Making extra summer cash...

[mpweaver4]

I am interested in making extra cash this summer to help pay off debts. I was going to buy a lawn mower, weed eater, and blower and start a little summer lawn mowing business for myself. BUT, I travel too much on the weekends and don't want to commit myself to EVERY weekend. SO, I'm thinking about offering my lawn mowing / lawn care services on a week by week basis on something like Craigslist.com and using the property owner's equipment to mow their lawn. Anyone out there think this would be successful? If you were busy, would you pay someone to come cut your lawn and use your own equipment??

[project15]

Do you travel for personal or for business reasons? If it's for personal and you're serious about starting this business, you may have to sacrifice to keep customers as their lawns would need to be mowed every week.

Also, using their equipment, you can't charge as much. I got paid $10-15 to mow my lawn as a kid and I probably wouldn't pay anyone more than that if they're using MY equipment.

[sweeps]

I agree with project15. Plus I would add:

-- It won't necessarily save a homeowner much time because he or she must be home the whole time to let you take the equipment out of the garage/shed and then put it back in when you're done.
-- What happens if the equipment doesn't work right. A 45 minute job may turn into a 3 hour nightmare for you.
-- What if the homeowner blames YOU for breaking their equipment?

[mpweaver4]

I agree with both of you. I travel for both business and personal, but primarily for personal. Thanks for the quality feedback.

[jIM_Ohio]

you could make more flipping burgers for 4 hours than doing one lawn. If I pay someone, I would hold them to a much higher standard (meaning edging is neat and no clippings) even if I was paying them only $15 to use my mower.

[bjl584]

I used to cut grass when I was in college. A few things to keep in mind. Most people will not want you to cut their grass once. They will want you to cut it as often as it needs it. (Ususally every 7 to 10 days depending on the time of the year and where you live.) That being said, prepare to keep busy with it. You'll be out every weekend mowing. Also, being that these people are paying you to do this, you have to do a good job and not cut any corners. Clean up the grass clippings, don't miss any spots, cut everything in straight even patterns, clean off the sidewalks and patios of any clippins, etc. This isn't a hard thing to get involved with. You can do it with some basic equipment. It does become time consuming though. Me and my partner could mow about 10 or 12 lawns in a typical 8 hour work day. We made an average of $20 per lawn, so that was around $200 per day gross. Not bad for a summer job. One nice thing is that if you do a good job, word of mouth advertising really starts to pick up in the neighborhood. We were approached countless times by the neighbors of people that we mowed lawns for. It wouldn't be long before we were mowing everyone's lawn on the entire street. That was nice, since we could do 4 or 5 lawns all in a row without having to load everything back up in the truck and move. It made things really efficient for us. People are also going to want you to trim hedges and trees for them and possible spread fertilizer. This is where you can make real money, but you may need a license or insurance to get involved in those things. You will have to check local laws. Good luck with your business.