My Yard is a Waste of Time and Money

September 18, 2007 by Marcel

The following guest post was submitted by glblguy from Gather Little by Little - A Christian Personal Finance Blog (RSS)

My boys mowed the yard the other night, and when they finished the whole front yard looked like a dust storm had gone through. What grass I have is crabgrass, the rest is mostly dirt with a few weeds and lots of completely yellow and dead grass. In the spring, it was a lucious green and completely full and thick.

Looking at our yard, my wife commented,”Why do we care about our yard so much? I am just tired of worrying about it.”

That got me thinking about how much time and money I put into my yard each spring and fall. In the spring I aireate, thatch, re-seed, fertilize and water. By May it’s beautiful, then the summer heat and drought kicks in. Within a few weeks the yard is yellowing, within a few more there is more dirt than dead grass. In just a few more large clumps of crabgrass are beginning to dominate.

Then comes September. I aireate, thatch, re-seed, fertilize and water (hmmmm, this is sounding familiar). By December the grass is dormant. Dormant is a fancy word for grass that looks dead but isn’t really.

A quick calculation of the cost each spring and fall:

Grass Seed: $50.00
Fertilizer: $50.00
Aireate: $50.00
Watering: $80.00 (for 3 months)

Total: $230.00 or $460.00 per year

Let’s assume for a few minutes that I live in my home for 20 years. Over the course of 20 years that works out to be $9,200.00. Placed into my 401k at a conservative 10% return for 20 years, it would be $10,865.00. This doesn’t even factor my time in which would inflate the numbers even further.

With that kind of money, I think my wife is right. I am tired of worrying about it, watching it grow then die just to grow and die again. Not to mention, $10,865.00 is a lot of money and frankly money I could use.

I think I’ll just leave the yard alone this fall and see how it does in the spring. I’ll keep you posted!

How much do you spend on your yard annually? Do you bother with it? Any suggestions for accomplishing the same thing more frugally? I’d love to hear your thoughts on the subject.

7 Comments so far »

My First Guest Article! | Gather Little By Little said

am September 18 2007 @ 9:18 am

[...] first guest article has been posted by Brian over at Financial Dominance. Head over and read my thoughts about the [...]
glblguy said

am September 18 2007 @ 11:02 am

Thanks Brian for the opportunity to post on your site. Truly an honor.
Lynnae @ Being Frugal said

am September 18 2007 @ 12:21 pm

We struggle with our yard a lot. We rent, so the yard isn’t even our own. The tenants before us didn’t take care of the yard at all, so by the time we got here, it was really weedy. We want our kids to be able to run barefoot on nice grass, plus all of our yard is in the front, so it’s the first thing people see when they come to our house.

On the other hand, do we really want to sink tons of money into a yard that isn’t ours? Not really. Decisions, decisions.
glblguy said

am September 18 2007 @ 1:46 pm

Well, my yard is my yard and I still don’t want to sink tons of money into it.

I agree on the kids, but when they run on it, it just wears the yard out. It’s a bit of a catch-22.
The Daily Dough (We Reached 1,000 Visitors Per Day edition!) » The Dough Roller said

am September 22 2007 @ 5:11 am

[...] Dominance talks about how a yard can be a waste of time and money. And make sure to check out Financial Dominance’s new site [...]
(Not Quite) Frugal Cakes and Yard Stories: A Festival and Carnival | I've Paid For This Twice Already... said

am September 26 2007 @ 9:57 am

[...] My Yard is a Waste of Time and Money at Financial Dominance, actually a guest post from glblguy at Gather Little By Little. I feel the same way though - yard care seems like such an expensive hassle for little reward since our grass seems to die anyway. What to do…. [...]
Carnivals For The Week of 9/23/2007 | Gather Little By Little said

am September 27 2007 @ 8:06 am

[...] for Military hosted this weeks Carnival of Money Stories my guest post, My Yard is a Waste of Time and Money over on FinancialDominance was [...]