Today I just reprimanded one of our maids. She’s new. When I interviewed her the first time, I also explained some household rules that she should follow. One of these rules is never to get from our food. I give each household helper Php 2000 a month (4 weeks) or php 500 a week for their food.
That’s more than enough if you know how to budget well. I never had any problem with past maids. I always had two: one all-around and one yaya. Their ‘diskarte’ was to combine budgets so that they would have more than enough for each of them. Very good idea, actually (you can leverage on buying more or in bulk when you want to bring down the cost).
With this new maid, she requested for her budget to really be separate because she wants to buy her own food. Okay, fine by me. It really is her money anyway. She even said that I shouldn’t worry because she won’t get from our food.
Anyway, last night, I had a get together at my place and bought food for the guests. Obviously, there were a lot of leftovers. One of which was Baby Z’s brownies. I keep food well since we eat it for the succeeding days. It’s a way also in which we try to save. Going grocery shopping is such an expensive necessity!
Baby Z baking brownies!
This new maid got two huge slices of the brownies behind my back and ate from the barbeque and even wanted to get from the spaghetti. I found out about it when my yaya told me about it.
And to think all she needed to do was ask me. If you know me, as an ‘amo’ and household manager, i’m not really strict. They can actually ask me and i’ll agree to almost anything, for as long as it’s not illegal. So, if she just asked me for a slice or even the whole plate, I would have given it to her.
So I confronted her and told her that what was broken was trust. I told her too that I don’t want Baby Z to see this kind of behavior from them.
O well… How about you? What food rules do you have at home. How do you do it with your helpers? Is there a better way to do it?
Love lots,
Mommy Ginger
i don’t have a separate food for our maids. What my son and I eats fir our meals is also their meals too. We are only 4 in the house or most of the time 3. Me, my 5 year old son and 2 maids because my husband is on board every 4 months. Since I only have to work on weekends, at times I only have 1 maid. If I am going to have the maids’ meals separated, it will be more costly on my part and tedious for the maids. We share food except those stuff which i specified as mine only, Blue’s only or ours. I do my groceries weekly and have a weekly menu for every meal. In this way, i can be able to budget and do away with extra food stuff which kater turns to be a waste since it will jot be fresh anymore. Even my son’s baon is also scheduled and our maid’s snacks. This has been working with our nanny at present. Unfortunately, there are really people who do not respect policies and limitations as regards to fiod. I have a worse experience than you do before. She was also new and I thought that its our son who finishes his food. It is hus nanny who ate his baon in school and snacks. I reprimanded her but when I caught her agian this time eating Blue’s cerelac, i bid her good bye.
Author
Hi luwee! Thanks for sharing your experiences and thoughts. I used to have the same rule, whatever our foos is, ganun rin for our maids. I had a bad experience though since all my Cadbury chocolates would disappear. And there was this one time when i saw the maid cooking two slabs of ribs. I thought she was going to serve both and make me eat first. Aba, she got the bigger slab and gave me the smaller one! I was pregnant pa that time. Haaaaay!
Hi ginge,
For us naman we don’t have separate food for the househelps. Whatever we eat they eat. We eat first and then whatever is left is theirs. What i do is when i go to market i ask them what would they like to eat, like fish or veggies. Then i buy for them kse when we don’t eat home nahihiya den sila to cook their food so para they can eat well i buy some fish and veggies na i know they would eat. Tapos as for their snack, i buy some biscuits den for them and tell them na these are for you if you’re hungry then you can eat them and tell them the other stuff like our chips are ours. Sometimes kse we crave for chips and then pag wala sa pantry kakainit ng ulo at times! hahaha! the chocolates naman since i’m not a fan of it we jsut left it sa ref lng and told them if you want to eat paalam kyo and pag wala kme you can eat as long as you save some for other people to eat as well because you live with other people. So you have to be considerate with other peoples stuff den. So far there’s one maid na tinira mga chocolates end up she got sore throat, after that she never touched those chocolates na…hahaha!! =)
Author
Haha! I feel yung new maid ko will just eat everything and not leave anything fo us kasi.
Natawa ako with your maid who ate all the chocolates. 🙂
di rin ako madamot sa food everything in the house is free for all unless I say na bawal yan kainin. Saka di rin sila puedeng maunang kumain sa amin. Kasi yung may kanya kanya pang budget mas magastos pa yan. I also take care of the toiletries like soap and shampoo.