Most of us find ourselves with too much to do especially when kids come along. It’s not only the school run to think of but the cooking, the washing,  the cleaning and helping the kids with the homework too. Surely we could do with some help, and hiring someone to take some chores of the ever growing list makes sense.  But what if the budget is a little tight and you can only really afford a couple of hours each week? Well, despair not, even if the house is big, by making a few changes, a couple of hours could be all you need. So here are some ideas to help you along. 1. Less clutter to reduce cleaning tasks– Avoiding filling up every bit of space you have in the home. Window sills are the worst offenders. We get tempted to fill up spaces and before we know it the house becomes cluttered. Rembmer every single piece of decor you have in your home will need to be moved and cleaned and be put back again to keep the house looking clean. All this can add extra work so by reducing the furnishing accessories you can reduce the amount of work significantly. 2. Fall in love with boxes– when cleaning we find that half the job is often tidying up. It is typically the small items that cause the problem, hair bands, pens, rubbers etc. Storage boxes can help organise all these bits and bobs, and what’s more with an infinite choice of colors, shapes and sizes, storage boxes are also very decorative so not only do they help organise things but they also accessorise the house. 3. Rotating tasks– instead of having the cleaner change two beds every session, they could change one bed this week and another the next so that way the beds still get changed just not in the same week. You could also help your cleaner along by stripping the beds and if your litte ones are old enough they could help by stripping their own beds. Most kids love taking things apart so they could find stripping the bed interesting. That way the cleaner will have more time to clean the house each week. 4. Invest in good equipment– with a poor iron and a wobbly ironing board, ironing 5 shirts can take forever, whereas with an efficient iron and a sturdy ironing board, the same shirts will take 15-20 minutes to do. Your cleaner will also love the job when they have efficient equipment in their hands. The same applies to vacuum cleaners, vacuum cleaners that don’t pick are a common problem and they frustrate the cleaner. With a poor vacuum the cleaner will vacuum the same spot 20 times. 5. Prioritising– if you want a cleaner on  a shoe string budget, you will need to think through what matters most to you. For most people it’s the bathrooms and the kitchens. These are areas which are heavily used by the family and most difficult to clean due to the limescale, particularly if you live in St Albans or Harpenden. So perhaps you could only have cleaner focus in these two main areas and give the rest of the house a quick vacuum. So by changing a few things, you could have a cleaner for only a couple of hours a week. Those couple of hours will tick some tasks off your list without rocking your budget too much. It is just the right balance, after all given all the chores we have, a little help could go a long way.