Credit card spending on domestic help

June 13, 2007

Research which was currently carried out by Barclays has shown that around one in ten households are hiring domestic staff to help them. Most are hiring cleaners and then the rest include gardeners, people who do the ironing and nannies. It just goes to show that Britain is currently suffering from too much work and too little time left over for anything else.

However not everybody can afford to pay a cleaner and so they use their credit cards to fund the extra help. Either they replace their grocery money with their credit card or they use a cleaner who accepts payments through credit cards. It may seem like a strange way to pay but it seems to be working out for many Brits across the country.

Whilst lack of time is one of the main reasons why people hire a cleaner, there are other reasons too. One is that people simply do not enjoy doing the cleaning and they would rather spend their time doing other things. Another reason includes the fact that some people cannot do certain things and so they hire domestic staff to do it for them.

Long gone are the days where women stayed at home looking after the house and cooking the meals, these days’ people cannot afford to not work. It can be especially difficult if you have a family to look after and there just doesn’t seem to be enough hours in the day. Juggling home life and work life can be frustrating for many and so this rise in domestic staff is no real surprise.

The study showed that it was mainly people who earnt over £50,000 who hired at least one member of staff. However for the people with a lower income they have found that by paying for more things on their credit cards, they can save up to pay a cleaner in cash.

Overall more and more people are turning to domestic staff for help on their credit cards. Are you one of them?