Hiring a Maid in Nicaragua
This house is for sale. See it here.
By Joel Stott-Jess
It might seem like more of a personal choice. But it’s actually the best business decision I’ve taken here.
Over the years in Central America I’ve been involved in a number of different businesses. From bars and restaurant in both Costa Rica and Nicaragua , motorcycle rentals, a cinema, tour company, and now real estate sales and investment consulting. There have been a lot of different businesses and tons of employees.
The Central Investor - my new side project. It’s taking up more of my time and is part of the reason we hired a maid full time.
Now that I’m in professional services, by default, those lines of business usually require lower staff numbers. But conversely they often need more of my time. With the new side project - running an investment blog for the Central American region, I really need more hours in the day.
With all that there was still was one type of employee I avoided for a while - hiring a full time maid to cook, clean and take care of our house.
Part of it is that I grew up on a farm in Canada. There’s never once been a maid visit my parents house. We aways did cleaned ourselves. Same in university. It’s just not common where we are from.
Even when I moved permanently to Central America eight years ago, where the cost of labor is so low, we just did it ourselves. It felt a little weird to have a full time maid. Especially since it’s only my wife and I. We might have had someone would come in once every week or two for a deep clean, but that was about it.
We made an exception during my wife’s internship for medical school at the Military Hospital in Managua. At that time we had two homes - one here in San Juan Del Sur, and one in Managua. I would go back and forth -in San Juan during the week for work and Managua on the weekend.
Meli was doing 100+ hour weeks in the hospital during her internship year in 2018 / 2019. So we hired someone in Managua just so her white coats got washed and ironed and there was healthy food in the fridge. Otherwise she would have only had eaten fast food before she passed out, post shift.
We stopped having a full time maid after she graduated medical school last fall. It seemed like we didn’t need it. It seemed like a personal choice, but I realized recently that was a poor business decision.
I work a lot. Between both projects my time is precious. It didn’t seem like much - but splitting the cooking, cleaning and laundry duties eats up hours out of a day.
Here a maid typically earns about $250 a month for full time - Monday to Friday eight hours and a half day Saturday. Plus meals at work, extra month at year end, and Christmas bonuses.
We pay more, and our lady works less, but that’s a personal choice and also because we don’t have kids yet. There’s only so much to do every day for our house.
If you’re working remotely from Nicaragua, and earning first world income while living in a low-cost environment, a maid is one of the best decisions you can make.
It does seem to be more common for expats to pay better. We foreigners can usually afford it and it helps more people. That’s another benefit for people moving to, and investing in Nicaragua, especially if you are working remotely. It’s great for the local economy.
And for me it makes all the business sense in the world. I’m more productive - there’s no half hour of cooking and cleaning up after breakfast in the morning. Which also happens to be my most productive time. At lunch I can just keep working while food appear in front of me and then the empty plates disappear.
We like to cook dinner together a lot. I enjoy cooking more when its only a few times a week. When we’re done we just put everything beside the sink and it’s cleaned the next morning.
The time it frees up doesn’t mean just I can get more work done though. Since we’ve hired help I’m surfing lots more. My goal a lot of days is to finish what I need to do for work by 4 pm so I can catch a sunset surf if the waves are good. Then if I still have more to do I’ve got all night to do it in a clean house.
There are a lot of things I would rather do than washing dishes. Surfing being one of them.
If you have kids I’m sure you can imaging how lovely it would be to have full time help. Between the low cost of domestic assistance, and the great school here, you can really enjoy being a parent. As opposed to feeling like just a maid and chauffeur for your kids. It means more time with them at the pool or the beach. Both of which are more fun than washing up after dinner.
Plus you’re providing a job for someone in the community. Which right now they can really use. As an expat and semi-remote businessman myself it’s the best business decision I’ve made. And my wife and I never fight about me leaving dirty clothes on floor. I mean, I still do it, we just don’t fight about it now:)
If you’re thinking about coming down to live and work remotely in Nicaragua, I 100% would recommend it.
Want to know more about life in Nica? Contact me!
Joel Stott-Jess
Cell / WhatsApp: (+505) 8176 8624
Skype: joelstottjess
Joel Stott-Jess is a New York Times featured agent / broker in San Juan Del Sur.
Originally from Alberta, Canada he has been doing business in Nicaragua since 2014.
An investment consultant, serial entrepreneur, surfer, and outdoor enthusiast he is an expert on the real estate and business markets in Nicaragua. He also operates The Central Investor, a real estate and investment blog focused on the entire Central American region.