Luxuries for the rest of us

Richie Rich perk No. 3: A full-time housekeeper

Imagine never again having to pick up your socks.

No more spousal nagging about the unwashed dishes in the sink, the overflowing laundry hampers, the fact that you're out of milk -- again. A full-time housekeeper keeps your house clean, tidy and well-stocked.

The pay scale for the housekeepers Lippman places typically ranges from $30,000 to $60,000, with the higher end reserved for "executive housekeepers" or house managers who typically supervise a staff of domestic help.

Or you can pay six figures to have a real live butler. He won't scrub the sinks, but he'll supervise the staff that does -- and serve tea at 4 p.m. and draw the blinds at 5 p.m., if that's what you want.

If your budget won't stretch that far, there are other ways to get some domestic relief:

• Consider part-time help. If you can afford it, think about hiring someone else to do the cleaning tasks you hate or that take up the most of your time. You can employ someone for regular cleaning -- once a week, once a month, once every two weeks -- or for the occasional deep clean. Depending on where you live, a housekeeper can cost anywhere from $10 to $40 an hour. If you hire someone yourself, you typically must pay household employment taxes (check guides at the Social Security and Internal Revenue Service Web sites). Hiring from an agency usually costs somewhat more, but it handles the taxes for you.

• Get others involved. If you share your household with other people, they should carry at least some of the load. Kids can learn to pick up their toys by age 2, help with laundry by 3 and tackle more-complex chores as they get older. (You can find free chore charts all over the Web; just type "chore chart" into any search engine.)

• Speed it up. If you have to do it yourself, at least spend less time. Jeff Campbell's helpful book "Speed Cleaning" teaches plenty of tricks and tips for quick cleaning that isn't slapdash.

• Make a system. Well-run estates have schedules for making sure all necessary tasks get accomplished. You can create a similar system by scheduling certain tasks for certain days: laundry on Monday, dusting and vacuuming on Tuesday, meal planning and shopping on Wednesday and so on. If you need help creating household systems, check out homemaking sites such as FlyLady.net.

Richie Rich perk No. 4: A vacation home in an exotic place

Need some R&R? If you were superbly wealthy, you could swoop off to your ski lodge in Aspen, your penthouse in Manhattan or your villa on Lake Como. At each place, you'd have a full household staff to keep the place ready whenever you decided to drop in.

Here's something to consider, though: Owning a second (or a third, or a fifth) home may not make economic sense, even if it's staff-free and closer to a shack than a lodge. Buying, insuring and maintaining a home are expensive, and, especially in today's real-estate market, there's no guarantee price appreciation will offset those costs. Plus, it's another piece of property to worry about; instead of enjoying the sunset while sitting on the porch, you'll be worried about replacing the steps and making sure the storm windows are up in time for the next big freeze.

Better solutions:

• Rent somebody else's vacation home. If you'll be in one spot for more than a few days or are traveling with a large group, a vacation rental home can save you money or give you a lot more space for the same cost as a hotel. You'll find vacation rentals virtually everywhere tourists go, including big cities. There are typically options for virtually every budget, and the home/condo/apartment will have a kitchen to keep down food costs. Just type "vacation rentals" and the name of your destination into any search engine to get started.

• Turn your hotel into a home. Travel with small scented tea candles to banish hotel room smells, and bring along your portable speakers so you can set the mood music with your MP3 player. Stock the minibar with a few groceries, including a selection of teas, hot chocolate mix and instant oatmeal, so you're not at the mercy of room service; use the in-room coffee maker to heat the water you need.

Richie Rich perk No. 5: Doing major good

When you're donating megabucks, you can hope to effect serious change -- and maybe even solve some problems.

You could be the person who provides college scholarships for every graduating high school senior in a blighted inner-city neighborhood. Or the one whose contributions finally wipe out polio, malaria or illiteracy.

Everyone who contributes to charity hopes to change the world, or at least a little corner of it, for the better. You don't need to contribute billions, but perhaps you can get smarter about your donations.

Here's how:

• Do your research. If you want your dollars to do the most good, you'll skip the charities that spend more on overhead and administration than in carrying out their missions. Charity watchdogs such as GuideStar.org can help. For more details, read "How to tell a good charity from a bad one."

• Concentrate your donations. Scatter a little money here, a little money there, and you'll just encourage charities to spend precious funds soliciting you for more. Either that or they'll sell your name to other charities, hoping to get a little more yield from you. The more you can give to one cause, the more valuable a donor you'll be. (For more details on planning your giving, read "How much should you give?")

• Consider your own foundation.Most folks who have their own foundations start them with seven-figure gifts, but a number of financial-services companies, including Fidelity, offer foundation access to folks with $5,000. Read "You can be your own charitable foundation" for details.

Liz Pulliam Weston's new book, "Easy Money: How to Simplify Your Finances and Get What You Want Out of Life,"is now available. Columns by Weston, the Web's most-read personal-finance writer and winner of the 2007 Clarion Award for online journalism, appear every Monday and Thursday, exclusively on MSN Money. She also answers reader questions on the Your Money message board.

Published Dec. 20, 2007

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