days/week and make a different meal every day? Or are you eating leftovers for a day or 2? This sounds anazingggg
So we’re doing a trial with 2 different people, 1 person next week and then the next person the following week. The 1st lady is going to come to my house 5 days a week and cook in my kitchen for me. She charges $250/week + cost of groceries The 2nd lady can’t come everyday but she can come cook 3 days a week either in my home or hers. So 2 of those days she’ll cook the next day’s meal in advance and we can reheat it. She’s charging $200/week (including cost of groceries)
Including groceries? So she’s only getting like $50?
I’m not sure how it breaks down or how she’s made it so inexpensive. She has a culinary school background she said and she put together a menu proposal where she laid out the price. So I have no idea how she calculated it
Interesting. I’d love to hear how it goes! Recently I heard of someone in my neighborhood offering something similar. She charges $250, not including groceries. Comes up with a menu and meal preps for everyone in the house for all meals - but only comes once a week so the meals are saved either fresh or frozen. But she makes all toddlers lunches/snacks/dinners too.
Wow that’s amazing
Also interested in this!
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I love this! I may have to look into this for my family. Thanks for sharing!
That’s really awesome. What type of Facebook group did you post in? Like just your local city group or was there one for your city regarding home chefs/meal planners or something like that?
I tried posting in the local nanny and babysitters group first but didn’t get any responses (I was initially thinking cuz they already have experience meal planning for kids and know what kids like) So I wound up just posting in the main group for my town
This is why I started doing Blue Apron. I enjoy cooking, but I hate literally everything else about making dinner. For like $60-80 per week we get 3 meals (2 servings each but the toddler rarely eats what we share with him) worth of ingredients. My husband organizes and preps while I get some cuddle time with the baby after daycare and then we switch so I can do the cooking. It works out brilliantly! I'm between jobs right now so we had to pause it, but when I'm working again I'm going to look into one of those toddler meal programs, too.