MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
We will be in touch
Me and the missus are having a significant disagreement on this one....
I think we should pay them 50% for the foreseeable but she thinks they'll be getting gov't money and would just rip us off/ and/ or be offended.
I have a feeling that since they're not PAYE and perhaps not fully fledged business that they may not be getting gov money.
You paying/ being paid just now?
Got a view on whether small businesses like that are covered?
Thanks
Ah, the lesser spotted humblus braggus...
Presumably you trust him/her/xer so you could just ask if he/she/xey are getting paid by the government, if not offer 50% or whatever.
We've got one full income and one 80% furlough. We are still paying our dog walkers. The point of furlough is to keep the economy going, it's not so we can tighten our belts and bolster savings.
#peakstw
I offered to pay ours the full amount.
She refused.
She'll get a pay rise when she comes back.
Presumably you trust her
Did you just assume the cleaner's gender? 😉
Ah, the lesser spotted humblus braggus…
😀
No the wife is still doing it for free I did offer he cup of tea once she’d dishes but only if she made me one too.
We’ve got one full income and one 80% furlough
#Elevenerife
No she's not paying the bloody cleaner.
Though having cleaned the inside of the landing windows this morning, I probably don't deserve it.
But ask the cleaner what they are doing, and take it from there
We’re just paying them. They’ve worked for us for 10-15 years. We’d already budgeted to pay them. The goodwill and knowing they’ll be back after lockdown is worth more than the cash is for us. And doing the right thing is worth something in itself.
Our cleaner told us that if we didn't want her in our house during the lockdown (she wanted to continue) that, in order to retain her services after it ends, we'd have to sign a disclaimer that we wanted her to keep us on her books and if we subsequently reneged on the agreement that we would have to pay her £100 a cancellation fee. I don't think she took legal advice on this, but I admire her balls.
I paid mine in full for March even though we’ve been self isolating since 10th. I offered to pay a 50% retainer but she wouldn’t take it. As self employed they will be able to claim from HMRC.
CaptainFlashheart
Did you just assume the cleaner’s gender?
I did, don't worry I've self flagelated, said three hail Marys/Marios and edited the post.
We don't have a cleaner but i would still pay them if you can offord to.
Yeah, we are paying ours. It’s £15 a week.
We made the call the week before the lockdown; wife works in A&E, cleaner is in her late 60s, didn’t seem fair to expose her to the risk.
She thanked us profusely and told us that several of her other clients had just cancelled for the foreseeable future with no mention of payment.
Dog walker is a bit different, due to wife’s shifts and my work we usually have 2-3 walks a week but not regularly. We are paying her for 1 walk a week (again, £15) and she had to be persuaded to take it.
The way I see it neither of them are earning massive amounts of money. They will hopefully get a small amount from the self employed persons payment at some point in the future but I doubt they have massive reserves.
The total we are paying them both is probably about what I might usually spend in the pub on beer in a week and I can’t do that at the moment.
I've furloughed my butler.
He's still working though as he lives in the gatehouse on the grounds. He's presently cleaning my shotguns so that I can enforce social disatncing should any of the lower orders wander onto the estate
I have a feeling that since they’re not PAYE and perhaps not fully fledged business that they may not be getting gov money.
They will still able to claim Universal Credit (even if they're established S/E). If they subsequently receive any money from HMRC then it's just taken into account and if they don't, they still have an income ticking along.
Correct. Which is why the govt will be paying out to self-employed workers! IIRC they can claim even if they're still earning, so they'll be getting paid twice whether they're doing any cleaning or not! Assuming, of course, they're paying tax, etc properly & not just trousering cash-in-hand (see below) (you wouldn't be a party to that, would you 🤔)The point of furlough is to keep the economy going, it’s not so we can tighten our belts and bolster savings.
is that a euphemism for tax evasion? 😃perhaps not fully fledged business
Still paying the gardner which is fair as he's still coming round. I have offered in writing to continue paying him if he can't come due to the current unpleasantness.
But there's no such thing as society just individuals and their families.
Unfortunately not going to be able to carry on paying. We are down to a single income now, and on a mortgage holiday.
is this like one of those shitty riddles on FaceBook where the poster has made up their own answer that makes no sense & no-one else will get? 😂But there’s no such thing as society just individuals and their families.
Don't have a cleaner, but we're continuing to pay our dog walker 100%, as we've been fortunate enough to keep both our jobs at normal pay for now.
The help for self-employed is probably not going to be paid out until June, so some people are going to have a big short-term cash flow problem.
Also you can only get it if 50% or more of your income is from self-employment, so someone who has a part-time job paying them 51% of their income will get nothing. If they have been furloughed from their part-time job then they may find themselves trying to survive on 41% of their former income. Universal Credit will then be their only option, but I've no idea how long that would take to come through or how much they would get.
This reminds me of the alleged story of a pupil at Eton who had to write a story about poor people.
"They were a poor family, the father was poor, the mother was poor, even the butler was poor.....".
I’ve furloughed my butler.
He’s still working though as he lives in the gatehouse on the grounds. He’s presently cleaning my shotguns so that I can enforce social disatncing should any of the lower orders wander onto the estate
😂 😂 😂
If this situation goes on for too much longer I might have to make the awkward choice between my lifestyle consultant and private jet pilot ☹
Did you just assume the cleaner’s gender?
but I admire her balls.
I'm not sure there's any assumptions to be made .....
For all the HMRC bods out there - if you're still paying your cleaner, even though they're not coming round to clean, does that count as a gift rather than taxable earnings?
Are you paying your cleaner?
Of course not, our man takes care of the staff
her balls.
I’m not sure there’s any assumptions to be made …..
Depends whether she was born with them. Even then you’re on dodgy ground.
I admire her balls.
I assume you have to pay extra for that
I await a flaming for this but...
Ours are still coming in. They wear gloves and disposable shoe-covers, we stay in the back garden, or a room they don't enter (the office, they never do the office anyway) with the door shut, until they leave. They offered to not come if we weren't happy with that approach, but we figured there was no (well, very, very little) harm in it.
Still paying out childminder even though the boy isn’t going at the moment. We’ve used her for the last twelve years and she’s been very good. I think she’s in a high risk category due to asthma so although she said she’d still have him we said it wasn’t necessary.
Our cleaner told me that they would not be coming, and said we could cancel payment.
We are both still working FT with no loss of earnings.
We are still paying her the full amount we would have.
I pay her what she asked for, that frankly isn't a great deal. Ive been messed around by cleaners before, and would rather continue to pay her, and hope that helps her in a difficult situation, even if it's only temporary cash flow.
If we had a change in circumstances, we would reconsider.
I'm paying my self employed guitar teacher for lessons I can't attend, a pitiful amount I know but it feels like the right thing to do as working for the NHS I. I'm one of the lucky ones who are getting a regular full wage
I assume you have to pay extra for that
Only if it progresses to cupping.
Teabagging is a further supplement.
I don't have a (paid) cleaner. I'm sure if I did, I would be taking all the following into account: has my household income dropped? is the supplier a serious company with someone raking in the cash and paying minimum wage or an individual truely self employed? what was the cleaner saying about government support schemes? did I like the cleaner and would I be upset if they weren't available when lockdown is lifted? but probably concluding that unless I was struggling I would be paying them in full.
perhaps not fully fledged business
is that a euphemism for tax evasion? 😃
The Self Employed stuff is based on average of the last three years tax returns. I'm pretty sure, you don't make the first return until the Jan after the April of your first year's work. i.e. someone who have been your cleaner for 12 months or more may not yet have lodged enough evidence to make a claim.
For all the HMRC bods out there – if you’re still paying your cleaner, even though they’re not coming round to clean, does that count as a gift rather than taxable earnings?
No i think you'll find it is a retainer with the expectation that at short notice you can call them up and they return to duties.
We don't have a cleaner, or a childminder anymore thankfully.
I'm still paying the window cleaner.
I'm paying my daughters Gymnastics club 50% and they're doing the odd session with Zoom.
I will admit cancelling a few things I was paying to come more corporate sized places - £90 a month for a Gym.
We are are continuing to pay our cleaner. Haven't actually spoken to her about it, just let the standing order run. I hope she'll be willing to do a few extra shifts when things go back to normal as the house will definitely need it, but am not going to stress over it.
My wife and I have both taken salary cuts but we're saving shit loads on childcare, trains, petrol, eating out, weekend activities etc.
Yes, half pay. She doesn't do online banking and lives miles away so it involved a slightly awkward text conversation of "what's your address? And what's your actual name?", and a lot of trust that the cheque'll get there, but it seemed only fair
Sacked mine, along with the cook, the butler and the driver. Peasants. However, Her Ladyship insisted we keep the young, handsome gardener because, apparently, there are "things she needs him for in the orangery". Seemed fair enough to me.
She doesn’t do online banking
Pro tip; she doesn't need to. You do.
You just need to get her to read the sort code and acc no. of a cheque / card / statement
😉
Anticipating where we are now we gave our cleaner (cash in hand, known her for years) 5 weeks pay 3 weeks ago and said not to come for a while and we'd review late april. Place is now a dusty mess. I think she is thinking of returning to Brazil sadly as this has been the icing on top of the brexit cake.
We’re still paying the dog walker as we’re still using her when we’re working. Albeit less than usual, I think she’s doing 6 days this month.
It depends on our shifts though so some months we don’t use her much at all and others she does a lot.
I might have to have a look at our roster and work out the extra if this had been a normal month and make up the difference.
I’ve just checked and we’re 3 shifts short of a normal month so I’ll make the difference up at the moment. We’d be a bit stuck if she wasn’t still around after all this.
The cleaner we sacked ages ago as she was rubbish, seemed to play “see how many door frames I can smash the hoover in to” every time she came.
Only Singletrack could have a thread like this! Okay possibly Mumsnet as well.
Yep paying ours all the time we are both working - although she wasn't keen on the idea so I suspect it will get transferred straight back.
I've asked the butler to check that.
We’re paying ours the full amount, it’s not her fault she can’t come and it’s not masses of money. I should imagine maintaining her regular income at the moment is quite stressful for her and I don’t intend to add to it. Also I’m not gonna do any cleaning so she has a shed load to do when she comes back 😉
Absolutely. We're both still on full pay so trying to keep other stuff running as much as possible, clubs etc. Yes, it doesn't make logical sense and stuff isn't getting done, clubs aren't running but these are not normal times, stuff will return to normal and I want it all to be around afterwards.
edit: and what kilo sez
Did you just assume the cleaner’s gender? 😉
Well, I did watch a documentary about it once...
I’m going to my second home in the Lake District for the weekend, while The cleaner comes in to spend the bank holiday conducting a thorough deep clean on our primary city residence.
Personally, I’d have sacked her for the duration but Tabatha and Tarquin de Pfeffel are inexplicably overly-sentimental about Natalia, so I’m prepared to indulge them on this occasion
No cleaners or other staff, but music teachers are doing lessons by Zoom, so they are getting paid the usual. Gymnastics club are only charging half fees, wife's and daughters Guide units aren't charging subs.
My Scout group has invited parents to cancel subs if they wish, after I pushed the issue.
My lads Explorer unit have said nothing about subs, expecting everyone to keep paying. MrsMC has reduced the standing order to 50% as a one woman protest.
My dental practice is still taking their £20 a month despite being closed. The bunch of Range Rover driving and perfect-smiling handsome bastards.
My dental practice is still taking their £20 a month despite being closed.
Genuine question. Why do you have a standing order to a dentist?
It’s like a window into a very different world in here sometimes.
My dental practice is still taking their £20 a month despite being closed. The bunch of Range Rover driving and perfect-smiling handsome bastards.
Cancelling a standing order is like pulling teeth sometimes
In kind. I gave her my old 50” led tv. The family were very pleased.
We have twin Romanian sisters as our home helps. Both are on zero hour contracts so we don't have to pay them anything if we don't want to thank God. One does the cleaning and the other does the laundry/ironing. We've agreed to keep them on at half pay as even though the wife is off work at the moment, she doesn't like getting her hands dirty. £3 an hour isn't bad in these uncertain times though, and they both seem really grateful to continue the work. It's difficult for us all but it's good to keep the economy going...
My dad's cleaner is still coming... he said as it's only a small village it is fine 🙄
Genuine question. Why do you have a standing order to a dentist?
Nothing fancy, just a good local practice and not much more than NHS if you want regular check-ups and cleans.
We have twin Romanian sisters as our home helps. Both are on zero hour contracts so we don’t have to pay them anything if we don’t want to thank God. One does the cleaning and the other does the laundry/ironing. We’ve agreed to keep them on at half pay as even though the wife is off work at the moment, she doesn’t like getting her hands dirty. £3 an hour isn’t bad in these uncertain times though, and they both seem really grateful to continue the work. It’s difficult for us all but it’s good to keep the economy going…
Heh. Subtle 🙂
funkmasterp
Subscriber
It’s like a window into a very different world in here sometimes.
Glad it's not just me.
We stopped ours at the before the lockdown, no pay but she was wasn't the best. She'd cancel with an hours notice at least once a month and she was was slow. She also lost our keys last month so we had to get locks changed.
It's fairly easy to clean for 15 minutes a day and keep in top of it.
Why do some people think that a domestic cleaner is like having a servant? We both work and have young kids, family time is precious so £15 a week for a cleaner is hardly decedent.
I'm in the US so government funding is a bit different, but we have paid her so far. She only comes every two weeks so just two missed sessions but we didn't want to deprive her of income and she's older and so a bit higher risk so we stopped having her come before our lockdown.
I've been furloughing the butler and ploughing the nanny since last year so no change here.
funkmasterp
Subscriber
It’s like a window into a very different world in here sometimes.
indeed.
funkmasterp
It’s like a window into a very different world in here sometimes
Yes indeed. Goes some way to explaining the cluelessness of that boycotting businesses thread.
£15 a week for a cleaner is hardly decedent.
But probably below minimum wage
Even in Brizzle.
That's 1.5 hours @ £10 an hour so a little more that minimum wage. In normal times most people spend way more than that in a coffee shop every week.
Cleaner? Window cleaner? Nope, sorry no clue whatsoever.
We decided to go with 50% whilst this all goes on, she was so grateful that she said she wanted to paint us a picture as she didn't want money for nothing. She asked for ideas and I love this picture of me and girls at the beach last year with the dog so we sent that across
I'll admit we were slightly concerned about what we would get back, thankfully we are pleased with the results.
Oh. So how do we share photos now on here? Off to search. My PA normally does this but I've had to let her go whilst this goes on.
Do mountain bikers have cleaners? I’m absolutely amazed and amused with this thread! Fantastic problems to be dealt with! Seriously it’s made me chuckle..
wheelsonfire1
Subscriber
Do mountain bikers have cleaners? I’m absolutely amazed and amused with this thread! Fantastic problems to be dealt with! Seriously it’s made me chuckle..
This is what gravel bikes have done to good, salt of the earth mountain bikers.
Do mountain bikers have cleaners?
We do. Both full time work and then we have the kids on top of that. I could do my own cleaning but I'd rather that be time spent in the saddle or doing something with the kids. We're fortunate enough at the moment to have some disposable income to afford this so why not.
Bikes you can ride off tarmac? Like most bikes in the rough stuff days? Seriously, I’m amused and not trolling, whatever that means. Ride safe, have fun, stay safe(ish).
Figured it so this was the picture we sent
https://www.flickr.com/photos/61858013@N03/49754959292/in/dateposted-public/
And she has painted this one for us.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/61858013@N03/49754959287/in/dateposted-public/
That’s a cracking picture. Perhaps should take it up professionally?
Thank you, I love it. We thought that too but then we'd lose our cleaner.
Real world problems here!!!!
For all the HMRC bods out there – if you’re still paying your cleaner, even though they’re not coming round to clean, does that count as a gift rather than taxable earnings?
had that come up with the wife and we didn't have a clue. a few of her customers have insisted on carrying on paying, most full rate, one said he wanted to pay 80%.
it'll all help as the 3 years HMRC will go of for the 80% payment where quite low due to problems with a knee op limiting work and ikts only really in this last year she has started getting back up to a decent amount of work.
funkmasterp
It’s like a window into a very different world in here sometimes
That world where both of us have busy jobs and would rather spend some of our disposable income on something that adds to our quality of life and someone earns a living off it? Bit like buying bikes and kit or owning a dog for example. Presumably you live a sack cloth and ashes lifestyle and no frippery or non-core expenditure is indulged.
Our cleaner works remotely via Zoom now.