Trading spare bedroom for cooking / chef

[johndoe]

(Forgive me, I tried searching for a few different terms and struck out)

My better half and I work "9-5" and have a running joke about our pretend chef who has all meals ready at our convenience.  In reality our household spending is probably around $40k (and gross household income around $170k).  While I'm way too cheap to actually pay for such a cooking service, the "joke" is now that we'll trade a spare bedroom for this person's labor in the kitchen.  If they worked 30hr / month and "rent" was worth $600 / month they'd be at $20 / hr; not terrible.  I'm just curious if others have done this sort of bartering, and if there is terminology (we've jokingly called it "adult au pair" or "nanny for adults"), etc.

Some challenges I could imagine:
-Privacy (Maybe depending on Floorplan, duplex vs single family)
-Legality (labor, roommates, ?)

Alternatively our other concept is the adult dorm / dining hall but that seems more daunting :)

[Metalcat]

Plenty of wealthy folks have live in housekeepers who cook for them, but have you just considered hiring someone to bulk cook for you once or twice a week?

Back when I was working I hired a housekeeper/cook who would come in once a week, clean and bulk cook and pre-portion out lunches and dinners for the week. All I had to do was reheat them on demand.

I've also used services that make and deliver meals, again pre-portioned and ready to reheat.

That way you are paying the same for the hours of labour for the cooking, but don't have to live with the person cooking for you.

[Metta]

We did this. One of my friends became homeless after a disastrous marriage. I invited them to live with us for a while. They wanted to repay the room with cooking. They were a French-trained chef with a similar diet to ours. So it seemed like a good deal.

It turned out to be more difficult than imagined. My friend entered a deep depression that we couldn't help them with and soon stopped cooking. Since my intention was just to give them a landing place for a while and didn't mind cooking and didn't want to contribute to their low feelings of self-worth, I didn't press the matter. The arrangement ended after about 9 months. My husband became very grumpy about the situation. My friend eventually ended up in a hospital for people with mental disorders and seems to be doing well.

I know another person who made the same arrangement with a couple that she didn't know. It ended up worse. They stopped working almost immediately and when she tossed them out, they cleaned her out of all her valuables. Very sad situation.

I have no advice for you except realize that once you bring someone into your home, it becomes very difficult to change the arrangement, even when the other person can't uphold their side of the bargain.

[Catbert]

Plenty of wealthy folks have live in housekeepers who cook for them, but have you just considered hiring someone to bulk cook for you once or twice a week?

Back when I was working I hired a housekeeper/cook who would come in once a week, clean and bulk cook and pre-portion out lunches and dinners for the week. All I had to do was reheat them on demand.

I've also used services that make and deliver meals, again pre-portioned and ready to reheat.

That way you are paying the same for the hours of labour for the cooking, but don't have to live with the person cooking for you.

Try googling "personal chef" and you city name.  Some seem aimed at bulk cooking and delivering individual meals you select.  I'd explore that before having someone live in given  Metta and others's negative experience.  I'm not sure how you eat now (delivery of restaurant meals vs. frozen TV dinners) so the cost may be prohibitive.

[Metalcat]

Plenty of wealthy folks have live in housekeepers who cook for them, but have you just considered hiring someone to bulk cook for you once or twice a week?

Back when I was working I hired a housekeeper/cook who would come in once a week, clean and bulk cook and pre-portion out lunches and dinners for the week. All I had to do was reheat them on demand.

I've also used services that make and deliver meals, again pre-portioned and ready to reheat.

That way you are paying the same for the hours of labour for the cooking, but don't have to live with the person cooking for you.

Try googling "personal chef" and you city name.  Some seem aimed at bulk cooking and delivering individual meals you select.  I'd explore that before having someone live in given  Metta and others's negative experience.  I'm not sure how you eat now (delivery of restaurant meals vs. frozen TV dinners) so the cost may be prohibitive.

I don't even use personal chefs, they tend to cost a lot. I search ads for "meals" or "cooking" and a ton of home cooks generally pop up listing their services. There are a lot of SAHP who offer this kind of service for a very low fee. Private chefs tend to market more in-house formal dinners and charge restaurant-level prices.

But by far, the most economical option for me has always been to hire a cleaner who also cooks. And TONS of housekeepers do both. That way I'm buying the groceries and only paying for their time cooking in my own kitchen. For someone efficiently, this can be as little as 3hrs/week.

[seattlecyclone]

This sounds pretty analogous to the au pair program for childcare. If you have an extra bedroom anyway it can be a win-win: you get a valued service for a potentially lower cash outlay than if you hired an outside worker to do the work, and the worker gets a place to stay in exchange for less of their labor than they might have to put in to earn the rent a local landlord would charge. The downside of course is that you now have a roommate, using the kitchen or bathroom or other common areas when you might have wanted to use them, and the potential for theft or other problems as mentioned above is always there.

[Dreamer40]

Becoming both a landlord and an employer doesn’t seem worth it just for the food. But my parents get this kind of food service by living in an independent living retirement community! And the food there isn’t bad. I stop by for a free meal with them regularly when their food points are starting to add up.

An easier system is to find someone near you who sells prepped meals. A friend’s husband used to do this before he bought a catering business. Basically, you would get a stack of containers with prepped dinners for the week. There was a different menu every week. It was cheaper and healthier than getting takeout. There’s also a fast casual restaurant near me that does something similar. https://cleaneatspdx.com/product-category/meal-packs/