It’s difficult to find a lot of good research on the subject of the expense of keeping up a lawn but the best average I could come up with is around $1,100 a year for maintaining one third of an acre of grass. This may or may not sound high to you but for people who keep their lawns up there is the cost of fertilizer, gas, pesticides, pre-emergence, water, etc. Plus there is the equipment involved that needs routine maintenance. If a mower and trimmer run you around $700 and they last an average of seven years then you also have to consider an annual fee of $100 for equipment. Then lastly there is the amount of time you spend mowing; it just keeps adding up. And keep in mind if someone uses a lawn service it can cost over $2,000 a year.
I’m guilty of spending over $1,000 on my lawn each year and it’s a little less than a third of an acre. I usually get a couple of comments every year about how good my yard looks so I guess that’s $500 per great comment. Sounds expensive to me!
The reason I mention I feel guilty is that I grew up on a farm and we grew a variety of vegetables. It provided us with money and food for our home. My dad has passed away but I guarantee you I’d never want him to know how much it costs me to maintain my yard. He wasn’t a typical businessman but he certainly understood a necessary return on your money, blood, sweat, and tears. When he put $1,000 into something it returned real value.
I realize there’s no way of getting around keeping up our lawns especially if we have an aggressive home owner’s association but that doesn’t stop it from being a bit ridiculous. Societal norms will certainly continue to push us into spending these large sums of money to keep our lawns cut and green but wouldn’t it be great if someone would invent a no maintenance yard; maybe something like an artificial football field. If something like this cost even $5,000 to $10,000 it’d probably be worth it if we plan on staying in our homes for more than five years. With how advanced we are in technology surely some company could come up with something that would work and be cost effective.
Let me wrap up by saying we might be able to tweak back a bit on the water even though our lawns might not be as green. When we do cut it maybe we could cut it down a little further and push out our mowings beyond a week. Things like this certainly aren’t the solution to the problem but it would add up dramatically if we did what we could.
Side note…there are always two sides to every story and the fact is that companies who provide lawn care materials and probably some of the companies that sell their products, would go out of business if we came up with a way to reduce our need for their products and/or services; this would lead to a loss of thousands of lost jobs. As usual all things are connected so we can't address one issue without potentially negatively affectiving another.
I’m guilty of spending over $1,000 on my lawn each year and it’s a little less than a third of an acre. I usually get a couple of comments every year about how good my yard looks so I guess that’s $500 per great comment. Sounds expensive to me!
The reason I mention I feel guilty is that I grew up on a farm and we grew a variety of vegetables. It provided us with money and food for our home. My dad has passed away but I guarantee you I’d never want him to know how much it costs me to maintain my yard. He wasn’t a typical businessman but he certainly understood a necessary return on your money, blood, sweat, and tears. When he put $1,000 into something it returned real value.
I realize there’s no way of getting around keeping up our lawns especially if we have an aggressive home owner’s association but that doesn’t stop it from being a bit ridiculous. Societal norms will certainly continue to push us into spending these large sums of money to keep our lawns cut and green but wouldn’t it be great if someone would invent a no maintenance yard; maybe something like an artificial football field. If something like this cost even $5,000 to $10,000 it’d probably be worth it if we plan on staying in our homes for more than five years. With how advanced we are in technology surely some company could come up with something that would work and be cost effective.
Let me wrap up by saying we might be able to tweak back a bit on the water even though our lawns might not be as green. When we do cut it maybe we could cut it down a little further and push out our mowings beyond a week. Things like this certainly aren’t the solution to the problem but it would add up dramatically if we did what we could.
Side note…there are always two sides to every story and the fact is that companies who provide lawn care materials and probably some of the companies that sell their products, would go out of business if we came up with a way to reduce our need for their products and/or services; this would lead to a loss of thousands of lost jobs. As usual all things are connected so we can't address one issue without potentially negatively affectiving another.
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