Where Art Thou, Hot Housekeeper?

For the past year or so when I was working at home I would just happen to glance out my office window at just the right time to see the gorgeous blonde house cleaner arrive across the street.  After a few months of this,  I happened to notice that she normally showed up on Wednesdays and I’d guess she comes every two weeks.  It became quite a joke in our house that the hot house cleaner had come that day, similar to my wife joking about "Jason" the milk delivery guy really being my daughter’s father.

Last week I was out talking to my neighbor across the street when he delivered the bad news.  "We’ve had to cut back on a lot of expenses at our house", he said.  "I’m worried I’m going to lose my job of 16 years so we are tightening up our expenses.  I had to let the house cleaner go."  I was shocked.  "Tell me you’re joking!" I said.  He insisted he was telling the truth and then we joked about what a loss that would be for the neighborhood men.  "I’ll tell you what", I said.  "I’ll pay half to keep her coming by every two weeks!"  We both had a good laugh but then I started to think about it.  That woman has just lost a good customer and has instantly seen her income shrink.  While it was the right thing to do for my neighbor, it was definitely not without impact.

Of course I never really thought about my neighbor’s job security.  I asked him what he was planning on doing if he did, in fact, lose his job and he said that he was thinking about going back to school to get caught up on his teaching certifications.  Apparently he has a bachelors degree in teaching and he has often thought about going back to that profession after many years in the corporate rat race.  He is fortunate that he has a significant amount of savings from a previous home sale so he has many more options relative to other people that are at risk of losing their jobs.

While we’ve never been willing to spend the money on a house cleaner, we have thought about what "extra" expenses we could get rid of if we needed to.  Unfortunately, (or fortunately) we have not maintained a lot of luxury expenses over the years.  The only two things that we can really get rid of at this point are the $8.99 Netflix subscription and home delivery of the milk.  Neither of those really add up to much and I’d really hate to put my daughter’s father out of work…….