Back in 2014, a friend of mine shared with me his spending philosophy: it’s better to spend money on things that remove unhappiness, rather than spend on things that add happiness.
He hated doing his laundry, so he paid to have his work shirts washed and ironed. He figured this was a better use of his earnings than, say, a coffee each morning.
After a long-held resistance, we’re experimenting with this idea.
Maru and I live in a small 1-bedroom apartment in London. For the past 3 years we’ve thought about using a house cleaning service, but each time have decided to save the money and clean the apartment ourselves.
However, after a taking a long look at our distraught oven this week, we’re trying Handy.
Handy is an app-based house cleaning service, and we’re trialing a fortnightly clean for 3 months. We want to see if it 1) has an impact on the tidiness and cleanliness of our home, and 2) removes unhappiness by giving us a few precious hours back each weekend we would’ve spent cleaning.
I feel I’m teetering dangerously close to “unnecessary-spending millennial” territory, but it’s an experiment, and I’ll report back in a few weeks on how it goes.