the lawn experiment nearly broke my back
Last year，in April I took that $300 and rented a walk-behind aerator for a day. Printed fifty flyers at the library, paid my kid five bucks to stuff them under doormats on our block, and offered “$40 front yard aeration—Saturday only.” Nine said yes. Then it rained sideways.
We rescheduled, and two bailed. I did seven lawns in one long day, learned to batch by street, and to collect Venmo deposits so people don’t ghost. I iced my lower back that night and stared at the numbers: $360 collected, $74 rental, $19 flyers, $16 gas, and a $20 tip from a neighbor who asked if I could do his backyard too. Net: $271, plus three repeat customers for fall. It wasn’t glamorous. But it was clearer than flipping: sell one simple promise, set a tight window, keep the route short. The next weekend I added edging and upsold two driveways for $25 each. By May, lawn work had pushed the year’s side money to roughly $739. My back stopped hating me once I learned to say, “I do front yards only.”
#Finance #MakeMoney #SideHustle #HomeServices #NeighborhoodHustle
