Housewives! Stay-at-home mothers! Are you aware of your actual monetary value? You may not have an office job, but you’re still worth a bit of boodle to your wonderful and loving husband and your charming kids.

You’d also be surprised at what your monthly salary should be. It’s a goodie.

This all started when an American called Steve Nelms decided to calculate “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”. It came to a whopping $73 960 (R890 980) per year. That’s not too bad, ladies.

Rapport newspaper went ahead and did the South African equivalent for us, using local services from Joburg, Cape Town and Durban as a benchmark: it works out at R54 770 per month or R657 240 per year.

Here’s the breakdown of categories that were used:

Catering services  – breakfast, lunch and dinner Monday to Friday: R4 200
Concierge services – grocery shopping, walking the dog, booking things: R250 per hour
Transport services – dropping and fetching the kids from school: R4 200
Child care services – R11 000 excluding weekends
Tuition – helping with the kids’ homework: R170 per hour
Cleaning services – R230 per day
Laundry and ironing services – R65 a load and R125 if there’s ironing

(I think, personally, that we can ditch the last two… I have, in my short, sweet life, turned on an iron all of twice, and I know for a fact my stay-at-home mother did not iron.)

I would happily be paid R50 000 a month to do the above. Men, be aware that us women are actually even more valuable than you think.

[Source: Fin24]