Author Topic: How do you guys divide up household chores?  (Read 11485 times)

Zikoris

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How do you guys divide up household chores?
« on: January 31, 2015, 05:26:59 PM »
Curious what sort of systems other couples or families have for this. Unstructured, everyone just does whatever they see needs to be done? Division of labour, with each person being responsible for specific tasks? Taking turns? One person does everything? Hire the entire thing out? What rough percentage of the work does each person do?

We're a couple and each have specific jobs we're responsible for, and it works out roughly even.

Tasks done jointly:
Major grocery shopping
Laundry
Tidying up
Kitchen counters and table

Just me:
Cooking and meal planning (and inventory tracking)
Fridge and stove
Vacuuming
Bathroom
Dusting
Fixing things/mending clothes (not frequent)
Organizing

Just him:
Dishes and cleaning the sink area
Minor grocery shopping
Sweeping
Cat litter and puke
Taking garbage out
Fixing the bed
Microwave and toaster oven

We live in an apartment building, so no mowing lawns or anything.

h2ogal

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Re: How do you guys divide up household chores?
« Reply #1 on: January 31, 2015, 06:44:28 PM »
We are sort of old fashioned. 

I do most of the the inside work (straightening up, laundry, de-cluttering etc.)
He does outside work (snow plowing, mowing) and the equipment repairs, cars, and house maintenance.   Also anything icky like mousetraps or garbage.  haha

Food is shared - whoever shops and cooks that day, the other will do the dishes.

Bills and Paperwork we take turns on.  I did it for several years, got to hate it, he took over for several years, but now that I discovered FIRE/MMM, I took this back because I feel I'm the more motivated one to save $ right now.

We used to argue about chores when the kids were little and we were both working and overwhelmed.  Now we almost never argue because the kids are all grown and its just not that hard anymore.


gooki

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Re: How do you guys divide up household chores?
« Reply #2 on: February 01, 2015, 10:36:32 PM »
About 70% is division of labour, and the other 30% is see it, do it.

Hotstreak

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Re: How do you guys divide up household chores?
« Reply #3 on: February 01, 2015, 11:13:52 PM »
I do about 80% myself, and the other 20% don't get done.  I'm single.

MicroRN

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Re: How do you guys divide up household chores?
« Reply #4 on: February 01, 2015, 11:24:33 PM »
I do the vast majority of the grocery shopping, finances, cooking, litter box cleaning.  My husband does most of the dishes, although I empty the dishwasher.  We share the general household cleaning (usually a weekly cleaning blitz), and we fold laundry together while watching TV.  Most other things, like taking out trash and recycling, we do as needed. 

deborah

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Re: How do you guys divide up household chores?
« Reply #5 on: February 01, 2015, 11:28:50 PM »
I'm a kept woman!

Jon_Snow

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Re: How do you guys divide up household chores?
« Reply #6 on: February 01, 2015, 11:32:18 PM »
And I'm a kept man!

1967mama

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Re: How do you guys divide up household chores?
« Reply #7 on: February 01, 2015, 11:33:28 PM »
I'm a stay at home parent, so I do the majority of cooking, cleaning, shopping etc. during the week. On the weekends, its more 50/50. My husband does all of the outside work as well. He's a gem :-)

YK-Phil

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Re: How do you guys divide up household chores?
« Reply #8 on: February 01, 2015, 11:53:21 PM »
We spend on average three out of five weeks apart, so when we are not together, we obviously do 100% of our chores on our own. I have it better than her though, because I am housesitting when I am away from home, and my only real chore is reheating the leftovers that the house owner left for me, and cleaning her cats' litter box. As for my laundry, I get to do it while I am working at my second job, getting paid as a bonus...When my wife and I are together at home, I have absolutely nothing to do while my wife is working, so I do most of the cooking except the "Rice": my wife is Japanese and her rice (or rices because there is an endless variety of mysterious-looking rice in the cupboards) is not something to take lightly...I also do most house-cleaning chores except vacuuming our bedroom and the cat litter box. Once every six months, I dare stepping in my daughter's bedroom to do a complete cleanup...

Astatine

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Re: How do you guys divide up household chores?
« Reply #9 on: February 02, 2015, 01:36:16 AM »
Who does what is based on who hates/avoids the chore the most (and then the other person does that chore). In practice, this has ended up as mostly the opposite of gender stereotyped division of labour.

DH does all the dish washing (we don't have a dishwasher), hangs out the clothes, vacuums and other daily/weekly chores. He also now has to do all of the lawn mowing based on doctor's advice for allergies, ditto picking zucchinis (I get contact rashes from the leaves). He takes out the big bins out for collection, mostly cos we only ever remember to do it at night and I have shitty night vision.

I do the budget, all money stuff, planning, most of the yardwork (except for the above exceptions), getting the big stuff organised (like getting wills done, dealing with tradies etc).

Both of us equally dislike doing the bathroom so that probably doesn't get cleaned often enough.

We share the cooking approximately equally as we both like cooking.  Taking compost, recycling and bags of rubbish out is done as it occurs to either of us (but I refuse to do it after dark). I did use to change over the kitty litter every fortnight (ew gross), but it's too heavy for my painful joints at the moment, so he's doing that for now.

pachnik

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Re: How do you guys divide up household chores?
« Reply #10 on: February 02, 2015, 08:25:53 AM »
We each do our own laundry and clean our own bathroom.  We do grocery shopping and together.  The person who cooks the meal doesn't do the dishes.  Mr. Pachnik bakes bread and does the ironing - he is much better than I am at doing these things.   I usually run the vacuum around and dust once in a while. 

RunHappy

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Re: How do you guys divide up household chores?
« Reply #11 on: February 02, 2015, 08:30:50 AM »
For the most part we just do whatever needs to be done.

He is in charge of the outdoor stuff, because I hate it (it was why I lived in a condo for 10 years until I moved in with him).

Whoever does not cook does dishes (usually me).

If there is a load of laundry to be done one of us will throw it in.

I declutter the countertops more than him, but that is mostly because my home office is kind of in the open and it bothers me.

Emilyngh

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Re: How do you guys divide up household chores?
« Reply #12 on: February 02, 2015, 08:33:59 AM »
DH is a FT SAHD, but I also have a good deal of time at home.   This is our basic division:

DH:
-making dinner (following our menu) weeknights
-cleaning up after dinner weeknights
-does grocery shopping if I'm too busy (maybe 1/3rd time)
-laundry
-care for chickens and dog
-sweep, vacuum, and mop floors
-clean bathrooms
-car maintenance
-most errands (ie., going to the post office, etc)
-most handy/maintenance work
-takes care of cars (oil changes, fixes them)
-mows lawn, week whacks and handles major yard work

me
-often cook dinner on the weekends (including making a big batch of something that can be frozen for the week)
-help on weekends with anything that seems to need to be done (eg., pitch in if leftover cleaning/laundry if needed, although often not)
-usually make the dinner menu and then grocery list for the week
-usually do the weekly grocery shopping
-take care of all financial things
-take care of any planning (eg., making lists of what we need to get done for things, packing for trips, buying of gifts etc)
-do household decorating, organizing, decluttering, setting up systems, etc
-gardening and lighter yard work



horsepoor

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Re: How do you guys divide up household chores?
« Reply #13 on: February 02, 2015, 08:42:13 AM »
We've never really divided things up formally, but it's just sort of ended up with some division and some shared tasks.I was raised by very handy parents who taught me how to cook, clean and fix/build things.  DH grew up in sort of a "hoarder lite" house where they didn't cook and almost let the roof cave in at one point (I'm making it sound worse than it is, but there's the contrast).  So he likes to do the things he knows by rote need to be done.  I'm more th freelancer who fixes things and does odd jobs and organizes.

DH:
Mows
Picks up dog shit
Vacuums
Dusts
About 70% of the dishes

I:
Grocery shop
Grow the veggie garden
Perennial landscaping
Deep cleaning projects like shampooing carpets or cleaning the fridge
Cook dinner

We each do our own laundry

Jon_Snow

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Re: How do you guys divide up household chores?
« Reply #14 on: February 02, 2015, 08:46:47 AM »
I do it all. Happily so. Cleaning house is bliss...compared to my previous career.

Oh, and don't do her laundry, except for her workout clothes...

gaja

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Re: How do you guys divide up household chores?
« Reply #15 on: February 02, 2015, 03:12:03 PM »
I do the stuff that involves decisions:
-all and any types of paperwork, including bills, booking dr appointments (loads of those for the kid), communication with school, planning meals and writing shopping lists
-cooking meals that are not ready made
-planning activities for kids and family
-bulk purchases
-buying and sorting clothes, both dirty and clean, discarding clothes whe needed

he takes care of the everyday running of the house:
-cleaning/vacuming/dishes
-washing (pre-sorted) laundry
-getting kids to and from school, and dr appointments
-feeding kids and cat
-fixing stuff that breaks
-renovations

caliq

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Re: How do you guys divide up household chores?
« Reply #16 on: February 02, 2015, 03:35:26 PM »
Haha, I like gaja's way of describing it.  DH and I have basically the same division of labor:

Me:
-dealing with doctors, bills, all financial matters, etc. & phone calls for anything
-organizing/planning/decluttering/etc.
-driving (DH is no longer allowed according to his doctors; I even have to bring him to appointments and such)
-cooking anything more complicated than a hot dog or a frozen pizza
-purchases
-driving
-loading dishwasher (why can he only fit half of what I can in there.....)
-my own laundry

DH:
-cleaning bathroom
-occasional vacuuming (we do have a Roomba for the upstairs so only the carpeted basement gets done every couple weeks)
-putting away clean dishes, hand washing pots/pans/etc.
-his own laundry
-lawn care, outside house stuff
-trash
-feeding dogs (though sometimes I do it in the morning when I get up for school)
-car stuff (usually he goes over to my parent's house and does stuff with my dad -- FIL bonding time, lol)

So far we've ended up fixing things and doing 'renovations' together, but we just bought our first house and it was basically move in ready so not many data points to go on there.

Rural

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Re: How do you guys divide up household chores?
« Reply #17 on: February 02, 2015, 06:19:53 PM »
He builds it, I clean it if it gets cleaned (often it doesn't).


 I cook because I don't like what he chooses to cook. He eats mine without complaint, so we're both happy.


He shovels, chops, shoots, etc (I shoot better than I shovel, but he was a sharpshooter and I've worn glasses since I was a small child, so...).


The dishwasher does the dishes. The roomba sweeps. The washing machine does the laundry. The folding happens sometimes (me), and sometimes we dig through baskets.


He runs the fences and the backhoe. Whoever sees a rattlesnake deals with it. He skins and guts, I fry it up... Unless it's a deer and then the butchering goes better with two.


Our cats pee outside, thank goodness. Dogs, too, for that matter. He's in charge of live mouse removal (usually this requires getting it away from a cat). He deals with dog accidents as long as he's home (rare and more often barf than anything else.) He also feeds the dogs their nasty, stinky food.


I garden and process. He tills. I grocery shop and he carries it in.


He fixes vehicles, unless it's a small car and then I'm often nominated because of hand size.


I handle the financials and occasionally make him look at them with me so that he will be able to muddle through if something happens to me.


We're frighteningly traditional, really, but our size differential just makes a lot of traditional division of labor make sense. I can do most of the heavy work, but it takes more than twice as long, so we do it this way and both have more free time.

Mississippi Mudstache

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Re: How do you guys divide up household chores?
« Reply #18 on: February 03, 2015, 08:59:33 AM »
We have never made formal divisions of labor, but things have evolved over the years based on what we like to do or what drives us the most crazy.

Wife is a SAHM, so she does most of the child-rearing stuff:
-Feeds/teaches/changes diapers/etc.
-Sets up Dr. appointments (my son has lots of them)
-Does most of the cooking, but I do it when she's not feeling up to it
-Straightens up/de-clutters (my wife is big on order, but not so much on cleanliness)
-Laundry
-Takes out the trash

I am only at home on evenings and weekends, so my list of chores reflects that:
-All financial tasks
-Yard work
-Maintenance/improvements
-I'm the one who wants things clean, so I will usually do a thorough sweeping/mopping on weekends, and when the bathroom needs scrubbed, that's my job.
-I usually wash dishes after supper, but if I cooked that night, my wife will do it

These are generalizations, though. We don't usually discuss the chores, we just do them. If the trash needs taken out or there's a pile of dirty dishes or the kids are hungry, we just take care of it.

I'm a red panda

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Re: How do you guys divide up household chores?
« Reply #19 on: February 03, 2015, 09:06:15 AM »
We don't really have a formal division either, but things have generally fallen naturally based on what is important to us.

There have been a few things that neither of us wanted to do, so those we discussed and divided up.

Fodder

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Re: How do you guys divide up household chores?
« Reply #20 on: February 03, 2015, 09:50:04 AM »
We are relatively stereotypical - dual income family, two kids.  We have a cleaning service to take care of the actual deep cleaning, and a snow removal service to clear the driveway (long rural driveway that would take about 2 hours with a normal snow blower).

Me:
- meal planning/flyer stalking
- 95% of all cooking, kitchen cleaning, dishes and making lunches
- most general tidying
- 50% of child-related stuff
- most paperwork/bill-paying/money management

Him:
- 50% of child-related stuff
- almost all outdoor and car-related stuff (i.e., mowing the lawn, some shoveling, clearing the ice rink, taking out the garbage)
- a little bit of cooking (when I've had it)
- 95% of all home improvement projects (painting, sanding, baseboard, etc.)

Together:
- all errands (i.e., grocery shopping, etc.)
- laundry (possibly the most despised task....clean unfolded laundry usually piles up until one of us caves and has a folding marathon)

Outsourced:
- home cleaning (every 2 weeks)
- snow clearing (pay a yearly fee for service and a magical giant snowblower takes care of all the snow)

acroy

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Re: How do you guys divide up household chores?
« Reply #21 on: February 03, 2015, 09:54:40 AM »
DW and I try to out-do each other :) hahaha! sometimes ;)
Our major win has been fostering (for lack of better words) a spirit of charity and joy around the housework. It needs to be done, it's our job, we are fortunate to have these tasks and tackle them with glee. Mostly.

SAHM:
majority of child rearing
majority of cooking (she's good at it & likes it)
Laundry (my skills no bueno)
some cleaning

ME:
all yardwork
all house, cars, etc maintenance
finance
some cleaning  (I'm a badass with a duster)

KIDS (age 2-9):
majority of routine cleaning: dishes, vacuum etc
trash

We have a minor family pow-wow every month to review household performance and a major one annually. All chores are divvied up, new chore list made, systems & expectations put in place.

We run a pretty darn tight ship; everyone knows what they are supposed to do, the place reasonably tidy & clean, it does not get away from us. 7 people in the house; it has to be this way.

tracylayton

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Re: How do you guys divide up household chores?
« Reply #22 on: February 03, 2015, 10:04:20 AM »
Me:  Cooking, Cleaning, Laundry, Grocery Shopping, all kid transportation, paying bills, and managing 5 rentals
Ex-husband: Mowed Yard

gaja

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Re: How do you guys divide up household chores?
« Reply #23 on: February 03, 2015, 10:18:24 AM »
Haha, I like gaja's way of describing it.  DH and I have basically the same division of labor:

ME:
(...)
-my own laundry

DH:
(...)
-his own laundry
(...)

I really recommend trying our laundry system:

8 ikea antonius wire baskets stacked (or similar system, you usually find those things very cheap in a lot of different shops). From top to bottom:
white wash 60
dark wash 60
white wash 40
blue/green/grey 40
pink/purple 40 (two girls with strong opinions)
black/red 40
wool/silk 30
don't touch, I'll do these!

We have far too many clothes and very messy kids, so normal people probably don't need or want to sort as many different fractions (or as many loads). But the good thing about this system is that when a basket is full, it fits perfectly in the machine. No need to figure out how to wash it, and if there is a red sock in the whites, or a silk blouse at 60, it's my fault for sorting wrong. Everything is labeled, no need to trust anyones memory.

I'm training the kids to both sort and wash. The last part is easier than the first.

LadyStache

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Re: How do you guys divide up household chores?
« Reply #24 on: February 03, 2015, 10:47:19 AM »
HIM
-cooks on his days off or when I work late
-dishes
-shoveling snow (I help sometimes)
-taking out trash
-most bill payments

ME
-cook on my days off or when he works late
-laundry (wash/fold/iron)
-most of the grocery shopping
-vacuuming and most other household cleaning

MsPeacock

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Re: How do you guys divide up household chores?
« Reply #25 on: February 03, 2015, 12:21:51 PM »
I do about 80% myself, and the other 20% don't get done.  I'm single.

Ditto - except I'm a single mom - so I also get all the kid duties (except when they are at their Dads). The kids are learning to pitch in more. But otherwise it is me for all shopping, cleaning, housework, yard work, repairs, sewing, laundry, cooking, etc. etc. etc.

I pay someone to mow the lawn - I just can't get it together and it is $80 per month to keep it looking nice during the growing season. I have massive flower beds and I do all the work on them myself (put down 17 cubic yards of mulch by myself last year). I also paid to have the 120 foot Tulip Poplar taken down (rotten on the inside) because that was most certainly not a DIY job. I also get my grtoceries delivered 1-2x a month (cost $9). Otherwise it is just me doing all the house and yard work and everything to run the house (and it is much better than doing it when ex was around - because it was just one more person to clean up after and listen to complaints about the 10% that he was willing to do).

caliq

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Re: How do you guys divide up household chores?
« Reply #26 on: February 03, 2015, 01:52:56 PM »
Haha, I like gaja's way of describing it.  DH and I have basically the same division of labor:

ME:
(...)
-my own laundry

DH:
(...)
-his own laundry
(...)

I really recommend trying our laundry system:

8 ikea antonius wire baskets stacked (or similar system, you usually find those things very cheap in a lot of different shops). From top to bottom:
white wash 60
dark wash 60
white wash 40
blue/green/grey 40
pink/purple 40 (two girls with strong opinions)
black/red 40
wool/silk 30
don't touch, I'll do these!

We have far too many clothes and very messy kids, so normal people probably don't need or want to sort as many different fractions (or as many loads). But the good thing about this system is that when a basket is full, it fits perfectly in the machine. No need to figure out how to wash it, and if there is a red sock in the whites, or a silk blouse at 60, it's my fault for sorting wrong. Everything is labeled, no need to trust anyones memory.

I'm training the kids to both sort and wash. The last part is easier than the first.

Are the numbers temperatures?  I'm afraid I'm not following. 

I used to do all the laundry but he doesn't put his clean clothes away, he just wears them out of the basket.  I got annoyed not having a basket to put dirty clothes in, so I bought him two of his own laundry baskets (one for clean and one for dirty) and now I ignore them :D Our clothes are even stored in separate areas so I really don't have to pay attention to what he does with his at all.  We both leave our laundry long enough that we're never running the machines half full :) I imagine this system won't work as well once we have kids but for now it's helping my sanity xD

Zikoris

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Re: How do you guys divide up household chores?
« Reply #27 on: February 03, 2015, 01:58:24 PM »
My laundry system is everything goes in the machine together, and I don't buy things that would not work with this system. We do about five or six loads a month.

MsPeacock

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Re: How do you guys divide up household chores?
« Reply #28 on: February 03, 2015, 02:14:34 PM »
My laundry system is everything goes in the machine together, and I don't buy things that would not work with this system. We do about five or six loads a month.

My system too - aside from dress clothes for work. I barely have time for laundry - so forget about sorting by color or whatever. Everything gets clean just fine all washed together.

spruce

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Re: How do you guys divide up household chores?
« Reply #29 on: February 03, 2015, 03:03:44 PM »
We've been having a discussion about this just this week - how timely!

It started when I asked him to help me clean the bathroom and he got mad at me because he feels like I don't do enough around the house. So now we're debating whether or not to keep track of hours, or other more insane metrics like that.  I am fortunate that he's an awesome cook and gets off work earlier than I do so he does a lot of the day-to-day stuff. I do more on weekends and do more deep cleaning (sometimes he doesn't wipe down the kitchen counters for three or four days...blech).

Generally, this is how it is now:

him:
cook most meals
do most of the dishes
2 loads of laundry/week
walk dogs
meal planning

me:
cook 1-2 meals/week
wash dishes 1-2 times/week
tidy up
run the roomba, sweep and mop floors
kitchen deep cleaning (~weekly)
grocery shopping
calendar-keeping
finances
every few weeks - wash sheets, towels, shower curtain, clean bathroom

We generally split outside chores evenly (I mow, he weed-eats, we both mulch), and home improvement projects are usually a shared effort too.  We struggle with things neither of us like (cleaning the bathroom...) so I'm curious to hear how others do it.

mak1277

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Re: How do you guys divide up household chores?
« Reply #30 on: February 03, 2015, 03:17:41 PM »
I cook and do (most of) the dishes, she does laundry.  I shovel and manage the yard, she pays bills.

Anything else typically waits until company is coming over, at which time both of us spend an evening or two rushing to straighten up, vacuum, dust, etc.

Astatine

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Re: How do you guys divide up household chores?
« Reply #31 on: February 04, 2015, 01:45:40 AM »
We struggle with things neither of us like (cleaning the bathroom...) so I'm curious to hear how others do it.

Our "solution" (not a real solution but it is what it is) is neither of us does it very often. But, if either of us cared enough that it wasn't clean, then that's enough motivation for one of us to actually do something about it.

The other way is to invite a bunch of people over. That generally gets rid of the lack of motivation factor and stuff gets clean, one way or another, regardless of how much we dislike the cleaning task. (this doesn't work for cleaning the shower though, cos the shower door is frosted glass and you can just close the door on the mouldy grout)

pancakes

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Re: How do you guys divide up household chores?
« Reply #32 on: February 04, 2015, 03:16:50 AM »
We don't have a set divide. I'd like to say it is 50/50 but DH does more at the end of the day. My tolerance for mess and clutter is much higher than his.

gaja

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Re: How do you guys divide up household chores?
« Reply #33 on: February 04, 2015, 03:51:02 AM »
Are the numbers temperatures?  I'm afraid I'm not following. 

I used to do all the laundry but he doesn't put his clean clothes away, he just wears them out of the basket.  I got annoyed not having a basket to put dirty clothes in, so I bought him two of his own laundry baskets (one for clean and one for dirty) and now I ignore them :D Our clothes are even stored in separate areas so I really don't have to pay attention to what he does with his at all.  We both leave our laundry long enough that we're never running the machines half full :) I imagine this system won't work as well once we have kids but for now it's helping my sanity xD

Yes, temperatures. Those are the standard settings on our machine. 40 deg C for normal clothes, 60 deg C for underwear, towels, etc.

I'm trying to get everything into the wire basket system, so we can do like your DH and store the clean clothes without folding and sorting them. Will be a bit more hassle to find my clothes in between the kids' and DH's clothes, but I think it would save time overall.

bdoubleu

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Re: How do you guys divide up household chores?
« Reply #34 on: February 04, 2015, 04:13:07 AM »
I am the income earner of the family, DH stays home (no kids, first one on the way though!).  The chore "division" is 100% agreed upon, but we both feel like we get the better end of the deal (obviously wired different than each other!).

Me:
Organize/track all things financial (we both have a say in this, tracking it just tops his "most boring things to possibly spend time on" list).
Work (for pay) - odd hours of shift work
Any chores I feel like doing

Him:
All chores I don't feel like doing (which is pretty much everything).

He continues to reinforce that he would rather do all chores/maintenance/etc 100% of the time, than to go back to paid employment.  It works out fine because I am in a phase where I absolutely love my pay-work, and we can save a boatload toward FI/RE.

When we both worked, we had very different schedules, and he had a job he despised.  This led to a horribly toxic home environment, enough so that I suggested he quit (again, with no kids).  We both felt we were doing 100% of the chores, while the other one was 100% lazy (when, actually, neither of us was doing more than 20-30% of chores...talk about constant mess!).  We discussed for several months what our new roles would be with him home, and came up with the above breakdown.  It works wonderfully, and we both feel fulfilled with our roles taking care of the household.

Will be interesting with the addition of a child.  I will end up going back to work, he will SAH, so I know his "free" time may be cut into dramatically, and we will probably need to make some adjustments to our current setup.

MandalayVA

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Re: How do you guys divide up household chores?
« Reply #35 on: February 04, 2015, 06:58:23 AM »
When Mr. Mandalay and I first started talking marriage we agreed that he would clean--he's a neat freak who can barely boil water--and I would cook, being somewhat of a slob but capable of making tasty food.  It's worked out well.

These days it's like this:

Mr. Mandalay takes care of cat-related stuff, tax stuff, car stuff and checking the investments.

I handle cooking (and clean up after myself), tech stuff, and for some unknown reason paying the gas/water bill.

We do the majority of grocery shopping together.

We pay our own credit card bills, keep our own rooms clean and do our own laundry.  Our electric, cell phone and internet bills are on automatic payment.

Since we live in a condo there's no outside work.

davisgang90

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Re: How do you guys divide up household chores?
« Reply #36 on: February 04, 2015, 07:02:33 AM »
Wife (SAHM)
Laundry
Kid's appts, school work review etc.

Me (work full-time)
Cooking (crock pot is my friend)
Cleaning
Budget/Bills/Investing
Oil changes/car stuff
Yardwork
Grocery shopping

11 year old
Cleans room
vacuums

17 year old (autistic)
empties dishwasher
cleans room
helps me with grocery shopping

20 year old (works full-time)
IT support
helps put away groceries
Cleans his room
pays me rent ; )

caliq

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Re: How do you guys divide up household chores?
« Reply #37 on: February 05, 2015, 04:41:03 PM »
Are the numbers temperatures?  I'm afraid I'm not following. 

I used to do all the laundry but he doesn't put his clean clothes away, he just wears them out of the basket.  I got annoyed not having a basket to put dirty clothes in, so I bought him two of his own laundry baskets (one for clean and one for dirty) and now I ignore them :D Our clothes are even stored in separate areas so I really don't have to pay attention to what he does with his at all.  We both leave our laundry long enough that we're never running the machines half full :) I imagine this system won't work as well once we have kids but for now it's helping my sanity xD

Yes, temperatures. Those are the standard settings on our machine. 40 deg C for normal clothes, 60 deg C for underwear, towels, etc.

I'm trying to get everything into the wire basket system, so we can do like your DH and store the clean clothes without folding and sorting them. Will be a bit more hassle to find my clothes in between the kids' and DH's clothes, but I think it would save time overall.

Yikes -- we don't sort anything based on color/fabric/etc so it's pretty easy for us to keep thing separated by person.  I'm not a morning person at all, so digging through his clothes would not be an option, lol.  Plus, even though I don't buy stuff that needs ironing, a lot of my clothes need to be hung up or I look like I've slept in them for a week xD 

I think you could still save time if you sort things into per-person baskets as they're coming out of the dryer?  Plus you could have a 'must be hung' basket or whatever.  Now that I think of it, I might start doing that for my stuff and keep things like leggings, sweatshirts, etc in a 'clean laundry' basket :D  (But shhh don't tell DH! I'll never hear the end of it)

Bracken_Joy

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Re: How do you guys divide up household chores?
« Reply #38 on: February 05, 2015, 04:53:35 PM »
We operate on the "who hates it less" system =P Which is to say, he really doesn't like laundry and I kinda like it, so I do all the laundry. He hasn't done a load of laundry in years haha. Whereas I hate HATE cleaning silverware. He does almost all of the dishes. Etc. Also, my energy tends to ebb and flow day by day more, while he's a steady daily routine sort. So I tend to do the once a week/periodically things (like dusting and bathrooms) while he does the every single day things (like dog care). It shakes out like this:

Me:
-laundry
-bathroom
-batch cooking
-sweeping
-making bed/changing sheets
-putting away groceries
-tracking grocery expenses
-dusting

Him:
-dishes (usually)
-taking dog outside (lots of stairs!)
-feeding dog
-cooking the dog's food
-carrying groceries
-paying the bills
-car maintenance

Either:
-unloading dishwasher
-at-time prep of meals (ie, heating up/finishing preparing portions of what I've batched)
-taking out garbage and recycling
-grocery shopping is always together (one of our favorite dates haha)

We never keep track of who does what when. To me, that sets you up as adversaries. If anything, we try and make a game of sneaking and doing the other person's work when they're not looking to lighten their load.
« Last Edit: February 15, 2015, 09:04:07 AM by Bracken_Joy »

Nancy

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Re: How do you guys divide up household chores?
« Reply #39 on: February 14, 2015, 06:21:27 PM »
Love the variety of responses that lead to happiness!

We are in the unstructured, each does whatever we see needs to be done/we like to do camp. He's a fantastic cook and enjoys it, and I like washing dishes. We love grocery shopping and doing laundry together. We do whatever strikes our fancy, and luckily, we have compatible living styles so everything gets done. Like Bracken_joy, we don't keep score. We're on the same team and enjoy doing anything that makes the other's day. I think it helps that we're both easygoing.  Good times!

BlueMR2

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Re: How do you guys divide up household chores?
« Reply #40 on: February 15, 2015, 08:54:05 AM »
Unstructured, so we each do what needs to be done when it's in front of us.  It's not perfect as each of us has areas we're more willing to neglect that will annoy the other person (the old "you were standing right there, why didn't you take care of it").  Then, there's the other side where neither of us likes how the other does laundry, so we rush to try to beat the other person to it...

Kris

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Re: How do you guys divide up household chores?
« Reply #41 on: February 15, 2015, 04:06:47 PM »
Husband does all the food shopping and all the cooking.

I do everything else:
Bills
Cleaning
Litter box dury
Buying pet supplies
Retirement planning
Laundry
Dry cleaning pickup for him
Errands
Taking pets to vet appointments
Scheduling any home maintenance appointments


It works out perfectly for us.
« Last Edit: February 15, 2015, 04:30:46 PM by Kris »

MoneyCat

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Re: How do you guys divide up household chores?
« Reply #42 on: February 15, 2015, 04:09:52 PM »
I can answer this question easily:  I do all the chores and my wife rests upstairs and watches Netflix.  This arrangement seems to work well for her. :-P

rocketpj

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Re: How do you guys divide up household chores?
« Reply #43 on: February 15, 2015, 04:13:50 PM »
Basically we bickered about it for about 5 years until we reached some kind of equilibrium in which we both do a ton of stuff and very rarely fight about it at all.


JohnnyDollar

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Re: How do you guys divide up household chores?
« Reply #44 on: February 15, 2015, 04:16:26 PM »
@Zikoris - I call this system the Bachelor Laundry Mantra ('sung' to Army running cadence):

Warm Wash! Cold Rinse!
Tumble Low!
If it don't do this,
just say "No!"!