Yesterday, I made a passing reference to The Laundry Agreement. A couple of eagle-eyed readers noticed a further reference in the screenshot I posted to illustrate the article. Kevin and Samantha both searched for answers at GRS, but couldn’t find them. I guess that means I’ve never mentioned the Laundry Agreement before.
The Laundry Agreement is a unique arrangement that Kris and I have used for fifteen years to play to our individual strengths in our marriage: I pay Kris to do my laundry.
The Laundry Agreement. What could it possibly mean?
To remind new readers, Kris and I keep separate finances, and always have. (As a result, we’ve never had a fight about money.) Some people hate separate finances, and that’s fine, but this system works for us. It keeps our marriage strong.
We’ve also hired a housekeeper to come in for a few hours every two weeks. Some people are shocked by this, but those who know me understand why this is a smart choice. I am by nature a slob. Despite my best intentions, I leave a mess wherever I go. (When I was a boy, my father called me Pig-Pen, and he called my closet “the rat’s nest”.) The housekeeper — which we cut when I was digging out of debt — is a small price to pay for marital harmony.
No surprise then that I’m not very good with laundry. Left to my own devices, I wouldn’t wash my clothes until I’d worn everything I owned at least once. How do I know? Because that’s how I used to operate. I had mounds of dirty clothes in the laundry baskets, but nothing clean in my closets and drawers. Once every month or two, I’d spend an entire day doing massive loads of laundry. I hated it. So did Kris.
Sometimes, I’d start a load or two — and then forget about them. When Kris went to do her own laundry several days later, she’d discover my damp and mildewed clothes still in the washer.
Enough was enough.
Eventually, she came to me with a proposal. “J.D.,” she said, “I’ll do your laundry, but on one condition.”
“What’s that?” I asked, fearing it would be something dreadful. Like cleaning the bathtub every week. Or mopping the floors. Or eating broccoli.
“In exchange, you have to put gas in my car whenever it’s empty,” Kris said.
I tried to stifle a laugh. “No problem!” I said.
“And you have to pay for that gas,” Kris said.
“Ah,” I said. I thought about it. Kris was offering to do my laundry every week (but no ironing) if I would always make sure her gas tank was full, a chore that needed to be done only once a month (because Kris has never driven very much), a chore I didn’t mind in the least. At that time — in 1995 or 1996 — my cost would be about $15 per month. That seemed plenty fair.
“I’ll do it,” I said, and for the past fifteen years, we’ve maintained this arrangement. Kris does my laundry, and I put fuel in her car. It works out well for me, and it works out well for her. Kris says she kind of likes doing the laundry — and emptying the dishwasher.
Goofy? Perhaps. But aren’t all relationships? Surely you and your partner have some kind of strange financial arrangements unique to your situation. I find it hard to believe that Kris and I are the only ones who do this sort of thing. Fess up!
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I find learning about such agreements very entertaining.
For us it works like this:
Me:
90% of cooking – its my hobby
Take out trash
Schlepping heavy stuff
Picking up after myself
Dry-cleaners
Finances (paying bills, managing investments etc)
Her:
10% of cooking
Laundry
Organizing the cleaning lady (we both work 60hrs plus and earn well, so this is a no brainer)
Picking up after herself
Keeping the house decent (changing table cloth, towels in guest bath etc)
Involved in key financial decisions
Our finances are 100% joint – my moola is her moola and vice versa.
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My husband and I have separate finances and, like J.D. said, we have never fought about money. We each take care of certain bills and our incomes/expenses are about equal. For the most part, I take care of the inside of the house and he takes care of the outside. The exception to this is the laundry, which I hate doing. My husband hates that I let it pile up so I think I might propose an arrangement similar to Kris and J.D.’s.
The only thing my husband and I need for complete marital bliss is separate bathrooms (we had them in our last condo and it was wonderful)
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@31 El Nerdo
We’ve never sat down and lined out a budget together, but the bills don’t really change much from month to month. He gets charged for half the utilities, a bit more than half the cell phone (since it is his business line and we therefore had to up our plan), the health insurance premiums taken out of my check for his insurance, and half the groceries. Groceries are the most variable expense, but from our highest month to our lowest month that probably only varies ~20% and most of the time is somewhere in between. We make a list together before I go to the store and I stick to the list with only rare exceptions. If there are any unusual expenses, those would be discussed and agreed upon first. So I just can’t see the scenario where the bill I send him would double unless it was something completely out of my control like the electric company suddenly quadruples the rates or something.
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We have just moved in together and have decided to maintain our separate finances except for a “joint” checking account. We pay rent proportionately (I make more money than him; so I pay more rent). We both contributing equally to the joint checking account at the beginning of every month and use it for groceries, utilities, and household expenses.
However we haven’t quite figured out how to make that work for tracking expenses and budgeting (we use YNAB, separately). Do we each budget for 50% of groceries? Or count the other’s contribution to the joint account as “income” and both track total groceries? Still working on that.
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My husband and I have a pretty clear arrangement – because I work full-time and run my business on the side, he does the majority of the cleaning, cooking and shopping. I handle the finances and help out around the house when I can.
We’ve never attached financial compensation to it, which probably wouldn’t work anyways since our finances are joined. But kudos to you and your wife for coming up with a great solution!
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@Tyler #19
I belong to that shrinking number whose husband provides everything. I am the wife and my husband pays for ever single thing including the groceries. I have a small business and he has never asked me to pay for anything. In fact, he still gives me an allowance for my play money. In return he has a hot homecooked meal waiting for him when he steps in the door every evening. He has clean clothes in his drawer and clean floors to walk on. I mow the yards and tend the garden. He works 50 hour weeks and keeps the wood chopped and the cars running. He is Polish and I take it you are too. Maybe its an Old World thing.
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Tyler, ideally the head of the house would take care if every expense like in the 50′s. But isn’t it kind of mean to expect that in this economy?
We both work part time and do volunteer work together the rest of the time. I also happen to work seasonally.
I choose to do the car maintenance, gassing, budgeting, cleaning, laundry. With this split of duties I purchase my spouse’ time. 
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I have an unhealthy disdain for matching socks – so DH is kind enough to do the white load, anything floor related (moping, vacuuming), plans vacations, anything car related (buys wipers, oil changes), takes the trash out. I am the money manager, do the dishes and the non-white laundry. We really do have specialized labor roles that have grown fairly entrenched over the years, which is funny because some of these things we never had a conversation to decide them one way or the other. I don’t think either of us would ever fathom or even entertain the idea of compensating each other with money, it’s just a part of what we do to keep our household running smoothly. We have completely merged our finances so any type of compensation would be going to the same place anyway.
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@Tyler K. Sorry to hear about the leg. Time to catch up on some reading I guess. Best wishes on a fast recovery.
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My boyfriend and I divide up tasks pretty well. He snowblows, takes care of the lawn, and maintains the cars. I take care of laundry, most of the dishes and most indoor things. We purchased a new stove and he won’t let me clean it. I paid for most of it ($900 is a small price to pay for never cleaning the stove again.) I cook most of the time but he definitely does his share. Holidays he cooks and I play hostess. He subcontracted mowing our miniscule lawn to the neighbor in exchange for snowblowing his walk in the winter. He also managed to score off street parking from another neighbor for snowblowing his drive and walk. He works a 4 day work week so we made an agreement that he does a dust bunny roundup, stove cleaning and house maintenance on Wednesdays and Sundays he can watch football.
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In the grand scheme of time, the husband providing everything is only a small Victorian-to-1950s middle-to-upper-class non-farm-family blip. (And has never been true down my maternal family line, in any case. Widows avoid marriage bars and farm wives aren’t affected by them.)
We do chores together, like the Carol Channing song says to do. I don’t like vacuuming so he does that, but I keep busy with other chores when he does. http://www.lyricszoo.com/marlo-thomas/housework-carol-channing/
Tyler K– Hope your leg heals quickly!
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Clever… but with the way gas prices are going, could be a bad roi!
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UOOT? Kris gets gas only for loading and unloading the washing machine? Lucky girl
My bf and I share pretty much all housework and each of us irons their own stuff, bed sheets aside (we draw a straw, haha). People are always amazed when they hear this, but he’s always ironed his clothes when he lived alone and sure he didn’t tell me “oh, dear, now it becomes your duty” when we started living together.
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My husband cooks all our meals (from scratch) and does all the grocery shopping (twice a week, we like fresh veggies and fruits) and I will do all the laundry and ironing.
It’s worked like a charm for the past 3 years!
Slowly but surely we are now moving closer together. He wil help me with folding the towels and sheets (which is simple enough for him) and I will help in the kitchen with slicing and other small non-stove related chores.
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Jennifer @39 wrote Here’s another family with what are essentially separate finances. We were a bit older when we married, both had already established accounts and ways of doing things, and had similar incomes.
Same here. Plus I was freelancing and needed a business account anyway, so I had two accounts of my own, and husband had one. When we moved into a house, we created a fourth joint account in which we put money for rent, energy, vacations, car and car extras. So far, this works well.
As for arrangements, I do the things I like (taking out the garbage, doing the laundry, basic cleaning and paying a housekeeper twice a months) and will get plenty of home-cooked food by husband
The housekeeper definitely made our marriage easier too; next goal is being able to pay a yard worker as we both hate gardening.
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I like how you worked it out!
My ex-husband was a slob similar to JD. I got so tired of hearing, “since I don’t care about it, it’s only your problem that I don’t do it.” It wasn’t the biggest problem in our marriage, but now I know that if I ever get married again the man has got to be reasonably tidy or forget it.
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When we married we agreed that the first 15 years I would do the majority of the cooking. He would take over at 15 years. Who ever cooks does not do the dishes. If you “leave” one night’s dishes in the sink you will be doing dishes two days in a row:>) We are 18 months from 30 years. We have not come up with a “next” solution.
We do separate laundry.
Our finances are joint because at one point and time one or the other traveled a great deal and it is too easy to miss bills.
The problem comes that neither of us like to deep clean….maybe we need a housekeeper now that we are both home full time!
I LOVE the laundry agreement!
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@El Nerdo #31
If I needed to withdraw the Roth money early, it would be regular taxes + 10% penalty. But I do also have a separate emergency account, and we have a joint emergency account. Plus my mom would bail me out if I really, really needed it (and she’d kill me for withdrawing money from my Roth or 401k early.)
I actually love working part time, but having to structure my job around his (because he won’t budge on his) has limited my job choice & earnings quite a bit since we had a child. The equalization on retirement savings doesn’t change the career-trajectory stuff but it does mean if I end up on my own when I’m older I won’t have taken as big of an economic hit from our relationship.
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@68 Rosa, but only on the interest, not your own contributions. You can withdraw your own contributions any time you choose, although, of course, ideally you wouldn’t choose to.
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@Tyler…there are more men like you than you think. My husband is one of them. We have a deal….I do everything in the house and sometimes the yard, too, and he works. If he has a 12 hour day, I do, too. If he is on call, there is no sleeping in for me, either. He knows I am not sitting at home eating bon bons and I appreciate the fact that he cleans up after dinner and gets the kids ready for bed when he is home. He appreciates that bills are paid, the house is clean, meals are ready, and he has clean clothes.
I think the key to any agreement, joint finances or not, is that you both feel as the other is not taking advantage.
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This story is so awesome that I swear it could have been an episode of Seinfield. ROTFL.
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It seems like a lot of work to ensure things are fair. I grew up in a house with a lot of kids. You learn to overlook these types of boundaries in that environment.
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Love it! I think it’s a perfect trade-off. What I like best, though, is learning that you are a messy person. You are proof that not all messy people turn out to be complete messes in the rest of their lives. I have an inherently messy teenaged son and I’ve wondered how this will pan out in his adulthood.
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My husband and I have a similar agreement with the yard work. He was going to pay someone to mow the yard, trim the bushes, etc. I told him that if he was going to pay somebody, he could pay me. When he asked how much I wanted I told him I wanted a good hat, a pair of safety glasses that were also sunglasses and that I didn’t want to have to pay to have my hair done – ever. So for a Tilley hat, safety glasses/sunglasses and getting my hair done every 6 weeks ($85) I do the yard work. We live on 1/2 acre, mowing the grass is at least a 2 hour job (if I’m lucky), I trim the bushes, trim back trees when needed. It works for us.
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I suppose my husband and I are in the minority anymore. We are old fashioned. He has always worked full time and I worked when we were first married and then when we had our second child I stayed home and I raised our four kids. I have always done the majority of cooking and housework, taking care of the kids, and I have always paid the bills and he does the yards and cars and home maint. but always helped when needed with the kids,house,cooking , or cleaning,and laundry. The kids are all grown now, we would be empty nesters but our daughter and her hubby and kids moved here from Calif when he lost his job and so just months before our youngest moved out, they moved in !! That is why I started my own blog, just to have somewhere to talk about it.
We stil run things the same way, he still works, I still take care of the house stuff and bills and he still takes care of the house and car issues. I plan to get a job for fun and extra income, but it will go right in with his paycheck , and be our money like his has been our entire marriage and mine did when I did work and when I would work odd jobs or when I inherited money, it was all OURS.
That is what works for us, I am glad you found something to work for you guys, but I could not imagine not combining our money and just for the record, in almost thirty years of marriage, we have not fought over money !! Been stressed out over it a few times when kids were small and money was too , but never fought over it, so I think it is just how you live your marriage, not if you combine the money that keeps you from fighting. I have a feeling you guys would be fine even if you merged your money !!
I guess it just comes down to what works for each couple !!
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We joke about husband and wife “points”. If one of us does something out of the normal range of responsibilities, or supports the other doing something exceptionally indulgent, we allow for the other spouse to take advantage in some way.
For example, I recently found him a box of Cohibas on Craigslist for about 1/3 of retail. Though I don’t condone this habit, my hubby likes to smoke a very occasional cigar. This way, he gets to enjoy a better quality smoke at a fraction of the price, plus he will have to put up with some extra thrift shopping (which he appreciates me doing, as long as I don’t drag him along).
For the record, I do his laundry, but he does the ironing – he’s much better at it than me!
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My husband and I have joint finances because he’s the only one working right now. (Although we had joint finances even when we were both working.) When we were both working, we would split chores around the house, but when I lost my job nearly two years ago, I decided it was only fair that I did all the household chores. It turns out that we both really love this deal – I hated going to work every day, but I love cleaning and taking care of things around the house, and this way I can take short temporary jobs and work on freelance photography. He hates cleaning/grocery shopping/bill paying but loves his job, so it works out even in the end.
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This is why I love this blog and keep coming back. In fact, unless something really catches my eye, I skip over the staff writers’ entries completely.
Thanks for staying involved and sharing the goofy stuff.
-Ken
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For a year, I paid my boyfriend to clean the house. It was AWESOME for both of us since I care less about cleanliness and he needed the money! Unfortunately, it went by the wayside when he got too busy.
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Tyler – I’m glad you’ve got an arrangement that works for you and your wife, but I think that economic necessity means that very few couples can afford the ‘luxury’ of surviving on only one salary (unless said salary is very high).
My fiancee and I could get by on just my wage if we had to (as we will do for at least a few years when any future kids are young), but it would be a very frugal existence.
Do you live in a particularly affordable part of the US? Our rent is cheap for the UK and we still spend $1200 a month minimum on rent, taxes and food etc.
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@80 Luke:
It truly depends on the area. I live in a low-cost area of New York (state, not the city), and my mortgage + taxes + utilities + internet + fees is only $850/month. When I had an offer from NYC, the cheapest rent in the worst neighborhood would have been more than $2000.
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A couple who is a friend of the family has a pretty interesting arrangement:
The wife is a masseuse, and every year she gives her husband 12 coupons for massages (one for each month). If he wants any more than that he has to pay her normal rate.
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@Ryan #81
I live in uptown NYC and I pay $1,250 for a very nice two bedroom apartment, heat and water included. Right now I am looking for a three bedroom because we have a new roomate, and I have been able to find very nice options around the same area for 1600-1800 a month. I am pretty sure you can do the same. It takes time but you can actually find some reasonable priced (for the city) apartments here
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To be honest, none of this makes sense to me. This probably why I am single and do everything.
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So interesting to read all the different setups! I think the most important thing, as #70 Lisa says, is that no one feels taken advantage of.
When my now-husband and I moved in together (in the house I bought by myself), I kept paying the mortgage and he paid all the other utilities/ bills. He had serious debt that he was paying off and I made more $$$ so it made sense and helped us both (the bills were less than his previous rent so the extra income paid down the debt). I realized during that period that he hates paying bills, and was often late or almost-late. So when we got married, we combined all our finances, and I took back bill-paying and other day-to-day financial tasks (I kind of geek out about following everything on Mint). He’s in charge of investments/ long-term planning, which I have no interest in. I had a cleaning service for a while but cut it out when I started working from home. But I HATE to clean so I would only do it when (a) the house was truly filthy and I couldn’t stand it anymore or (b) we had company coming. My DH actually gets annoyed by the dust and dog hair before I do, so he now does all the cleaning, except the bathroom I use. He doesn’t clean as thoroughly as I might, but it gets done and I don’t complain. Every few months I choose an area (fan blades or blinds or baseboards) and deep clean. We have fallen into a routine without thinking about it for everything else. I enjoy cooking and naturally favor healthier foods than he does, so I do the grocery shoppping and cooking, and keep the kitchen clean because I’m in it more. He handles all home maintenance and projects (which are many in a 1920s bungalow) in addition to the cleaning.
I think laundry is the funniest thing to ask a couple about because it reveals so much. When DH moved in with me (a year before we married) I told him I loved him but was not his mother or wife, so he could keep doing his own laundry as he had been for years. Then we got married and neither of us thought about it, we just kept doing our own laundry. My girlfriends gave me a hard time about this, so now I will occasionally grab his clothes and throw them in with mine, but most of the time I don’t even think about it, and we each just do laundry when it needs doing. I’m sure once kids enter the picture this will change as the laundry multiplies!
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Completely true that everyone has to sort out what works for them… We are still and always in the process.
We have separate accounts; I make more money than he does, and he is paying off some significant old debt. Currently, we share the mortgage, take turns paying utilities (based on who has money when they’re due) and groceries. I save as much as I can, and I pay for most big house stuff: taxes, insurance, a new fence, most of a new roof, etc. He pays for most of our fun: happy hour, dinner out, keeping a well-stocked bar, hosting parties. He does most of the cleaning, I do most of the cooking, and we share yard work. At the moment it’s working to both our satisfaction, but the most important part is staying in communication and being honest with each other, so we can make changes when something doesn’t work anymore.
Tyler K – ouch! heal fast! Hope you were doing something fun…
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@31 JD:
I wonder if there are societies where the spouses belong to different social classes though.
–
In Bill Bryson’s latest book “At Home”, he provides accounts taken from the diary of a mid-18th century English woman. She married her master but no one in the community knew about it until after his death. When they were left alone, she slept in the marriage bed, but when company visited, she slept in the servant’s quarters and worked as a maid to preserve HIS status.
Besides that little anecdote, haven’t heard of many other such situations. It is a GREAT book though and I am really enjoying it.
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Thanks for sharing, JD. No self-serve gas huh, that is crazy! I wonder what the rationale is behind that law?
Hope the leg heals quickly, Tyler. FWIW, I am the breadwinner in our family since we welcomed our second child in June. Before that, my wife’s pay went directly into joint savings. We practiced living off one income for a few years since having one parent home with the kids was a huge priority.
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This is brilliant and one I will strive to remember should I ever make the mistake of getting married again =P
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This has been really interesting. There is a lot of “financial” related tasks that happen in a household, I’d like to see more posts like this. (Especially about kids, JD, are you and Kris considering kids?)
As for myself, we do joint laundry. If I want DHs help and I think he’s slacking, I’ll dump the clean laundry on the bed. You’re not allowed to go to bed until it’s folded and away.
We have separate finances. We use a joint credit account for joint expenses, but we have separate credit cards, savings, chequing, etc.
Though we have similar incomes and work similar hours, I tend to do much more around the house. We share a vehicle (share insurance, gas and maintenance costs) and he does most of the work related to the truck (eg, take it to service apptms). Plus, he paid for it. I’m not certain it’s equitable, but it works for the most part.
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RE: Tyler – I’m glad that you found something that works for your family, but would you still feel like the “provider” if your wife chose to have a career? What if she made more than you, would you still give her an allowance?
I don’t necessarily agree that the ideal is a husband working while the wife stays home (barefoot & pregnant?). I’m sure I’m reading more into your comment than is actually there, and I apologize if that is true, I always look forward to your insightful comments.
However, the 21st century woman in me bristles at the idea that my highest calling should be taking care of domestic tasks. I have a responsibility to provide for my family, too. In our house, that means I work. My husband is blessed with artistic abilities, and I with a mind for math and programming. Mine pays better, so off to work I go. (Actually, we both work now, but if one of us should need to stay home when kids come, it will be him.)
There is absolutely nothing wrong with a career as a homemaker, but I do take issue with the implication that men whose wives work somehow aren’t doing their job, or that a wife needs to be provided for. Children need provided for, women (in this century and country) do not.
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My boyfriend and I worked out the average monthly cost for the rent, bills, etc. and split it proportionally to our incomes, which turned out to be 60%/40% him/me.
He does most of the dishes because he hates dishes sitting around, but if he cooks, I do the dishes. He’s also got massive dust allergies, so I do all the dusting.
We inadvertently ended up with his ‘n’ hers bathrooms: the master bath in the house we’re renting is teeny tiny, so I stored all my stuff in the hall bathroom, letting him have that one, and we fell naturally into the habits of using our own bathrooms. Especially because the shower in the master bath is also teeny tiny and I hate it. It’s been a wonderful thing as we have our own preferences in toilet paper, toothpaste, and levels of cleanliness, and we never fight about them.
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We definitely divide household chores (for instance I take care of getting food into the house & on our plates, he takes care of getting it off our plates, the dishes cleaned, and the trash taken out). It works well for our personalities and our time schedules because I get home 1-2 hours before him, and he goes to bed 1-2 hours after I do. Oftentimes he’s going to do the dishes at 11pm when I’m going to bed!
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I’m amazed at how so many commenters say they’ve found a system that each partner thinks works and is fair. My spouse and I constantly struggle with this as we each do not feel that things are fair and feel like we’re taken advantage of. But since I’m posting, this is my side of the story! Part of the issue is that I have high standards of cleanliness and organization. I try to keep this in check, but I also don’t feel right doing all the maintenance to meet these standards on my own, and I can’t maintain my sanity living very long under his standards. Laundry is the only thing we both agree on: we keep it separate and do our own, although I always do the towels/linens. I do roughly 80% of grocery planning, shopping, cooking, and kitchen upkeep/cleaning, my spouse has never touched the vacuum (ok maybe once), has never dusted, we try to split the bathroom 50/50, I’m responsible for almost all the car cleaning/maintenance (which I HATE) except for the two years he was in grad school and had a more flexible schedule. I also do about 80% of the driving, which again I don’t mind, but still wish he would take the wheel more. We have a dog and he believes the walking is 50/50 but I think I do more overall. I also do almost all vet visits and food buying but we share baths 50/50. Oh and our finances are totally joint and I have total control/responsibility for them (again similar to the cleaning issue, I have high standards of fiscal organization but I hate doing all the work by myself to meet these standards, which ultimately benefit him as well). We live in an apartment and therefore have very little outdoor maintenance, but I find myself hauling stuff to and from our storage in the basement far more than him, although I think we share snow shoveling 50/50. My schedule is technically more flexible and I make less money because I’m in school, but because of my part time work and school obligations I’m still out of the house/busy just as much as he is, if not more thanks to homework. Like one poster mentioned, sometimes I feel like I’m always puttering around doing everything while he sits and watches TV. I try to make myself ask him for help but most of the time he gets huffy and I feel like he should take the initiative and I shouldn’t have to ask him all the time. Obviously we’ve got to work this out, we know it, we’re just avoiding it for now. Thanks JD and GRS for providing an avenue for an apparently much needed written therapy session.
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That is PRECISELY the agreement my parents have, and as of this June, they’ll have been happily married for 50 years! Carry on!
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My agreement with my boyfriend is that I do almost all the household chores (he walks the dog because she’s his, and he does help out occasionally because he’s nice) and he pays whenever we go out. And if I feel things get out of whack then I can demand a date
It works for us! And I do pay every once in awhile, just like helps with chores every once in awhile. But yes, it saves me being driven crazy by chores piling up and he makes enough to afford our dates.
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Our budgets are together, and we share most chores (I do probably 70-30 of the laundry/cleaning, he does probably 70-30 of cooking). However, I budget (use Excel spreadsheets and track every penny) AND I do the taxes (which he absolutely hates to do). But, I HATE to balance the checkbook, looking for that random miscalculation or uncashed checked is just annoying, so he balances the checkbook.
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We do some strange things ourselves. My wife and I are newlyweds, and just hit six months of marriage.
We originally had the plan that I would do all dishes and trash and she would do all the laundry. I HATE laundry, I would go through the same ritual of wearing everything once and then wondering if I could get away with a second day in dirty clothes. We both know that chores, any chores, eventually will be put off or late, so we have tokes we trade back and forth.
When she gives me a token, I have to do her chores as well as mine for that day. We try not to abuse it, it’s really more for when one of us has had a really tough day.
PS. What program are you using to track your register? It looks mac based, but I can’t tell. TIA.
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I really like this. Practical, and it brought a smile to my face because it shows how a couple can work together. The ultimate example of “do what works for you”?
I tend to do all the dishes and ironing at home. I don’t get paid for it, but I don’t mind doing it. Again it is just about working together.
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This made me laugh. Our oddest agreement is cat related – he does the litterbox, I take care of any hairballs or anything else that ends up outside the litter box.
We also have separate finances and each track our own expenses and such. However, I’m in charge of other financial tasks like comparing insurances, doing taxes, and managing investments. In return, he loads and unloads the dishwasher.
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