Leslie Means, cofounder of the lifestyle site Her View From Home, recently opened up about why she and her husband made the self-proclaimed "smart" decision to hire a housekeeper, even though they're far from swimming in gold Scrooge McDuck–style.

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blogger home
Her View From Home/Facebook

"We aren't wealthy," she writes on Facebook. "Far from it. We're just a typical middle-class family living in middle America. We have student loans from our college days (even though we're climbing our way to age 40). We shop the Target clearance section and rarely go on vacation." Student loans and scouring the sales rack at Target. This sounds like so many of us.

And like most families, they're at a point in their lives where they feel like there's just not hours in the day. "We work a lot," she writes. "And at night, when we get home from where we've been, we're checking homework and feeding kids and signing permission slips. We're coordinating bath time and pick up times. We're singing lullabies and saying prayers." And in a scene we all recognize, once the kids are in bed, it's time to fall asleep to Netflix and get up to repeat the day again.

But although they're not the type of family that comes to mind when you think "hired help," she recently made the call to have someone else do her dirty work for her, literally. "My breaking point came a few weeks ago," she explains. "I sat down on my floor to clean another sticky something and noticed hand prints on our white cupboards. And cobwebs in the corner. And a glob of ketchup on the chair -- leftover from a meal we had weeks ago."

her view from home
herviewfromhome/Instagram
Rather than get upset, download yet another cleaning calender off Pinterest, or demand that her husband come help, the mother of three simply admitted that she didn't want to clean anymore. "I didn't cry, nah, I know how dirty my house is," she continues. "But I did laugh. And probably said a word my mother wouldn't approve of. And then, right there, I made a decision to hire a house cleaner."

She says her decision to hire help simply comes down to wanting to spend her free time with her family instead of cleaning. "Because at night, I'm too tired to do it. And on the weekends, I want to spend more time with the people I love and less time with my broom."

She knows that some people might consider it lazy to have someone else scrub your toilets and wash the floors, but she considers it smart. Making room in the budget to have a housekeeper gives her more time with her kids, and for her, that's the better move for her family than spending the money on other things.

"At this point in motherhood, I've figured out what to do to make myself happy, you know? And I'm not ashamed to do just that. Even if that means I have to tighten our budget just a bit more to make it happen."

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If picking up a sponge brings you joy, then by all means -- do you. But if battling dust bunnies brings you no pleasure and you have the means to hire help, why no do it? Time with your children is precious. There's nothing wrong with choosing to spend your weekends with them over folding clothes if you can.

Or as Means says, "Don't be afraid to do something that will make your life easier, friend. Believe me -- you're worth it."

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