Some years we have a lawn service to help with the yard. Some years we don’t. This is definitely an on year. In making the decision to hire a person to mow the lawn, we considered several things. In the end, we feel the decision to pay someone else to do the job was a good one.
1. What does the yard look like? Our yard was an absolute mess. Weeds were taking over both the lawn and the flower beds. We couldn’t even keep up the two flower beds at the end of the driveway. The operative word here was ‘couldn’t’. No matter how hard we tried, our yard had reached a state of no return. We needed intervention.
2. Did we have time to take care of the yard. We thought we did, but every weekend there was something else taking precedent. The most we could manage was a quick run over with the lawn mower and maybe blowing away the grass.
3. Did we have a kid who could do it or help? Well, yes, and no. We have a big strapping almost 15 year old who was perfectly capable of doing some lawn work. He actually wanted to help too. The problem is that the boy has sinusitis. One afternoon in the yard easily led to two days of congestion and headaches. We even tried having him wear a mask. We were paying more for Claritin than for his allowance.
4. Did we have the skills to make it look good? We like to think we did, but we both grew up in the concrete jungle of NY. While we were able to muster up some passion from time to time, we did not have the skill to keep up with our 1/2 acre GA yard.
5. Could we afford to hire someone? We didn’t think so. That is why we had been trying to do it ourselves for the last 2 years. Then we realized that we couldn’t afford not to do it. We were constantly repairing the lawnmower due to letting the grass grow too long, and just not really knowing how to take care of it. We were threatened with fines by the subdivision for not keeping up with and mulching properly. We were killing plants left and right. We were throwing away more money by trying to do the job ourselves. Also if you apply the pay-rate rule, we certainly should be able to pay for the service. (If you make more per hour than you pay for the service, it technically saves you money to pay for the service.)
6. Could we get a good deal? Yes we could! The key to finding a good deal on a home service like lawn mowing is to find someone already servicing another one of your neighbors. If enough neighbors need the service and all the work can be done on one day, then everyone could get a great discount as it is easier if the worker does not have to travel across town to get from job to job.
Looking at all of the facts, we had no problem talking ourselves into hiring a lawn person. We found out that we really did realized a savings as we weren’t buying flowers and letting them die before getting them in the ground. We weren’t getting threats from the homeowners association about lack of upkeep. We were also saving a lot of time that could be used to make more money. Even my son was able to find more productive ways to help around the house that did not make him sick.
While I answered yes to all of these areas, there were some years when we could not answer yes to at least 3 of them, and so we did the yard ourselves. For one, being unemployed leaves alot of time on your hands to cut the grass and plant flowers. Besides, we just didn’t have the money to pay anyone. It may have taken a long time doing the yard ourselves, but we managed to make it look good, though not great. Also, because the yard had been kept in good condition in previous years by a lawn service, we were able to pick up where they left off… at least for a while.
I hope you enjoyed my first entry in the home blog at families.com. I am new to the home blog, but not to families.com. I have been on the site for a couple of years now as the Homeschooling blogger. I now have the honor to write not only for homeschooling, but also parenting (specifically teens), the home blog, and also the frugal blog. In short, I will be writing a little over here, and a little over there!
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