Paying someone to do your ironing

[screenman]

I reckon it takes me at most 3 minutes to iron a shirt so £20 per hour sounds generous

I don't mind ironing my stuff. Stick the sport on the telly in the lounge at same time. Quite therapeutic

That should be about the rate for an unskilled self employed person in my opinion, though saying that ironing is a skill I have certainly not mastered. Also maybe a shirt takes 3 minutes, but 20 shirts come on I am sure it would take longer per shirt once fatigue sets in.

 

[Julia9054]

If you work in a conventional office, wearing ironed shirts is essential - but there's literally nothing else that needs ironing. When a shop opened up near us advertising ironing it got our custom very quickly. We gather that a lot of its custom comes from parents of schoolchildren.

We do live in a time-poor, cash-rich area a lot of whose residents commute to London, so if you're in a less affluent area there may be a smaller market.

Blimey - I used to buy non iron school shirts which I took literally whether they needed ironing or not. As soon as they were old enough to wield an iron without burning themselves they did their own
I iron my husband's shirts - but only because he cooks most of my meals for me in return

 

[screenman]

If you work in a conventional office, wearing ironed shirts is essential - but there's literally nothing else that needs ironing. When a shop opened up near us advertising ironing it got our custom very quickly. We gather that a lot of its custom comes from parents of schoolchildren.

We do live in a time-poor, cash-rich area a lot of whose residents commute to London, so if you're in a less affluent area there may be a smaller market.

I would completely disagree, most of the things I wear would look a mess unironed. Of course your idea of looks alright may well be and I am sure is different to mine. Much the same as I would not go out without polished shoes if they were made of a material that I thought required polishing, even my workshoes were polished everyday, I was not in an office either.

 

[Ganymede]

I don't do ironing. Anyone who irons things like sheets and pillowcases needs to see a shrink. Things like t-shirts get folded up when taken in off the line, and they look as though they've been ironed. Things that really need ironing get taken to the charity shop.

I sometimes iron the top pillowcase (assuming 2 pillows per person) for the spare room bed if someone's coming to stay...

Otherwise I have a few fine cotton shirts that need an iron - and they are quite hard to iron for some reason. Not enough quantity to farm out, alas.

 

[Ganymede]

I suppose what I'm saying is that over the years I have winnowed out of my possession anything that needs time being wasted on pointless ironing of it. I can see that when all bedding was cotton it probably benefitted from being ironed, but the benefits just don't outweigh the tedium for me.

God yes, the first thing I look at when buying clothes (apart from the initial "hmm that's nice" is the care label. And my spare room bed is a Superking, for which (for some reason) you can only seem to buy 100% cotton bedding, hence the single, shamefaced pillowcase-ironing!

 

[byegad]

I pay a lady to do this for me. The arrangement is I give her all my money and she does the ironing, most of the cooking and most of the cleaning. she sometimes gives me a little money back to spend on Beer, Cycling and Model Railways, the rest I waste!

I call her Lady Byegad.

 

[twentysix by twentyfive]

Anyone who irons things like sheets and pillowcases needs to see a shrink.

MiL does those and her tea towels, towels, facecloths........... Indeed if it goes in the wash it gets ironed too. Whether it needs it or not. You should see the piles of backlog as she's not very efficient at it.

 

[clid61]

I wash dry , put away then iron when I'm wanting to wear said garments

 

[nickyboy]

That should be about the rate for an unskilled self employed person in my opinion, though saying that ironing is a skill I have certainly not mastered. Also maybe a shirt takes 3 minutes, but 20 shirts come on I am sure it would take longer per shirt once fatigue sets in.

I guess you're right if the ironer has all the paraphernalia of self employment; tax, self assessment etc etc. But I suspect that may not be the case for the cleaner doing some ironing, cash in hand

 

[KnackeredBike]

That should be about the rate for an unskilled self employed person in my opinion, though saying that ironing is a skill I have certainly not mastered. Also maybe a shirt takes 3 minutes, but 20 shirts come on I am sure it would take longer per shirt once fatigue sets in.

Presumably a large part of the cost is in collecting/delivering the washing too.

Also I would imagine that if you are doing it professionally with decent equipment you can do it much quicker than me with my cheapie £5 iron.

 

[Levo-Lon]

My mum used to iron socks and underpants. It's a mental illness.

On a par with ironing duvet and sheet after tumbling..
I think its an old school thing..

We tumble all year round and very rarely need the iron tho you must remove them as soon as its done tumbling

 

[theclaud]

I used to get paid to do someone's ironing as a teenager. Over in the bit of town full of colossal Tory perverts, as @srw indicates above. It was all about the shirts. I was completely baffled by the quantity of shirts - there were hundreds of them, all unremarkable, and only one man wearing them all. He was a solicitor, and the sort of man who wouldn't think of doing his own ironing. His wife was nice and worked part time, but being married to a conveyancer was obviously boring enough without ironing his shirts as well. I don't iron things now, although there is an iron and a table-top board in a drawer in the house for my brother when he visits - it's in the same drawer as the hairdryer that I keep for my mum.

 

[twentysix by twentyfive]

Mrs 26 sometimes does some ironing. If any of my stuff ends up in that pile it can takes months before I see it again.

 

[srw]

hairdryer that I keep for

...warming up your beer.

 

[srw]

when all bedding was cotton it probably benefitted from being ironed

It makes no difference.

All our bedding is 100% cotton. None of it gets ironed. The one thing that looks horrible unironed is just not used.