Is opening a lawn care worth it?

My husband & I currentlly own a small lawn care ( aprox 20 weeklly accounts)..our problem is my husband also has a well paying job at night ( well above average income) His night job is AWFULL-and is taking its toll on him. ...we would love to be able to just expand our lawncare so that he can quit - how much does the average lawncare make in a year ?

Lawn care business tips

Its a hard question to answer, there are so many factors. There are plenty of companies out there that make in the millions, that is of corse not the "norm". The "easy" answer is as much as you want. Figure out what you need to make a year to be happy, then add 20% or so for gov, state, and local taxes. Then add in the cost of insurance, both lib. and medical per year. the take how much your avrg. customers bill is yearly and divide that by the amount you need per year. This will tell you how many avrg. customers you need to have to make what you want. After all that you need to also figure how many people you need (if any) to take care of that number of customers you figured. I am sure other people can add to this.

[PremierLand]

I've always said that theres NO money in lawncare unless you have 100 accounts.

My personal goal is to get 200 lawn accounts, 2 lawn crews and 1 landscape crew. Anymore than that and you run into problems, but thats just my oppinion and what im planning towards. Good Luck.

BTW: Cutting Grass Sucks!

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] (PremierLand @ Mar. 20 2007,8:07)]BTW: Cutting Grass Sucks!

lol...

[Steve]

Hi Starrwalker,

Welcome to our site!

"The U.S. Department of Labor estimates that the average yearly salary in 2005 for managers of landscaping and groundskeeping workers was $39,150."

I agree with that figure too. It is a lot of hard work to earn money. The income is hit and miss. If you don't have a good solid group of customers to pull you through every year, then he might as stay with his current job.

My first year in business I was in the red around $3,000. I really didn't start making a good profit until the third year in business.

Welcome to the forum!

You didn't mention where you reside as that makes a difference in the advice we can provide. Could you provide that for us?

..we live in southern NC.. $39,000 per year? that figure sucks we would have to come up with at least 2xs that amount to just survive....

[Steve]

Hi starrwalker,

It is very difficult to start a business when you have a fulltime job elsewhere and many expenses to cover.

Are people able to do it? Yes they are.

But it is very difficult. I don't know if I have ever seen anyone make the jump from a fulltime job to running their business and make the same amount of money. It seems like no matter what, the average person is going to take a hit and most likely a big hit over years.

Many of the lawn care operators here took years to make a profit they could live off of.

What type of industry is your husband involved with now? Maybe we could come up with more business ideas with you.

..He's currentlly working as management in contract sanitation..- it's 3rd shift so it really takes it's toll - especially when he works all night then cuts grass all day..I'm interested more in the landscping side of lawncare - even going into pond installation , ect. - I have done this before yet he thinks the more reliable money lies in the weeklly accounts..