Why We Hired Our Village (and you should too)

Before having our son, I hadn’t thought about what it meant to have (or need) a village. We’ve all heard that it “takes a village” to raise a child and I am not the first, nor will I be the last, to share my thoughts on the topic of paying for said village. Whether you have family and friends nearby or not, integrating a reliable, unbiased support system into your weekly workflow can be an absolute game changer in how you think about your free time.

Before I dive in, I’ll share the important caveat that we are beyond fortunate to have access to hire our village. I also want to caveat that paying for your village does not need to equate to the lifestyles you may be imagining. Some ares of our village cost less than a daily Starbucks run over the course of a week (an absolutely have an ROI worth the swap). So whether you have cash ready for a splurge or need to make adjustments to your budget to pay for a village I encourage you to read on as I hope there is a swap you’re able to find that makes making room in the budget worth it for the impact it can make on your cognitive load.

For the first 4.5 years of our son’s life, we white knuckled through the gaps within our village. Our son did not sleep through the night, was unwilling to have a babysitter, and our family lived a 4-6 hour car ride away living equally busy lives of their own. In the moments where we were not parenting beside our friends in a similar boat or lucky enough to have family in town to let us out of the house for a few hours alone, we felt swallowed by parenthood.

And so, month by month, and year after year we tested different ways to build that village on our own. Here’s what we’ve tried, what we’ve loved, and what we may not do again. I hope that if you are a parent, caregiver or otherwise busy human who feels like something has got to give… that you’ll find a few ways to regain your precious time.

For us, getting more time back in our week allowed us to have breathing space to open up our minds for the creativity and ambition to create WellKept Boise. A venture we never thought we’d start, but are so happy we did.

Home Care:
1.) Cleaning Services ($150-200/ cleaning) - We have tried cleaning services many times throughout the past 5 years. For many, we know this is a beloved service and an absolute treat. To come home from work to a fully clean home in exchange for ~$200 seems like a strong ROI. That said, for us, most of the items on a standard cleaning checklist are things we feel we need done 2-3x a week to feel like our home is running smoothly rather than the 1-2/month that we had in our budget for the service. In addition, we wanted more flexibility to change the list day to day or week to week depending on what was going on in the home (extra muddy shoes from rain, a pile of laundry stacked up, or help with a closet that was out of sorts). There will be stages in our life where we likely will come back to a cleaning service, but for now, we will keep the checklist as part of our Friday night cleaning ritual.

2.) Home Assistant ($25-35/hour) - After really narrowing down the reoccurring tasks in our home that piled up and felt daunting week over week, we went out on a whim and posted a job for a home assistant to a job board. This allowed us to fully customize what we need help with each week for a few hours. There has been nothing more game changing that we have done for support in our home. We are able to work with one person who now knows our family and preferences well. A clean and organized fridge, laundry folded, fresh sheets, organized linen closet, and meal prep are on rotation for us as our areas we need the most help with. If you’ve felt like a cleaning service didn’t solve the root of your home care concerns, then hiring a home assistant may be the game changer you’ve been searching for. (Price Idea - if the cost of having someone come weekly for a few hours is out of budget, consider going in on it with a friend so you can make the job worth the assistant’s time alternating weeks between you and a friend so you can make consistent hours for the home assistant).

3.)Hire a Seasonal Handyman like WellKept ($150 - 300/ season)- Okay, okay… I won’t do too much personal promotion here, but seriously. Families who bring WellKept in for Seasonal Matienence don’t need a running honey-do list that takes up your mental space. Instead, you’ll always have someone come out season after season to check off your list for you.

4.) Laundry Wash & Fold Service (~$30/ bag of laundry) - Laundry for us is by far our least favorite chore. It’s something we’ve accepted about ourselves at this point, that we will never be on top of laundry. To lighten this load, we have really enjoyed periodically using the service Poplin. Poplin is essentially like Uber for laundry. You put your laundry on your front porch, enter in how many bags you have into the app, add in any preferences and within 1-3 days your laundry is delivered folded/ on hangers ready to go. You can request they use unscented/ scented or your own detergent and we’ve had nothing but fantastic experiences with them. If you have a pile of doom sitting on your closet floor, and don’t want to spend hours sorting, folding, and hanging laundry than this can be a special treat (or maybe a regular upgrade) to give yourself time back in your week. My favorite way to use Poplin is unpacking after a trip, or gifting it to a friend postpartum or in a difficult season of life. Use this affiliate link for $10 off your first order.

5.) Lawn Service (~$200/ month) - We hired a lawn service one summer, and cancelled this service within one month of starting. We felt with the Boise heat we were mowing the lawn 3x a week eating into our break during nap time. However, we ultimately decided that we are outside enough and enjoy this chore enough to keep it on our plate and more money in our pocket. If we had a larger yard or more landscaping that may be a different story.

6.) Pest Control - When we were new homeowners, we fell for the sales tactic “hi! I just came over from (insert old, wise neighbor down the street who seems to know a lot more about owning a home than you do)’s house. We do their pest control every season because (insert the name of every bug you don’t want to see on your property) are a big problem around here. We could do your home for (insert a price that certainly costs more than the spray you can find at Home Depot.” This is not to say that Pest Control services do not have their merit, they absolutely do. However, if you like to DIY and you don’t notice major pest problems this is likely an easy one to continue to DIY and you probably won’t see a big difference in how much is on your plate if you keep this on the list.

7.) Car Wash Subscription ($30/month) - Never did I ever think we’d be a family with a little sticker on our windshield showing our loyalty to a Car Wash… but man were we missing out. About two years ago, we went through a car wash and realized the absolute joy and entertainment it brought our son - formerly terrified of said car wash. For $30/ month we got ~20 minutes of entertainment, a clean car, a chore crossed off the to-do list and saved ourselves from dragging extension cords, hoses and soapy buckets across the driveway. This is a subscription we’ll continue to come back to for as long as it continues to be a fun family outing that doubles as a chore (and helps us feel like we have our life a little more put together).

Meal Preparation -
1.) Home Meal Delivery Kits ($10-13/ serving) - When our son was first born, up until around his first birthday we lived on Purple Carrot meal delivery kits. These meal kits absolutely lighten the cognitive load of having to figure out what’s for dinner, but still give you the satisfaction of making a meal yourself. Truth be told, the hardest part of these meal services is having to remember to pick your meals and then breaking down the materials the food is shipped in. Maybe this is one I should go back and explore again! If you want to support someone in need of a village from afar, this could be a great gift to give to a busy family or caretaker.

2.) Local Meal Delivery Kitchens ($10-15/serving) - We have tested two different meal delivery/ meal prep services in the Treasure Valley and have enjoyed both of them. For us, they are definitely something we lean on more on extremely busy weeks rather than a typical week. But I recommend FedUp Kitchen for meal prepped/ macro-friendly healthy food. They require essentially no preparation and do not have the same shipping material disposal dilemma of Purple Carrot, Blue Apron, Home Chef, etc.

3.) Working w/ a Nutrition Professional (prices vary widely) - If staying motivated to eat healthy is a challenge, working with a professional can be a game changer. From providing recipes customized to my preferences, giving consistent encouragement, and holding me accountable to do what I say I wanted to do the support you can get (and maybe even the added bonus of building a friendship) can absolutely be worth the cost. (@Cass_Hendricks was by far my favorite of the many I’ve worked with postpartum).

4.) Grocery Delivery ($10/month + Tip) - The benefits of grocery delivery or drive up and go services as a busy family may be one of my favorite advancements to modern grocery shopping. With companies like Albertsons doing 30 minute flash deliveries (where I trust the produce + meat selection), grocery delivery is a weekly must for our household to cover our essentials. Most of our cart is filled with the same staples week after week, so building my cart takes very little time and I now have my Saturday evening grocery list down to a science and I love starting my Sunday morning with a fresh grocery delivery and refreshed fridge. Having your groceries delivered on meal prep day also means I can prep my food right as I take it out of the grocery bag which saves me time each week. The ROI on grocery delivery is absolutely worth it (and you can monitor what you spend more easily online to stay within budget).

Child Help:
1.) Sleep Coach ($500+) - We had our son in the heyday of an infamous Instagram baby sleep “expert” which meant we followed wake windows with elite precision. However, as we’ve now learned, children are not robots and no… there is not a manual that if followed exactly will magically make your baby a good sleeper. In addition to buying online guides, we also invested in a formal sleep coach who met with us 1:1 after sleep problems popped back up around age 2-3. When we hired 1:1 coaching, we found this to be tremendously helpful in giving us more confidence in how to support our son (and each other) through sleep training.

2.) Babysitters ($20-30/hour + ~$50/ background check +$30/Sittercity subscription (paid 1-2 months total)) - We didn’t find success in having a babysitter until ~5.5 years into our son’s life. I wish we would’ve invested more time in finding a babysitter that our son felt excited to have come over, rather than giving up when the height of stranger danger kicked in. This is something I would absolutely pursue and put the work in to make happen. It can be costly with background checks for each sitter, time consuming with interviews, and takes effort to build trust with your you + child + the sitter. Money-saving hack: Find a consistent date night activity that you don’t have to plan or pay for. For us, this has been tennis. We know when we have a date that it will be on the tennis court. It’s free, it’s fun, it’s good exercise, and it isn’t another thing we have to think about, plan or pay for.

3.) Date Night Swap (FREE) - If you are lucky to have close friends in town, but maybe they’re equally drowning in parenthood, suggest a date night swap! We did this with our friends for ~1 year with great success. When our son refused to have a babysitter, this was a workaround we tried with about 80% success rate ( a big win for us at the time). How it works - one couple gets a date night, and a parent from the other family comes over to babysit (typically watch the monitor) while the couple goes out on a date. Alternate the date night couple vs. the parent on babysitting duty on a cadence that feels sustainable. It’s free, your child is familiar with them, and it’s a reliable system that feels balanced.

3.) YMCA (~$100/ month depending on family size)- I just may be a walking billboard for the YMCA. Our son, an early riser, was able to get hours of high quality entertainment out of the YMCA. The expanse of benefits the YMCA provides families is truly incredible… talk about a GREAT ROI. There were many mornings where we took him to the soft play at 6:00 am when they opened and he’d been awake for two hours. As he’s grown older he’s loved other amenities like the pool, splash pad, basketball courts, Kid Zone and the many YMCA seasonal races that bring the family together.

Community - a maybe often overlooked segment of a “village” is the community that you usher in around you. Whether you’re looking to expand your friendships or connections, or simply looking for more connection. These are some of our favorite ways to get deeper in the Boise community.
1.) Run Club (FREE) - Whether you run or walk, finding a local run club can be amazing for you to expand your friend group and village. We’ve loved Boise’s Running for the High of It run club which is stroller, dog and all-paces friendly. The walking route takes a scenic route through the Boise Bench where kids have the best time looking at all of the famous Bench bunnies, and if you want to run there is always a dedicated run leader checking in on the runners of all paces. After the group runs, there is a meetup at the commons space between Wyld Child, The Still and Push & Pour with fire pits and tons of room for your kid to get their energy out.

2.) Public Libraries (FREE) - There are endless activities across public libraries that help you expand your village and provide your child (and you) activities to do nearly every day. From art, music, or story time to browsing the aisles, magic shows and more there is truly something for everyone and every interest within the walls of our libraries.

3.) ClassPass ($15-20/ month) - Class Pass has been one of the best ways I’ve been able to grow my community in Boise. Class Pass allows you to book classes and experiences around town (and while traveling) for credits. It’s allowed me to meet new people, deepen friendships and try new experiences. Whether I’m meeting an old friend up for a hot yoga class or a sauna/cold plunge session, meeting a new friend with a common interest or just finding a new activity Class Pass has been a great tool to get outside of my bubble and get more involved in the Community. $15/ month gets you a pretty decent amount of classes in Boise as most class reservations range from 2-4 credits (some as low as 1!). This can be another great way to make date night cheaper by leveraging Class Pass credits for an activity.

4.) IWCF (free to >$1,000 annual / tax deductible donation) - Idaho Women’s Charitable Foundation 501(c)(3) is an amazing organization in the Valley that makes giving back and getting involved in the community easy. The Foundation uses the member’s pooled donations to fund multiple grants every year through a rigorous grant vetting and voting process. IWCF is great regardless of how involved you want to be - if you are looking to join a committee, be a silent contributor or get involved in their local events IWCF is an organization. I refer people to time and time again when people are looking to get involved while supporting organizations across the Treasure Valley.

We hope this has inspired you to find more ways to free up your time to bring more levity to your week.
- The WellKept Team