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My landscaping

May 5th, 2007 by Kenric

In my previous post about DIY landscaping I got 3 bids around $1,000 to clean up my home.  The good thing about landscapers is that there are many to choose from and you can massively negotiate with the local small time family landscapers.

Many of the ones that do clean up and small jobs are a family 1-3 person job where a $1,000 job will probably be a month’s pay.  After all, it’s pretty much all labor.  If you figure $900 is labor and $100 is disposal, at $10/hr that’s 90 hours of work.  If my job was a 2 day job, figure 16 hours for 3 people and you have 48 hours.  Now, I know that I can pick up a few guys at Home Depot for $10/hr.  Who knows if whoever I hire would just do the same.

Based on this, I felt that $480 + $100 was a good price, $580.  Before I put this out for bid I was hoping for around $400.  Today, one guy called me back and said he’d go from $1000 down to $600.  He was afraid that a future bid would undercut hit.  It’s always nice to mention that you have someone else coming later, even if they are the last bidder.

I’m really thinking of doing it myself, I went and bought a chainsaw, hedge trimmer and leaf blower for $235 today.  I can rent a wood chipper for $100/day.  However, since one price has come down to $600, the savings isn’t as substantial.  But I realized that once this guy is done, I’ll still have to maintain my yard… which means I’d have to buy a chainsaw, hedge trimmer and leaf blower anyway.  So by hiring it out, I’m still spending $600 or whatever the final cost will be.

BTW, I used my Home Depot credit card so I don’t have to make payments on these items for 8 months.

 

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