“The highest reward for your work is not what you get, but who you become.” – Alexander Green
Do you mow your own lawn?
You can tell a lot about a person by how they answer that question. The answer often provides a good clue about the size of their bank account and their attitudes about work. The responses I hear when I ask people that question mostly fall into one of three buckets:
- “Mow my lawn? Mehhh, I have no interest. I have better things to do with my free time than to spend it pushing a lawnmower. I am happy to pay someone else to do it.”
- “I make too much money to waste my time mowing the lawn. It makes more financial sense to work another hour, and pay someone else to do it. It’s just simple math.”
- “I either enjoy mowing my lawn, or don’t mind it. Plus it is good exercise, and I get to do it exactly the way I like it and get it done only when it needs it.”
So which bucket do you fall into? Here’s my take on the responses:
Response #1 – If you fall into the first response camp, I am willing to bet that you don’t have much money in the bank. Regardless of how much you make, experience would tell me that most of it passes right through your hands. How do I know that? Well, if you are willing to pay someone to do something as easy as push a lawn mower around your yard for 30-40 minutes, what else are you paying someone else to do? Again, experience tells me the list is likely significant. You probably pay someone to clean your house, change the oil in your car, manage your investment portfolio, walk your dog, make many of your meals, or watch your kids. The list goes on and on.
If you identify with response #1, you are likely a person who thinks of tasks, such as mowing your lawn, as chores. These chores are inconveniences that should be delegated to others without much regard for the cost. The point is that people who have this mindset see activities as work that should be avoided.
Response #2 – Despite disagreeing with the people in this camp, I can at least respect their thinking. They are using logic instead of pure emotion. The analysis the person does is probably something like:
I make $75,000 (or more) a year in my job. If there are 250 working hours, this works out to about $37/hour. If you can hire a lawn service to do it for less than that, say $20/hour, then I am better off working an extra hour at my job and paying someone else to do it (more than $15/hour better in this example). Seems reasonable right?
If we dig a little deeper though, there are a few flaws with this logic. The first is that not all jobs work like that. Not everyone can just work another hour and earn an incremental wage. If you are a salary person for example, your income is relatively fixed. And even if you are hourly, or work in a business where your extra time can produce incremental income, will you really work that extra hour instead of mowing the lawn? I know that for me personally, I work hard at my job already. When I get done with a full 8-10 hour day, I am pretty beat. Both mentally and sometimes physically. At the end of a long work week, I am definitely ready to be done and get out of there. So for most people to claim they will work another hour at their job is not always realistic.
But let’s give these people the benefit of the doubt. Let’s assume that they do work the extra hour and therefore benefit from the incremental income. Then what? When I ask many of them the follow up question of what they do for exercise, they tell me that they go to the gym. A gym or club in which they pay a monthly or annual fee for the privilege of working out there. Perhaps on a treadmill or exercise bicycle.
Am I the only one who sees how fucking stupid that is? It is at this point in the conversation where I start laughing to myself (on the inside at least). I find it quite humorous that these response #2 people are so indignant about how efficient it is to pay someone to mow their lawn, an activity where they could get a quick and efficient exercise without even leaving the house, and then they pay for a costly gym membership. Most people do not even see the irony. They could be outside enjoying nature and getting exercise, but instead they are paying to be at the gym. So all of a sudden, much of their $20 savings is eaten up by monthly gym fees. Not quite the cost savings they thought they were getting.
Worse yet, for some people when I ask the question about what the person does for exercise, instead of going to the gym, some people tell me that they do not exercise at all! So again, instead of being home, enjoying the outside and getting an easy 30-40 minutes of exercise, these people think it’s better to work an extra hour and pay someone to mow their lawn so they can sit around and be lazy. I chuckle to myself every time I hear it.
Response #3 – It must be obvious by now that I am in favor of response number 3. The biggest reason is that I believe in being self-sufficient, especially when it comes with so many benefits. First off, I do not view it as a chore. I think of it as opportunity. An opportunity to be outside and do something productive. When I mow my lawn, I am getting exercise and doing it in exactly the way I like it. Have you ever paid someone to mow your lawn and then noticed that they did not cut everywhere they should have? Or perhaps they did not lower the blade to the level you prefer. When you do things yourself like mowing the lawn, you get to do it exactly the way you like it, and know that it is getting done right.
Relatedly, when you do things for yourself such as mowing the lawn, you are not dependent on anyone else. You do not need to worry about if they are coming this week. If so, what time they will be there? Will they interrupt the BBQ you were planning with your friends at 2pm? Alternatively, what if you don’t need the lawn cut this week? Do you still have to pay the service even when you do not need it? Paying a recurring expense is one of the worst expenses you can incur. (We will explore that further in a future blog post.) When you mow your own lawn, you control your own destiny. Mow when you want, do it how you like it, and only as often as you deem necessary.
Plus, any task worth doing comes with an added benefit. The benefit of PRIDE! Because when I look at my freshly mowed lawn that is cut exactly the way I like it, I get a little boost of endorphins. That’s right, endorphins. That morphine-like substance that your brain produces to reward you for a job well done. As I wipe the sweat from my brow after putting the lawn mower away, I mentally count the calories that I just burned. I revel in the cleanly pruned lawn that exudes both beauty and organization. And as I gulp down a frosty beverage after a job well done, and my wife gives me a thoughtful ‘thanks for cutting the grass’, those intoxicating endorphins give me a mild but satisfying high. I am an addict when it comes to these endorphins!
Am I being overly dramatic about this? After all it is just pushing a rotating metal blade around the yard for a half hour. Aren’t I making too big a deal out of this? Actually, I don’t think so. If we really are talking about just cutting the lawn, then perhaps you can argue that I am exaggerating the benefits. But in reality, I am talking about much more than that. I am talking about our overall attitude towards work and our general fitness in life and our finances. What I have learned is that the more activities that I can insource, and do myself, the better off I am. By avoiding the recurring expense that most people spend so freely, I have managed to save tens of thousands of dollars over the years by doing things myself.
In the process I have also learned many new skills and gained confidence along the way. For example, when I bought my first house, it came with a sprinkler system. I had never had or been around sprinklers growing up, so I had no idea how to maintain them. So the very first fall in my house, I did what most people do. I called a sprinkler guy to come and winterize my system. Of course in the process he found several minor issues that he charged me extra to fix. By the time he was done, I owed him more than $150!
After that, I said never again. I committed to learning how the system worked, and how to maintain it myself. After talking to a few people smarter on the topic than me, and watching a few youtube videos, I tried it myself. Despite having to invest in a few new tools (including an air compressor, which I now use for several other jobs around the house), I have become a pro. And the best part is it gave me the knowledge and confidence to do many other simple projects. For example, after my wife planted a new garden in the backyard, I had to move the sprinklers around to accommodate the new yard layout. No problem. With my new knowledge of how sprinklers were set up, I was easily able to do it myself. And avoid the cost and inconvenience of needing to hire out the work.
The real point here is that doing as many things yourself as possible is big part of lower your living expenses. And in many cases, it can provide many ancillary benefits like recreation, exercise and new skill acquisition. So the next time you change your own tire, mow the lawn or sew a hole in your favorite shirt…. raise a glass to yourself, and feel the pride wash over you (and feel the saved dollars swell up your wallet).