Copyright Business Insider
Using money well is a skill. Having this skill means knowing how to invest wisely and maintain a strong savings habit, but it also means you understand how to spend money with intention. One of the most powerful ways to spend well is to buy back time. That's what my family did when we decided to hire a house manager. Our top priority is having more time and energy to be fully present with our 4-year-old daughter. We also wanted to devote more time to our financial planning business, which my wife and I run together, rather than managing our household. Here's how we accomplished both. Outsourcing housework is a high-impact, low-cost way to enjoy more time Initially, growing the business I founded so that it didn't rely solely on me to operate was the best way to reclaim my time. If I wasn't working in the past, neither was the business. We now have a larger team, and I've established strict working hours limits. I also have a greater degree of freedom and flexibility. I eat breakfast and dinner with my family every day because I'm actually home to do that, and I take random Monday afternoons off to take my daughter to events or the playground. When we looked at how we could buy back my wife's time, we first considered hiring someone in the business to take on some of her workplace responsibilities. We realized two things: This would take meaningful work she loved away from her while leaving other tasks she didn't, like laundry and household errands, still on her plate. It was more cost-effective to outsource household chores that took time away from not just her workday, but also time she wanted to spend with our daughter. We weighed the pros and cons We grew up in working-class families; my mother was a nurse for 40 years, and my wife's father was a firefighter for 30. The idea of having "household help" was extremely foreign to us. Honestly, it felt somewhat embarrassing, too. Everyone else could "do it all;" why couldn't we? Related stories Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know However, we know that many people who "do it all" aren't very happy. Reports of burnout and depression are at extreme highs. Mothers, in particular, are often extremely overwhelmed and overloaded, still shouldering the majority of the housework, even in dual-income families. Our own numbers — both in terms of where our hours went versus where we wanted them to go, and how much it would cost to change that — didn't lie. They indicated we needed help around the house. How we hired our house manager We started by creating a list of everything we felt we could "shed" from our household responsibilities. We used that list to create the following job description: We're seeking a part-time house manager/family assistant with light nanny responsibilities for our family of three. Schedule is flexible and can be built around your preferences. Our ideal candidate is willing to assist with light housework, including laundry and meal preparation, and would be open to helping with our two cats as well. We expect the role to start at 10 hours a week, but there is room to expand it. $25-$30 per hour, dependent on experience. We are looking for someone who: Appreciates autonomy and enjoys having control over their schedule, and doesn't need constant direction Is a self-starter and can take charge of their own projects Is interested in and passionate about kids Has a willingness to learn our family's routines and preferences Is curious, energetic, and compassionate — especially with young children Responsibilities and tasks: Meal prep/help with cooking/grocery pickup/preschooler lunch and snack prep Laundry (one load of towels, two sets of sheets, one load of kids' laundry a week) Basic errands like mailing a package at the post office, returning items to the store, returning library books, taking the car in for a maintenance appointment, running to the store to grab paper towels, etc Light cleaning (wipe down counters, sweep or vacuum as needed, put away clean dishes as needed) Helping with appointments (i.e., be at the home to let scheduled maintenance in) Home organization/decluttering projects (reorganizing a messy closet on occasion, helping put up or take down seasonal decorations, etc.) Help with cat care (brushing our two cats, helping take both to the vet, spending ~15 minutes/day playing with them) Once we had our description, we posted it in local parents' and moms' groups on Facebook. We thought it would be better to find someone familiar in our community than a stranger from somewhere like Care.com. We received eight applications and hired our current house manager for $28 per hour in August. She's a stay-at-home mom whose own kids reached elementary school, so she had more time in her day and genuinely loved the work we needed help doing. We pay her about $1,200 a month. There haven't really been any downsides. The only thing is I try to stay out of the kitchen when she's doing meal prep, which can be a slight inconvenience. But we've gotten along very well. Wealth is more than money; it's the time you control, too My wife has been able to devote more hours to the work she wants to do in the business and spend more focused, quality time with our daughter without distraction. Getting this help also gives us leverage. The additional time devoted to our business provides the opportunity to increase our income more than we could save by trying to avoid hiring additional support. Wealth is about a lot more than what's in your bank account — it's how much autonomy you have; how much you can choose what you do or don't do with the time you have. Could we save more money by doing everything ourselves? Perhaps we'd have a little more cash on hand, but we'd be extremely depleted in terms of time and energy. Could I have a higher net worth if I devoted all my time to work? Of course, but my life would also be a lot smaller and emptier. Time, peace, energy, and health are all measures of wealth, alongside money. Arguably, those things are all more valuable than the dollars on my balance sheet.
