I Finally Hired a Cleaning Service—and It Wasn't Just About the Cleaning

August 11, 2026

I finally accomplished something that has been on my vision board since I started my financial journey.

I hired a cleaning service.

Looking back, maybe I should have put a personal chef on there too, because answering that annoying daily question, "What's for dinner?" is another story altogether.

But for me, a cleaning service was something I really wanted.

I'm Jamaican, and one thing we are big on is a clean house. It's something I take pride in and genuinely enjoy. My dad always says, "Cleanliness is next to godliness."

But I'm also a mother, a wife, I work a full-time job, and I run a business.

There are only so many hours in the day.

Cleaning became one of those responsibilities I desperately wanted off my plate.

There were weekends when my kids would be outside playing while I was inside cleaning. And if you add laundry to the mix, there went my day.

Eventually, I started breaking everything into pieces.

Floors and dusting on Wednesday.

Bathrooms and laundry on Friday.

Something else another day.

Then we finally hired a cleaning service.

Now, let's be clear.

I didn't completely let go.

I hired them once a month—not every two weeks.

First, I need to see if I like their work. And second, I have to get comfortable with having people in my home.

I'm still Jamaican. You can't just have anybody walking through your house. 😂

But once a month means the deep cleaning is no longer completely on my shoulders. I can maintain things in between, and that alone gives me back hours of my time.

And when they came in and did in two hours what I had been spreading across several days, I thought:

Why did it take me so long to do this?

The Mental Gymnastics

The truth is, hiring a cleaning service wasn't an easy decision for me.

I had to work through some things.

For much of my life, having a cleaning service represented a certain level of wealth.

Think about what we often see portrayed in society.

People with money have housekeepers.

And my own childhood reinforced that image.

When we first migrated to the United States, my mother did what we called live-in work. She would leave on Friday and come home on Sunday.

She stayed with a family, cleaned, cooked, and helped take care of their household.

The families she worked for lived in affluent communities and had means.

So somewhere along the way, I created an association in my mind:

People with money hire people to clean their homes.

And when I looked at myself, part of me thought:

Girl, who do you think you are?

I'm not "there" yet.

Whatever "there" even means.

Then My Friends Challenged My Thinking

I was talking with a girlfriend who is single, doesn't have children, and runs a successful business.

She has used a cleaning service for years.

When I told her I didn't have one, she looked at me almost confused.

With everything you do, how do you not have one?

Then another friend gave me a completely different perspective.

She reminded me that everyone has priorities.

Someone might spend hundreds of dollars on designer shoes or handbags.

Someone else spends that money getting their hair and nails done.

Someone spends it eating out.

Someone spends it traveling.

And I could choose to spend some of my money buying back my time.

None of those choices is automatically right or wrong.

The question is:

What matters to you?

That helped me see the decision differently.

But There Was Something Deeper

As I continued thinking about why hiring a cleaning service felt so uncomfortable, I realized there was another emotional connection I hadn't fully acknowledged.

My mother had done this work.

And many of the people doing domestic work are immigrants.

I remembered what that work represented for my family and how hard my mother worked.

There was a part of me that didn't want to feel as though I had somehow crossed over and was now contributing to something I had complicated feelings about.

Then I had to challenge that thinking too.

Yes, the cleaners who came into my home were immigrants.

But there was an important difference.

They owned the business.

I wasn't taking them away from their families.

I was hiring their company for a service they chose to provide, and in doing so, I was supporting their business and helping them provide for their families.

And that realization brought me back to my mother.

The work she did helped put food on our table.

It helped take care of us.

There is dignity in work.

And there is also dignity in building something of your own.

What Does Any of This Have to Do With Money?

Everything.

We talk a lot about budgets, savings, investing, paying off debt, and building wealth.

But eventually, we have to ask ourselves:

What are we building it for?

For me, financial wellness isn't about accumulating money simply so I can look at a larger number in my bank account.

I want my money to help me build a life that works for me.

Sometimes that means saving.

Sometimes that means investing.

Sometimes that means taking a vacation with my family.

And sometimes it means paying someone to clean my house so I can spend Saturday outside with my children instead of inside cleaning.

And I didn't have to jump from doing everything myself to having someone clean every two weeks.

Once a month works for me.

That's part of financial wellness too.

It doesn't mean suddenly spending money on everything you've ever wanted because you can afford it.

It means making intentional choices based on your priorities, your budget, and the life you're trying to create.

For me, once a month was the right place to start.

I get some of my time back without committing to more than I'm comfortable spending.

Final Thought

Sometimes the hardest part of changing our financial lives isn't earning more money.

It's giving ourselves permission to use that money differently.

We carry beliefs from childhood, culture, family experiences, and our past financial circumstances.

Some of those beliefs serve us well.

Others need to be examined as our lives change.

Hiring a cleaning service may seem like a small thing.

For me, it represented something much bigger.

It was realizing that I don't have to prove anything by doing everything myself.

I can decide what matters to me.

I can spend according to my priorities.

And I can use the financial life I've worked so hard to build to give myself something I can never earn back:

Time.

Now, about that personal chef...

Keep your money Irie.

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About the Author

Petra-Ann Brown is a financial educator, speaker, and founder of Brown Financial Solutions, LLC. Through workshops, coaching, storytelling, and her podcast Island Money 365, she helps individuals and families build financial confidence, reduce financial stress, and create lasting wealth.