Zimpapers Logo

Cape Town – If one had to pay a South African housewife for all the work she does, it would easily cost $50,000 (R500,000) per year, Netwerk24 reported yesterday.

This is based on research done by American Steve Nelms, who calculated what it would cost if he had to pay professional service providers to do the work done by his wife, a stay-at-home-mom. He found it would cost more than $73,960 (R890,980) per year.

Rapport newspaper made a similar calculation using what local service providers demand. The overall costs – excluding weekends — came to about R54, 770 per month or R657, 240 per year.

This is what it would cost to “hire” the services of a housewife:

Catering services

Servedfresh is a catering service in Johannesburg, which does not only deliver three meals a day to your home, but also ensures that you eat healthy. The company charges R3,800 to R4,200 per month to deliver meals from Monday to Friday.

Concierge services

If you had to hire someone to do your grocery shopping, make family arrangements and even take the dog for a walk now and then, it could cost you at least R25,000 per month according to Cape Concierge or R250 per hour according to Black Tie Affair.

Transport services

For two trips a day (to school and back) you would pay for the duration, distance and service fee from a service like Soccermom Family about R3,700 per month if you live 5km from the school and R4,200 per month if you live 8km from the school.

Cleaning services

A professional cleaning service, like KE Maids in Randburg, which sends cleaners to your home, asks R230 per day, but if the team had to come on a Saturday it would cost R250 and on Sundays R330. If you had to use the service six days a week, it would cost you R6,050 per month.

Laundry and ironing services

The national laundry group Fresh Laundry charges R65 for a 5kg load of washing and R125 per load if ironing is included. A small household (for instance a couple with one child) would, therefore, pay about R2,000 per month for laundry services.

Child care services

According to ChildcareSA its daily fee is about R65 per hour for Johannesburg, R60 for Cape Town and R55 for the rest of the country.

A nine hour day would, therefore, cost R11,000 per month.

For a babysitter on weekends and after hours Sitters4U asks R950 (which includes a service fee) if you want to go out three evenings per month, while ten evenings per month would cost R1,500.

Tuition

Homework Helper in Cape Town charges R170 per hour to help children with their homework. If a parent is unable to assist as well, a child normally needs about four hours per week of such tuition and then it would cost about R2,720 per month. – Sapa