“I love yard work!” – said almost nobody ever.
You come home from work, beat from the day, then you gotta run right back out and tackle the yard. It’s hot, sweaty, dusty, and tiring. And then you gotta do it every week for months on end. Who the hell likes that?
***slowly raises my hand***
Perhaps we haven’t been giving this task its proper due.
A key component of my strategy for achieving Financial Independence is lifestyle optimization. Lifestyle optimization is the process of shaping our lives so that we spend our limited time, money, and energy on things that give us happiness, while removing those that don’t. By optimizing my lifestyle, I hope to live a happier life at a much lower cost when compared to my former high spending ways.
I’ve been performing a personal audit of sorts of the activities that fill out my days and I am trying to sort what’s worth holding on to and what should be let go. As I’ve been thinking, I have come to appreciate the benefits of yard work.
If you think I am nuts, you are not alone. I mentioned to Mrs. HoF that I was going to write this and my idea got shot down faster than a balding middle-aged man at a sorority party. “That’s dumb” – Mrs. HoF. Maybe she’s right? Read on and let me know what you think.
Ahem… back on topic.
So, why do I like yard work? It’s because I have found it to be the most efficient activity I have come across.
What do I mean when I say “efficient”? I am referring to an activity that meets more than one need or touches on multiple things that make me feel good.
What does yard work provide?
Exercise
If you knew me, you would know that I need as much exercise as I can get. I typically spend most of the daylight hours pounding away at a keyboard or barking into a phone in my cubicle. Putting it another way, it is a challenge for me to “get my steps in” on a normal day. When I am out of work, I am typically making dinner, playing with the kids or writing posts like this one. Fitness. Is. Lacking.
To me, yard work is like a gym with no monthly membership fee.
Pushing the lawn mower around the yard (and particularly up the steep hill behind my house) is a good way to get a sweat going. In the fall, I forgo the mower for the manual rake. I can feel my shoulders burning just thinking about it.
It gets me outside
I absolutely love being outdoors. Keep me penned inside for more than a couple days in a row and I turn into a cranky baby. I need the sun on my skin and the wind in my hair. Occasionally, I get out of the office for work, but again, I’m mostly confined to the office.
It helps me appreciate what I have
Recently, I have been reading about Stoic philosophy. One of the teachings is to embrace discomfort. In doing so, the idea is that you will learn to appreciate what you have and prepare your mind and body for possible future discomforts.
Pushing a mower up a hill when it’s in the upper 90s with high humidity is uncomfortable to say the least. As is raking the yard with temperatures dipping down at or below freezing. But I do know that I feel great when I am done… the chair feels softer and the beer tastes better. I most definitely appreciate the air conditioning more.
There are immediate, tangible results
In the consulting world (where I reside), I may work on a project and not see it go into construction for years, if ever. So I crave real world results for my actions. Enter yard work.
The yard looks like crap. I mow it. Bada Bing Bada Boom! Now it looks good. In about an hour and a half I have changed my world for the better. So satisfying.
Cost Savings
Lawn service for a yard of the size of mine typically runs about $25 to $30 per mowing. Its common for a lawn service to provide 30 or so mowing occurrences per year. Taking the lower cost per occurrence of $25 and multiplying by 30 yields a mowing cost of $750 per year. This doesn’t include leaf pickup either!
By comparison, I typically go through about 10 to 15 gallons of fuel, and a quart or two of oil. At $2.50 per gallon for gas and $10 per quart of oil I am looking at less than $60 (yes, this assumes I have a mower already, and I perform my own blade sharpening, oil changes, etc.). Adding in the mower cost (this one was $500, and much cheaper mowers are available) over the time I’ve had the mower (just over a decade so far), I get an annual mower cost of about $50. I got my trimmer for free as a hand me down, but a new one goes for around $150 or less. Spreading this cost over the 10 years I’ve had it results in a cost of $15 per year. Giving me a grand total of about $135 per year
Looking at it this way, I save around $600 every year by mowing my own yard. Not too shabby. Especially, when you factor in all of the other benefits I’ve outlined above.
As you can see, I love yard work. I hope the benefits I’ve outlined above will get you to think again before subbing out this work to others. I am hard pressed to think of another activity that checks as many boxes for me as yard work does.
I would love to hear about other efficient activities, if you got them. Share them in the comments and perhaps we can all learn together about great opportunities for lifestyle optimization.
Thanks for reading. See you next week.
My wife does all the yard work . She grew up on a farm and enjoys it. I don’t like it at all so it works out great. She does require a riding mower though and I’m good with that! She’s far from lazy, she runs marathons and plays on two tennis teams, but farmers don’t push mowers, they drive tractors.
I hear you. It certainly isn’t for everyone, but for my situation it’s a perfect fit. Also, if your yard is better measured in acres, then there is certainly a point of diminishing returns.
The more important thing I see is that you and your wife have a system that works for both of you. Happy wife = Happy Life!
Thanks for your comment!