Find Affordable Help for Small Household Jobs

red door Lucy Pittaway

Lucy Pittaway

If you can’t do DIY yourself, it’s good to find trustworthy local people, who can fix things at an affordable rate. Always check reviews of recent jobs:

You can usually find people to do the following:

  • Furniture assembly (flat-pack nightmares solved)
  • Gardening (ensure it’s pet-friendly and wildlife-friendly)
  • Cleaning (choose biodegradable cleaning brands)
  • Minor repairs (fixing shelves, mending fences)
  • Moving help (lifting boxes, shifting furniture inside homes)
  • Rubbish removal (small clear-outs or tip runs)
  • Gutter cleaning (saving you a climb up the ladder)

Nextdoor is like a local Facebook, where you can set a boundary and then local people can post online (from lost pets to DIY jobs to litter clean-ups).

TimeBanks are run by communities. Each person gives an hour of time to offer a skill or service (such as DIY). Then you can ‘buy’ other services with the hours earned.

Age UK offers a handyman service, just enter your postcode to find trustworthy affordable people to help with:

  • Putting up curtain rails, shelves & pictures
  • Fixing smoke & carbon dioxide alarms
  • Fixing grab rails
  • Fixing door/window locks & chains/viewers
  • Installing radiator boosters & draught excluders
  • Installing energy-efficient lightbulbs.

Adapt My Home is an online free self-assessment tool. If you qualify, you may be eligible for grants to help with:

  • Ramps, stairlifts & floor lifts
  • Ceiling track hoists & wider doors
  • Walk-in showers & accessible toilets
  • Accessible kitchen facilities & lower tables
  • Improved heating & accessible controls
  • Safety features & security lights

Extra Help (for little jobs and walking dogs!)

Extra Help is a nationwide franchise, where people help older people with little household jobs, and other things like walking dogs. It was set up by the ambassador for the British Franchise Association, and offers reference-checked staff to help also parents and anyone who needs a little extra help.

Services offered include:

  • Small maintenance jobs (furniture, fixing leaky taps)
  • Dog walking (read about volunteer dog walkers)
  • Shopping (take a list or take you with them!)
  • Providing company and ‘senior sitting’
  • Helping with meal preparation
  • Helping with parties (no balloons, to help turtles!)
  • Transport (for appointments or outings)
  • Help for homework and during school holidays
  • Cleaning, tidying and ironing
  • Gardening (read about pet-friendly gardens)

Age UK (a wonderful charity to help communities)

our later years

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If you’ve ever passed an AGE UK charity shop and wondered what it does, this post can tell you. By the way, it does not test on animals, so it’s okay to shop there!

In fact, the charity Age UK (nothing to do with government), offers  a suite of services that is more helpful than government:

  • A phone helpline (some people on very low incomes have had income rise by over £100 a week, after one phone call).
  • A free Silver Line helpline where lonely older people can receive calls from chatty volunteers (including ‘conference calls’ which involve other elders, to make new friends).
  • An in-person volunteer befriending service.
  • Affordable handypersons to do odd jobs
  • Nationwide cafes, to chat over tea and cake
  • Over 80 trained workers, to offer in-home footcare
  • Social activities and IT training

Proof that often it’s private charities and organisations, that do the work better than governments and councils can. If you know anyone who could use their help, do mention Age UK if they could benefit.

This also has a knock-on effect on reducing NHS costs. Because older people who are eating well in warm homes, who have friendships and access to local support, tend to be healthier both physically and mentally. And results in less stays in hospitals, and long-term stays in residential and nursing homes.

KAPI (a system of eldercare in sunny Greece)

Greek cottage Simply Katy

Simply Katy

In Greece, there are far less residential and nursing homes (they do exist, but as a rule, families look after ageing or disabled relatives rather than the state). And Greece’s recent economic woes, means that there is not enough funding to build, staff or pay for such homes in many areas.

Obviously the lifestyle is quite different. In Greece, nearly everyone lives on natural food (fresh fruits and vegetables) and as one of the world’s sunniest countries (and home to 6000 islands), many people enjoy fresh countryside or seaside air, until their dying days.

The strong family units means that most older people don’t feel lonely or abandoned, and it’s a source of pride in Greece, to be chosen as the relative to care for a parent (or parents) in later life.

The Eastern Orthodox church is also very popular here, and again a deep focus on faith in daily lifestyle, means commitments to older relatives are taken seriously, with far more importance than say a focus on one’s own freedom and ambitions.

As in many southern European countries, if older relatives don’t live with their younger relatives, many still live next door in the same apartment block, sharing meals, shopping errands and looking out for each other.

Around 40% of older people in Greece live with their family, a share higher than most other European countries.

As a result, there are less cases of loneliness (and sometimes dementia if it’s caused by isolation), due to companionship, conversation, and purpose. Older people in Greece are respected as wide elders, loving grandparents and sources of history and ancestry.

KAPI (Open Protection Centres of the Elderly) is a service provided by the state, for all older people (not based on income). These centres offer medical check-ups, health education and recreational activities, along with extra help if needed like home care or specialised care. These centres can also be used for respite, to give exhausted carers a break.

Due to the much lower ratio of care homes (families still take on most caring responsibilities), this culture frees up money in order to provide these services to the general public, at low cost.

Anyone over 60 in the community can benefit from daily prevention (blood pressure checks) to occupational therapy and physiotherapy, which helps to prevent minor conditions becoming more serious, which obviously then cost the state more money in medical costs.

If we compare this with England, mostly it’s just a case of GPs doling out medicines, and older people only ending up in the care of the NHS once they get seriously ill, or when entering a residential or nursing home.

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