Did you, hubby or your child(ren)...

[Pamela H in Texas]

My son has been considering job ideas for the summer. He was exploring online and found the website of a man who was willing to give advice (though is website is pretty specific so ds has been looking mostly there). Anyway, this guy started mowing yards when he was 15. By 19, he had a crew and truck and trailer and such.

 

We don't live in a good area for this but we have good subdivisions around. DS asked hubby to take him to go door to door. He could have his materials in the car to work immediately, but can also leave fliers or something.

 

Anyway, I think it's a good idea, generally. We have talked about details, limits, etc. DS is talking about buying his own materials with the first few houses. He can leave them at a friend's house . We figured he could leave a water cooler there also. He can pay friend a small amt for storage.

 

Sooooo....what do we need to know? How many houses do teens usually do per day (we are thinking he can only do 2-3 days though)? Is it hard to find houses? Does he need a mini-contract? How much time does a house in a normal subdivision (1/4 to 1/5 acre lots) take (we've always had acreage or lived in an apartment)? Did you do mowing, weedeating and edging?

 

Thanks :)

[Mrs Mungo]

My son has been considering job ideas for the summer. He was exploring online and found the website of a man who was willing to give advice (though is website is pretty specific so ds has been looking mostly there). Anyway, this guy started mowing yards when he was 15. By 19, he had a crew and truck and trailer and such.

 

We don't live in a good area for this but we have good subdivisions around. DS asked hubby to take him to go door to door. He could have his materials in the car to work immediately, but can also leave fliers or something.

 

Anyway, I think it's a good idea, generally. We have talked about details, limits, etc. DS is talking about buying his own materials with the first few houses. He can leave them at a friend's house . We figured he could leave a water cooler there also. He can pay friend a small amt for storage.

 

Sooooo....what do we need to know? How many houses do teens usually do per day (we are thinking he can only do 2-3 days though)? Is it hard to find houses? Does he need a mini-contract? How much time does a house in a normal subdivision (1/4 to 1/5 acre lots) take (we've always had acreage or lived in an apartment)? Did you do mowing, weedeating and edging?

 

Thanks :)

 

 

I can tell you how yard guys I have hired have worked. I have allergies, and yard work will put me in bed for a couple of days.

 

Our lot in NC was a quarter acre. During the spring/summer they mowed and did the weed-eater. They did not pull weeds from flower beds or edge. In the fall/winter they bagged leaves (I had a ton of hardwood trees in the backyard) and mowed and did the weed-eater if necessary (usually, it wasn't). They came 2x/month for about 2 hours and charged $125/month.

 

Here, we have a smaller yard (teeny tiny) but it's a more expensive place to live. My yard guys here mow, weed-eat and trim the trees and bushes. They don't edge. It probably takes them about 90 minutes. They come 2x per month and I pay $100/month.

 

In both instances, my yard guys did several houses on my street.

 

Yard guy #1 actually went door-to-door soliciting my neighborhood and happened upon my house during a brunch for deployed wives. It was a goldmine for him (especially since they'd all been drinking mimosas, I think that helped). :D

 

Yard guy #2 is employed by the owners of the house that we rent.

Edited April 14, 2010 by Mrs Mungo

[Lisa R.]

In the suburbs for a normal lot size, lawn crews do mowing, edging, weed eating, and blowing. The normal charge is $25 for a normal lawn size. It normally takes one person about 45 minutes. The normal lots tend to be fairly small. The older houses may have larger or oversize lots.

[cougarmom4]

A few years ago we hired a teenage boy from our church to mow our lawn. He sent out letters to people he thought might be interested--explaining that he was starting a lawn service and would mow & edge the lawn weekly. A few days later he stopped by, looked at our lawn and gave us an estimate...ended up charging us $15 per mow (our yard is about 1/3 acre). Every tenth mow he does for free--kind of a thank you for being a regular customer. It took him about an hour & a half to do our yard.

 

He started out doing one or two lawns a day...he's now several years older, has two siblings as assistants and has 15 lawns to do each week. They work together as a great little team...two mowing, one edging...they work really fast! Their fee has gone up as the abilities to do a good job have improved.

 

Our ds12 now does our lawn and we are encouraging him to follow this young man's example...our son doesn't seem to have as great of a work ethic (YET), although when he thought about how much money he could make, he realized perhaps we were on to something afterall.

[KidsHappen]

In the suburbs for a normal lot size, lawn crews do mowing, edging, weed eating, and blowing. The normal charge is $25 for a normal lawn size. It normally takes one person about 45 minutes. The normal lots tend to be fairly small. The older houses may have larger or oversize lots.

 

Really? I think I paid more than that when I lived there 10 years ago.

[KidsHappen]

We live in TN and we have a lawn crew that is owned by a young man. He has a couple of people that work for him. They mow, weed eat, edge, trim and pick up all the clippings. We have a good size lot and it takes them about 15 minutes to do it all and we pay them about $40. They do have to have insurance though because once they ran into the line where my sprinkler system feeds into the main water line and broke it and had to have it repaired.

[Pamela H in Texas]

Thanks y'all. He is really excited. He has a website partially set up. We just played with it for about an hour so it is VERY rough, but.....

 

http://www.better-lawns.com

 

(note: I already had a site/editor so we just added his domain name)

[Halftime Hope]

Pamela,

 

My two teen boys do our yard, and I have an observation for your ds. If he is giving quotes on yardwork, be sure to tell him to watch out for the corner yards. The edging will be about three or four times that of a normal lot, so it will take a whole lot longer to do, and edging curbs that are curved on the corner of the street can eat your lunch--very hard to do right, so it takes a lot of time. He'll need to take that into account on his estimate.

 

hth

[nevergiveup]

A friend of ours' sons did this (they live in a pricey neighborhood) and the kids made tons of money--it is such a good business that one of them still owns it now that he is through college.

 

That said, your son will probably need a business license and perhaps insurance. Seriously consider how much paperwork and expense these things will generate. My son had a cut flower business where he sold bouquets at a farmers market. It was tons of work and the growing season was rough last year. He made $2300 AFTER expenses, and had to pay $315 in self employment tax, $48 in state tax, $10 in property tax. He had to obtain a vendor's license, send in sales tax every month, fill out a 1040, Schedule F, Schedule SE, Form 4562 (for Federal taxes), an IT-40, schedules 1,3,5 and CT-40 (for Indiana), and Form 103 and 104 for our county. If your son expects to make over $400, then he has to file self-employment tax.

 

This was not to discourage you, but help you be prepared. We had no idea how many forms etc, were involved. Have a good record system! He can have a very good business and will definately learn a lot!