do you cut you lawn

mcgarry098

Dont know if this is the right forum! sorry if its not,.. buttttttttt i want to earn a bit of cash for the summer and want to know do you employ anyone to cut your garden, and if so how much do you pay them! like for a small garden that takes less than an hour to cut would 20 euro be a fair charge,..

Thanks,

touts

€20 for less than an hour? Sorry but at that price you will have every kid in the neighbourhood undercutting you. Last summer we had a neighbours kid going door to door with a lawnmower cutting small 3 bed semi gardens about 30-40 minutes for €5. He probably made €25 to €30 in an afternoon and was happy out.

At best you are talking a minimum wage manual job pushing a lawnmower around. If you want more you have to offer more. An hour of solid gardening. Cutting weeding edging pruning raking sweeping etc. I suggest you do some post of horticultural course at might or online so you have the knowledge people will pay for.

Thats not to deter you. Fair play for wanting to get out there and do something. You just need to work on the overall package.

mcgarry098

ya like i know 20 is a lot but when you look at the akwardness of getting a lawnmower there and stuff! like the way i was thinking was 20 minimum charge and once you get over 1hour 30 mins you start charging a tenner an hour there after if you get what im saying! fortunately there's no one else here doing it except adults and they charge more than that!

Its good if people are honest with me though because im gonna hear it anyway so better comming from people online, not potential customers !

Thanks Tout

foxinsox

great idea in theory...

but try hauling around a lawnmower..

the kids in my estate do the front garden for €5 average estate size garden..

will mow front and back for €7

there are several kids thumping my door down every night now.. from now until October :rolleyes:

I cut my own grass btw..

The only people who will avail of your services I would imagine would be older people who are unable to do it themselves..

A few things you need to consider:

Where will you dump the grass?

Will you be able to do a few jobs at once, if so where do you put the grass when full?

If you offer a weeding/tidying up service also you would have a better chance..

Also be careful if you don't have insurance, which I'm sure you don't as I know it costs a fortune.. just don't mow anyones cat or car..

Good Luck with your venture

mcgarry098

Thanks fox in sox! k say price has to come down haha! But i think im gonna give it a go and see what happens! Ill post up here when in a few weeks saying how i ot on! got one job already for a tenner an hour,.,. so gonna put a minimum charge cap of 10euro,,. Hopefull people will have their own lawnmowers if they dont ill add a 3 euro charge, and im gonna start learning about the weeds and things! All I want is 10 lawns a week so we'll see how i get on!

Cheers

Snowc

Good idea op.If I was you I would save up and buy one of these.
You could leave them in the customers lawn and collect them after maybe two or three days once the have the grass eaten .Once you have made some money you could buy more and get a big business going.

GERMAN ROCKS

you will have to have at least an ordinary lawnmower and a strimmer.a strimmer is a must and really makes the lawn stand out as long grass at the edge of a wall where the lawnmower cant get looks awful. charge minimum €15. if a person refuses to pay this drop the price but if they agree great. Charge as much as you will get. Now after awhile save up and buy a trailer. get a 8x4 which you will be able to get for around €500 off donedeal or the likes. you will also need a towbar in the car. next save up a €1000 and get a good second hand ride on because this is where you should make most if you live nearish the countryside. it doesnt pay people to buy a ride on realistically. look at it this way if you charge a person 40 euro to cut the grass which takes you an hour and a half and a new ride on costs €2600. thats over 60 cuts and theres only about 15 cuts per year and by time petrol and labour is taken into account it will take 5-6 years for the ride on to have paid for itself at which time its old and needs to be replaced. now all this depends if you have a car, are actually good at cutting grass and if you live near countryside etc.

advertising is the only way you will get more business. so make sure you have your number and what you do advertised on your trailer. put homemade leaflets in letterboxs and up on all nearby shops, pubs, butchers and local newspapers etc. make sure everyone that you cut grass for has your number so if there neighbour wants theres cut they can steer them to you.

basic rule for getting as much work as possible is ADVERTISE ADVERTISE ADVERTISE

Cicero

Hey OP...best of luck with the venture....EUR20 is a bit steep tbh for one cut...I'd be looking for a lot more than that for eur20- other posters have posted pricing (i.e. 7 eur) which is much more realistic

Some people won't want their grass cut because they're particular about how it's done...others won't want it done due to insurance...i.e if something happend to you (god forbid) when cutting the grass...where does that leave the re: public liability insurance..etc....something to keep in mind..
If you came to my door, you'd need to introduce yourself fairly well and tell me what you would do i.e. detail out the job..let me know what you're about and what you can do..
hope that helps...

mcgarry098

Thanks lads! made business cards and going around to estates either tomorrow or sunday,,,... gonna have a minimum charge of 10euro for estates, where i could get a few houses in a small area (small garden of course ) and going to do a minimum charge of 15 euro for gardens that dont have their own lawnmower and are out of my way!

1 garden got already, every week for the next 4 weeks while the owner is gone away! im only 17 so if i get 9 more lawns im happy!!!


Cheers people

philstar

Well done OP, you're not sitting on your arse and playing X-box like most teenagers i know you're getting out there and showing initiative.

Now will you cut my lawn for a fiver? and while your at it will you clear away the dig sh*t as well and oh yes will you make me a cup of tea..i'll be in the sittingroom watching telly.

jprboy

Cicero wrote: »

Some people won't want their grass cut because they're particular about how it's done...others won't want it done due to insurance...i.e if something happend to you (god forbid) when cutting the grass...where does that leave the re: public liability insurance..etc....something to keep in mind..
...

Yes, insurance is the big concern for me.
Can anyone say what the exact position is here e.g. I pay someone to cut the lawn, they don't have insurance and they injure themselves or a third party - could I be liable for any injuries that might occur?

Ophiopogon

I am under the impression that you are liable. My understanding of this is as you are paying them you acting as their employer so come under the terms of employers responsibilities.

I think in regard to the occupiers liability act that if a visitor is injured on your land by something that you could have prevented than you are liable...so I would not let someone use my own equipment on my land, i.e a lawn mower, in case it was faulty.

In theory its great to see people like the op getting themselves work like this, both parties would need to be aware of the acts. For me i would only use someone who is registered and has their own insurance or cut my own damn lawn!!

Just on the op...it's not gonna take you a full hour to cut the average estate lawn, so if your gonna even charge €15 you really need to be offering something else, i.e weeding, pruning as well. If your already getting a few jobs than that's great and obviously there are still idiots out there willing to pay over the odds IMO

mcgarry098

well went for a job interview 2 weeks before i started going about setting up the lawns businesss and didnt get the job for the branch of the shop in the area i live but instead the one about 20 mins drive from my house, so i said no thanks, ill leave it. so dropped some cards into the place i wanted to work just to the person on the till, not the manager, sayin cud i leave a few here im cutting lawns for the summer. got a call a day later saying that a job was there for me if i wanted it. Its a garden center 10mins walk from my house

So the lawn business is over! Got a proper job out of it though ,..

Thanks everyone for the help

Joey the lips

I use to do this for the summer many moons ago. What i done was i brought a wall paper stripper with me and i stuck the head of it in the wheely bin. I go 5 euro for the garden and 10 for cleaning the bin.

i had 10 customers and it took me about 2-3 days so i was very happy.

Gave my mother 30 euro 20/30 euro on juice

Insurence has become more of an issue. I cannot see you getting any more than 5 euro a garden and remember if you knock at houses and go back with a lower price you will have lost there trust and they wont use you.

Pick up a sheers and trim the edges. You get judged on your work as well as the price.