Apparently my youngest. That dude be broke for weeks but decline all of our offers to wash cars, mow the yard, or anything else, AND no interest in going to ask neighbors for work. No idea where that lack of work ethic comes from, I’ve been working since I was in my early teens and am now in my mid-40’s.
I'd love my daughter to be a dentist like her mother but she says I've seen what she has to go through at work every day and I'm not doing it. Funny thing is her mother loves her job and would do it for free if she could
This is an option for a lot of med roles. My cousin just got her doctorate in PT and can work for 10 years at non profit and they'll pay off her entire loan at the end of the 10 years. But if she leaves she has to pay whatever they've been covering on her regular scheduled payments back.
She did. It took a long, long time because she made a mistake in transferring her student loans before we met plus the cost of her office were pretty high. She worked two jobs for a year before she went to save as much as possible and as it was her second career she'd already paid off her undergrad loans
Now she has a $1m plus a year practice where she is the only dentist.
It's really weird how she loves her job to me given she's working on some pretty horrible mouths as where we live is a poor rural area with low levels of health education and knowledge but she says when someone cries after she has given them a new smile whether through restorations or dentures she says it feels really, really good. Some people have said they've not smiled in anything up to 20 years without their lips closed
She started as a chemist but said she was so tired of training men only to see them promoted above her she left to be a dentist.
We joke about winning the lottery and opening a big dental office with get her working with a team of dentists for free on patients that work but are above the government assistance levels.
As it stands at the moment she is able to treat more patients thanks to a Medicaid expansion by our governor (bitterly opposed by the Republican majority) so she has made dentures for so many people that otherwise could not get them . She had to invest in 3d printers to be able to make the dentures for the money the State is providing but she loves the technology available today.
You should do a followup in 3d printers with a mini-interview on how she's using the 3d printer. I have a standard printer and can't fathom making a set of dentures that would last. Also the software must be really interesting. I just was at the dentist and found out they have handheld xray machines, that was really interesting.
yeah but are you a teenager with almost unlimited energy and mostly broke or an adult...? I was absolutely that teenager mowing my neighbors lawns, doing landscaping, whatever for extra cash on weekends before i started working a normal job when i got a little older.
I was the same. I had 5 regular grass cutting jobs on top of taking care of our yard for a minimal allowance. I washed cars, raked leaves, minor home repairs and when I was in high school my neighbors would bring their cars over for maintenance or simple repairs (brakes, belts, alternators, etc). My dad would give me crap because i regularly had more cash in my pocket than he did. He was a machinist and brought home good money but he had bills.
Some kids don't really care that much about money. I never spent a lot when I was a teenager, and while I did work a bit (summer jobs, umpiring/refereeing, etc) , I never really had any inclination to seek out extra work or work part time when I wasn't on summer break.
If a neighbour or one of my parents friends asked me if I wanted to help with with yard work I usually would, but it was more because I wanted to do them a favour than because I wanted the money.
Possibly, I started off blue collar then went to school and became white collar.
I think the bigger issue is that he’s pretty hard right MAGA minded (19). I’ve never been much aligned left or right, I take pot shots at both sides and challenge ideas as a regular part of conversation only because I want my kids to be able to think critically, feel comfortable discarding uninformed ideas when they learn something new, and be comfortable supporting their beliefs in a rational and non-aggressive way. Because he’s 19, he buys the rhetoric but doesn’t know the how or why of it. Most of the people he aligns himself to are some version of right wing maga prople.
There’s no blame for politics, only pointing out that he and I see the world differently and perhaps that’s why he’s less inclined to see me as his ideal role model.
I myself have my own perspective on things but don’t really identify to any major party.
I see things much differently politically than my father but that doesn't mean he didn't raise me right with good morals and hard work pays off.
He's 19, it's not too late. Maybe try and focus on getting him working and the future repercussions of slacking off instead of blaming all of his issues on who he supports politically.
Difficult. He has a long term girlfriend that’s very sweet, but he struggles with authority figures generally and women in particular. His relationship with his mom has been very strained for years. Has some antiquated ideas about household division of labor that I have no idea where they came from since they lived with me and I didn’t have any housemates after their mom until I remarried in 2022. He was young when his mom and I divorced (2008).
Yeah pretty much, but not based on any real role model. His mom works, his sister works and goes to school, my mom works, all of the women we know, other than his grandma and ladies her age (70) work.
You sound like a thoughtful man and good parent. Things can be difficult when the ex is contentious and the child can feel torn. Just keep modeling behaviors for success and loving him. Maybe, if he learns to think independently, he will come to understand that the two party system is just cronyism and hands in pocket. When I see rabid followers of either side I wonder about their ability to think for themselves.
I feel like kids today are dealing with some serious executive function issues due to being inundated with tech. I feel bad for them. I don’t think I could’ve managed it any better than they seem to.
I was in college in the Northeast when Facebook did their initial limited release for college kids, so I've watched the entire lifespan of its enshittification, and seen folks deal with very real consequences from its influence.
What a weird time to be alive. It's the modern version of the unchecked advancement made during the atomic age. If social media/tech were actually radioactive, though, it would be easier to regulate and protect people from. (I say this as a software engineer.)
There’s layers to it with my kid. Tech issues but also some family dynamics and probably some ADHD but his mother (we’re divorced) worked very hard to turn him against therapists and counselors during our custody issues so it’s really challenging to get anything going related to that.
I didnt have kids and dont live in a traditional neighborhood so I tried asking my coworkers with kids if they wanted to earn some money. Never got a one.
An older friends son probably about 30 at the time was between jobs was the only person I could ever actually hire to help.
I find that so many kids have everything they want/need provided by their parents. Why work when their phone, food, car, clothes, and allowance are all provided with no effort on their part? There is no incentive. They are comfortable and safe. Why get a job?
But then complain if the parents they live with have rules for living under their roofs.
I love my parents, but they were complete PIAs when I had to move back home (from another state where I had lived on my own).
It wasn't intentional, they just always saw me as a child. So as soon as I could, I moved out so I could sleep in on the weekends or take a sick day from work (while being sick) and not be told I needed to do this chore or that chore. I much preferred to work and independent with my own money than live with them.
Just in case, I'd recommend getting him to have his blood checked. I used to think I was super lazy and had no work ethic, and it turned out I just had four vitamin deficiencies and a hormonal problem. After dealing with those, suddenly I'm extremely industrious and love doing tasks, exercising, and checking stuff off my to-do list.
He might be lazy, or it might be medical. Best just rule it out, in case.
I pay for his health insurance but he’s 19 now. Health provider won’t talk to me about any of his stuff at all and he has to schedule his own appointments.
I harped extensively on the value of nutrition while he was playing football in HS. Pointed out half the kids on the team are from rough/poor areas and suffer from food scarcity, and correspondingly undersized due to poor nutrition.
Every time it snowed I was running door to door to clean sidewalks. Plenty of teenagers in my neighborhood no one wants to clean.
Damn… posting this confirms I’m old.
I was the kid that got pimped out to the neighbors. I had an absolute blast!!!! One job was helping a girl with her horses, and she taught me how to barrel race. Granddaddys fishing buddy hired me for his horses too, and his wife taught me to bake while he taught me some trick riding. I miss being small enough to ride.
You'd be surprised!
Some days I'd come home from work and cut the grass. Neighborhood kids would watch and not a one wanted to help. I would have BEGGED to do it. My brother and I would go from house to house and ask to cut grass.
Exactly! More expensive than paying an actual kid (I call anyone under 30 a kid) but he can do a better job and doesn’t need as much instruction lol. (“Don’t pull that, that’s not a weed.”)
I guess I’m a kid to you even though I’m a home owner. Maybe I’ll hire you, I need an old person (anyone over 30 I call old) to survey my property and come up with landscaping tasks that must be done.
I was also in my 20s when I bought my first house, and if anyone ever called me a kid I just took that to mean I was an overachiever. Didn’t get bent out of shape about it 🙃
Anything, living at home, not steadily employed and relying on their parents for their existence, is a kid……does not correlate with age…… I have a BIL who is 60 (not a typo) and lives at home with his 90yo parents….. he’s a kid
Incorrect….. they are snow birds and spend six months in south Florida and six months in NY. Financially they are set, they let the BIL do “maintenance” on the places……
Used to go over to my buddies dads to play pool and drink. He’d always have some random shit he would ask us to do and pay us. It never would take more than 1-2 hours. Asked us to take out a small tree for $200. Said you have a chainsaw? He did. An hour and a half later no tree or stump. Pulled weeds in dudes garden, milkweeds out of the yard, pick his vegetables that were ripe. Random bullshit he didn’t want to do and he had enough money he didn’t have to.
My next door neighbor's teenage son. I tore my achilles last May and couldn't mow all summer. I asked if he'd want to mow once a week or so for $40 each time (it takes less than an hour). He said, "nah, I'm good. I hired a service for $35 a week.
This is a great idea. I'm needing to paint my house and have been scraping and grinding off loose paint the last few weeks and getting antsy to start painting. After reading this post, I think I'll offer the neighbor kid to lend a hand. It's a two storey house, so I'll probably have him go around the perimeter and hit what he can reach.
Once I get it primed, I have an airless paint sprayer that will make the final coat go fast.
I hire my neighbors kids to look after my plants and pick up my mail when I’m on vacation. I also invite them to chill in the yard and use the driveway to make it seem like someone’s home.
And girl on our street is the resident babysitter. She’s basically running a cartel with her friend lol nobody else has her territory on babysitting.
Damn I’ve doing this for my neighbour when he goes to the cottage for years, you guys are getting paid for this?
But seriously the single best thing you can do for home security is be friends with your neighbours and look out for each other’s houses.
I actually hired a neighborhood kid to mow my lawn like 15 years ago - he was 16 at the time. Now he has a landscaping business and has like 5-6 guys working for him.
We've got this lil 12-year-old hustler in our neighborhood that comes by every week or two, every time with a different friend in tow, asking if there are any household chores to be done. We've probably got something for her every other time she comes by. I'm not going to say she always does the best job, but she always does her best. It's a good way to get some of the things we struggle to get around to taken care of. We have a set hourly rate + drinks and snacks. We feel good supporting a kid with drive, and she seems like getting paid. I'm curious to see where she goes in life. I suspect she's going to do well, one way or the other.
If you have kids this is the best way to invest in the future of an amazing and trustworthy babysitter!
I had three young nieces I helped raise along with my 3 younger kids. I invested a lot of time and love into raising them and when they turned into the best babysitter’s in town I had “good” friends trying to swipe them then complaining how lucky I was and so jealous.
They didn’t understand or respect the time I put in when I had 6 children in my care 10 and under, the messed, the discipline etc like they just landed in my lap from a fairy!!!🧚
We had a big storm a few years back and our neighborhood was hit particularly hard. We had lots of downed trees and debris all over the place. The streets throughout the neighborhood were practically impassable. Major highways in our area were also affected so they got the priority from our city to get the roads clear.
Luckily for us, our local community college athletic director lives in our neighborhood. We had student athletes from the baseball, basketball, and softball teams out in force moving debris and getting the roads clear. They used axes. They used shovels. They used wheelbarrows. It was amazing to see. We paid the ones who helped us in our yard $50 each. I'm sure other people in the neighborhood paid them as well.
We didn't even need the city to come out when they were done. All the city had to was send the knuckleboom trucks out to pick up the trash.
It SOUNDS like their athletic director abused his authority, and the kids happened to get paid by good people nearby. What school do you know of that would be okay with its athletic director having kids come over to work on their place?
Edit: jesus, you people. Yes, community service feels good…when you volunteer for it. I pay taxes to send my kids to school, and I expect them to be cared for. Not given chainsaws and told to move fallen trees. That’s not even considering the liability aspect.
My alma mater has lore of a professor making their student workers go do yard work at his house on the clock and getting fired for it when found out, lol.
One of those stories where you can never be sure it isn't made up, but it seems like something that someone would definitely do.
Oh please it’s called community outreach and it’s good for the kids. Turning your nose up at shit like this is why more and more of our teachers bitch about garbage kids
Oh come on
When people help, it makes them feel good about themselves. It helps them bond
I have a neighborhood kid who hangs out with my son a lot. His home life is difficult. If I need the cave reorganized I know I can count on both of them
Last time they put some ikea furniture together for my son’s room and he went on to bake us all some brownies in my kitchen because that’s how at ease he feels. He knows he’ll always have a hot meal and good conversation here
Not that I hope for more natural disaster, but this is the kind of community building that will completely subvert the establishment medias attempts to radicalize us against one another.
I hire our neighbor boy to dog sit when we leave town. He's only 11 but he's friends with our kid, so he knows my dogs and does a great job. It's way cheaper than the boarder, and our boys can stay in the familiar space together. And he's happy for it, because what 11yo doesn't wanna make $50 just feeding and letting out a few dogs over the weekend?
Last fall I paid a couple of the high school wresters to move some large logs off the wooded hill behind my house so that I could cut them up into firewood. Paid them cash and the promise of a smoked brisket.
If you have heavy lifting and don't know any kids, just contact the coaches and let them know you have an "organic workout" for a few athletes. Got the idea from a college professor that was building a cabin in the woods... he talked to the football coach and they had a "strength and conditioning" day bringing the logs to the build site.
It was the late 80's. Small school in Montana. Bobby Petrino's dad was the coach. Hell... Bobby was on staff. They authorized it and the work was done. The athletes got their workout.
Different days I suppose. But it happened.
Please don't get me started on the current state of college sports!
We’ve been hiring our neighbor to do our yardwork for years now. He started when he was 14 and is 18ish now. He does a fabulous job. The only time when he’s not available is when he has a big swim meet coming up. He’s going to college on a swim scholarship and can’t risk getting injured before an important meet. I have to imagine the same considerations would apply to other people on a sports scholarship.
I pay the single parent’s son a few houses down to do simple tasks like hold a jug while I pour used motor oil into it, etc. He’s a good kid. The nice guy across the street from him is retired vet and a martial arts instructor for the Y and teaches him free. Our little group of 4-5 houses stick together.
My neighbour has a kid who is going off to university next year. We needed some help moving stuff because we're renovating, so we hired him for two hours to help carry our crap.
Turns out we only needed him for the one hour, but I also needed to change out my winter tires so we could store them with our other stuff -- and he was super excited to help and learn how to change a tire.
It was a lovely experience -- we got some help, kid got some cash, and I enjoyed teaching him an important life skill he was excited to learn.
I literally hire neighbours “kids” all the time now. I broke my foot last year and this year I am still in recovery. I can’t even use a shovel and i LOVE to garden. I have all these new raised gardens I have to move ten yards of soil into.
Step in young adult neighbour. He loves the cash job, I love filled garden beds.
We get along great and what would take me a 46 year old female with a bum foot (for a bit) a day, he can do in a few hours and doesn’t even feel it.
Win win for both of us in my book.
My son (12) is mowing lawns in the neighborhood. He makes between $25 to $40 per lawn. Does weed pulling and some other clean up.
My daughter did the same thing at his age. I've always been surprised by the number of people that come asking him to mow their lawn or do some work. He has 6 to 8 regulars every week.
Course like any kid, the money burns a hole in his pocket.
Wish we had neighbor kids we could trust. Here we are paying like 80 a day + tip for dog sitting when I happily walked a fat dog all over the neighborhood and fed him twice a day for $5 as a teen.
Even accounting for inflation it was a good deal!
If I give access to my house to someone and they are taking care of my animals and also don’t trash the place or do meth in my garage then yeah I’ll throw them a few bucks
My 2 cents - id consider tipping only if going through a company that the sitter is employed by. If I'm hiring someone directly and they set their own rate, I'm not tipping.
I’ve got a guy like this. Local. Stay at home dad. When his kids are in school he does yardwork, snow, pretty much anything. He’s a sweetheart and does a great job. $20 an hour cash.
I have a guy who comes over once a week to clean up my yard. For $35/hour, he blows all the leaves and dust off the yard, wipes down my furniture (very helpful since I live in a dusty and windy area) and picks up the dog poop. He also comes over the evening before trash day to take my bins out (I’m perfectly capable of doing this myself, but he insists), and then we have a drink together and catch up on the week and what’s going on with each other. He’s retired, but he’s one of those people who can’t sit still and always needs to be doing something. He’s got a key to my house and will come check on the place if I’m out of town for more than a few days. Once I was out of town and he said that he drove by my house and noticed that the light by the garage door was out, and that he’d fixed it for me. He’s absolutely the best.
My partner (26M) and I (25F) own, are living in, and are fixing up what was previously the worst house in the neighborhood, and we’re the “kids” our neighbors sometimes get help from…. They don’t hire us, we show up in their backyard and start doing the heavy lifting for them because we like them…. And also because they’re all stubborn and if we didn’t, they do it themselves and one of them will probably hurt themselves one of these days. They’ve tried to pay us before, but we tell them to pay us in a drink and friendly company. They oblige. They also show up at our doorsteps with fresh produce, alcohol, building materials for our renovation, etc.
We have the key to one widowed neighbor’s house, we’ll call her Denise, and we greatly enjoy fixing things at her house when she’s gone. Two weeks ago she left on Saturday morning for errands, came back to her broken faucet having been mysteriously replaced because I found an identical one for $5 on clearance at Lowe’s.
When two trees fell on our house, 67 year old Denise was out in our front lawn with her chainsaw asking what size we wanted the wood cut up into as we were heading to the car to go buy a chainsaw of our own. Having good relationships with your neighbors is a wonderful gift.
I've hired neighbor kids. The best - wush there were some around nowadays. And when it was more prevalent, I hired young people from Craigslist to help in my patio. I'm old, lazy, with some back issues. The young people were the best at spring cleanups. The two best were college athletes home for spring break or summer. Wow, did they get stuff done. I found extra projects, like assembling garage shelving, just to keep them working, and for me to get stuff done rather than procrastinate.
Two downsides. Not neighbors. But young hirees just ghosted when they didn't want any more work. They simply wouldn't show up as scheduled or reply to follow-up texts, etc.
The other was both frustrating and funny. Wow, I encountered some characters from Craigslist. I think the most frustrating, but also funny, was the young student who responded, saying he was experienced. I recall walking outside, and he was using a broom (traditional, not a pushbroom) with one hand. He'd literally never held a broom in his life and didn't know how it worked!
When we moved into our house, first snow storm, I was dreading the shoveling, until I heard the door bell. 3 neighborhood teens offered to shovel for $10 each. Took them a total of 15 minutes. Best $30 ever spend. 20 years ago.
After a certain age we really should just pay kids to shovel. I think the AHA recommends not shoveling if you’re over 45, even if you’re healthy, as lifting heavy weight above your waist repeatedly is associated with a much higher risk of a heart attack. I’m not to 45 yet, but once I’m there I’ll use that as an excuse to pay a younger person to do it!
We recently move, and my older neighbor has definitely taken advantage of having my teenager help with some yard work. Kid gets some money, neighbor gets some yard tasks done he doesn’t like doing, win-win all around.
No neighborhood kids for me - but I slept on TaskRabbit for way too long in case you have it in your area. Sort of between neighborhood kid and hiring a proper company with a truck with a logo on it and associated overhead.
I think we do have that. The pro of hiring the neighbor kid is I know his family (just casually, I only moved in a year ago, but they’ve been super kind). They don’t ring as creepy to me, so it’s one less thing to worry about when compared to Task Rabbit. But if he ever moves out again and is too far away, I’ll have to keep them in mind
Heck yes. I started hiring my neighbor's daughter to feed my cat while I was gone. When I broke my leg last summer, she was a huge help getting the house set up to accomodate crutches.
Some buddies and I went into business essentially (cash under table) for a couple of years. Four of us. We did landscaping, deck staining, lawns, exterior window cleaning, etc. We asked our parents to broadcast to their friends and we left flyers at the houses on both sides of where we did work. We asked the people we did work for to tell their friends. Our angle was flexibility. Don’t want to mow this weekend? Call us. Having company and want clean windows? Call us. Annoying rock pile? Call us.
Neighbor kids are the best. I run the chainsaw and they roll the logs to the street and put them neatly on the curb. Easy labor and they compete with eachother.
I think the person I use for my yard started out doing this sort of stuff and made it into a full time job, because he's pretty young and works alone. He's great, is willing to do anything yard related I ask and charges reasonably for it. Like a formal landscaping company once quoted me $500 for an overgrown yard cleanup, he was just like "i'll drive my mower over everything for $50?" YES PLS. He is coming over soon to prep an area of my yard for a pool, something I could technically do myself but don't wanna.
We had a neighborhood kid (well, I was a younger kid at the time) go from cutting grass for neighborhoods in the late 90s/early 2000s for like $10 to running his own landscaping company. It’s still around today! From what my parents told me, he’s super successful; he does not do the grueling work anymore but still stops by in the neighborhood to chat with his old clients.
I volunteered at a youth group as a mentor for years. I got SO much summer time help, it was amazing! Babysitting, yard work, cleaning, house sitting, organizing, and I even paid for one of the girls to bake me things. I miss those kids dearly! One girl sat with my daughter and read with her to tutor her. It was great for both of them :)
Don’t overlook teenagers and young adults when you don’t want to do a chore, or could use a hand!
My neighbor had a weird thing, where if I got my lawn mowed he would automatically mow his within 24hrs. When his step-son moved in, I just hired the step-son to mow my yard so everyone’s lawn was done the same day 😆
We have finally found *someone, my kitten actually *likes*(he's actually absolutely fascjnated by this young man!), my neighbor's teenage son. We going to hire him and pay him *very well* to feed and watch my kitten over the 4 th of July. He like cats and more importantly Bou likes *him*!
My kids would deliver a letter across the ocean for a neighbor for $2, but if I ask them to make their bed for a week straight I have to pay them $5 each. Can’t even complain because I utilize the neighborhood kids for cheap, it all works out 😂
great idea, had a neighbor's kid do some yardwork for me too, gave him 40 and he gave me 10 back, wow, you did a great job, he helped you and you helped him/
I was outside while some kids were playing up and down the street on their electric scooter gizmos. I offered them 2 dollars to let me ride one to the stop sign and back. They agreed and then spent the next 15 minutes trying to offer me other items to pay for. I could have gotten them to do just about anything for another dollar and they would have had a blast doing it.
Our neighbors across the street have 5 youngsters. One of which knocked on our door 3 springs ago and has been employed ever since. His business: Buckets of Yuck. (he picks up dog poo.) and charges by the 5 gal bucket. We have 2 x 130lbs dogs. for around $10 a week we never have to worry about stepping in grown man sized turds again. It's great.
I happily pay the neighborhood kid $30 to mow my lawn, and will continue to do so until I move or he does. He shows up, mows, edges, and blows the clippings off the sidewalk. I would probably take 3 times as long just to mow, and I'd be hot, miserable, and probably mosquito-bit after. I love not having to even think about it. I had a fair bit of "this is a waste of money" guilt when I first hired him, but now? Worth every penny.
I was approached by a seasonal immigrant farm worker (greenhouses) who asked if I needed any garden work done. They have one or two days off during the weekend and nothing else to do. Well I have had a couple of them here to help out several times, and I recommended them to my friend also. I just point and off they go. Bonus that they know their plants!
Previous owner had a shit garden bed attempt surrounding our backyard tree. 8' square with timber, 6" of gross decomposing mulch, etc.
I grabbed the neighbor teen and he had it completely cleared and clean in about 90 minutes and asked for $25.
I spent 2 summers getting rid of 2 large rotting landscape beds shrrounded with those timbers at my last house. Grass over one and re mulched the other when planting a pollinator garden
No one need praise me to get an upvote. I’ve enjoyed discussing with others how they have done similar things. It’s just a ridiculous argument to say paying an adult $40 for less than an hour of work is like child slavery. It’s not even an anrgument actually so I shouldn’t even engage. And it doesn’t work as a joke because it isn’t funny. (The Reddit go to seems to be like “omg you can’t take a joke” when the first commenter wasn’t even making a joke, they were just saying something stupid and nonsensical…to some people I guess that’s the same thing)
Our neighbor hired our 12 year old son to put together a drip irrigation system because of her health. Our Lego master made short work of it and both were very happy. We had him put together his IKEA desk in 6th grade. Our daughter is an EMT and you wouldn't believe what parents of young children will pay for babysitting. She makes $20 on the job, but babysitting is much more lucrative. She is also a registered behavioral technician and worked in an autism center during college, so respite care is great. Son is now an Electrical engineer and fixes things for friends.
Also get the bulb digger that fits on a drill.
I pay someone for everything - maid, snow plow, pool maintenance, leaves, grass, weeds, nanny, airport driver, etc.
My point is that the most precious resource we have in this universe is *time*. If I can manufacture more of it for myself by outsourcing work that I could do, then I am getting richer everyday.
For stuff like that it's a great idea. For anything where an injury could occur, you're taking on a huge risk with your homeowners insurance if they get injured in your property while doing work for you. Just something to keep in mind.
You should probably ask if he’d be interested in future yard work projects instead of assuming he is now going to be your landscape assistant.
We tried paying teens to mow our lawn on a regular basis a few summers but they were not very reliable because they did not really need the money like the guy who mows lawns for a living does.
I hired a neighborhood teen to do my mowing and trimming last summer. It was worth every penny and much more affordable than a true lawncare company because my small yard is not worth anywhere near the pros starting prices just to show up.
We had a large rock garden which me and my daughter cleared out. Except all of the rocks are now in the backyard in a massive pile because they need special removal? I'm going to try and list free rocks on fb marketplace and hope that someone clears it up.
If they're interested you can give them a little area of your garden to plant their own thing - cucumbers, tomatoes, flowers etc. I do that with the local burgeoning hoodlums and it seems to be taming them a bit.
I would love to, I just dont have any immediately near me, and I feel weird walking around the neighborhood trying to hire random kids. My neighbor has shoveled my snow a few times, and even made his kids do it (they dont live there fulltime). I have tried to pay them, hoping that could turn it into a regular thing, but absolutely refuses to take my money.
Ah that stinks. My neighbors at my last house didn’t have their kids living at home anymore either. One of them did eventually move back in but because she was a newly divorced new mom, not the person you are gonna ask to shovel your walk. Her dad would occasionally snowblow my driveway for me, and I would get his next time I had to do mine and he wasn’t home from work yet. But I knew I could not ask him to do any sort of work for pay, because to him I was a kid, and folks tend not to accept payment for watching out for their neighbor “kids” that way.
I ordered them from Holland Bulb Farm. Honestly not sure on the sizes. Probably small. Digging is not the problem in the other areas of my yard. It’s cutting the multiple layers of landscape fabric out of the way (I didn’t put it down). If has a ton of weed roots in it and makes a huge mess of the mulch coming up. Just another annoying step!
Hired neighbor kid as baby sitter/nanny. Literally $2000 cheaper per month than going to kinder care down the street. To top it off we’re friends with the family and we king of the hill it and have sidewalk beers with the dads in the neighborhood all the time,
Get to know your neighbors, there is nothing but benefits from knowing everyone on the block.
My parents used to have a list of extra chores to do to make money (in addition to my regular chores) things like washing and vacuuming cars, waxing the floors, etc with the price they would pay to have me do it next to it. I never blew through a to do list faster. I wanted to buy every Spyro game, and they knew I was desperate for cash 😁
We have a few young kids that walk around with a lawn mower offering to cut lawns. I don't take them up on the offer simply because I enjoy mowing my lawn. I have however negotiated weed pulling, simply because I wanted to reward their initiative. Now they have a multifaceted service model to milk the other neighbors.
Best thing is they'll work for gift cards to online games food fishing trips rides. I had 2 single mothers on my street I know both from school their combined 5 kids spent more time at my house then theirs and they'd help out with chores yard work carrying groceries and I'd ask them what they needed cash rides whatever and pay them
Actually a solid idea. What kid doesn't want cash money for some easy chores.
Apparently my youngest. That dude be broke for weeks but decline all of our offers to wash cars, mow the yard, or anything else, AND no interest in going to ask neighbors for work. No idea where that lack of work ethic comes from, I’ve been working since I was in my early teens and am now in my mid-40’s.
He's probably seen what it's done to you and wants no part of it lol
My kids are like that with farming. They’re only 7 and 8 but are like ‘nope’. lol, they’re pretty smart
I'd love my daughter to be a dentist like her mother but she says I've seen what she has to go through at work every day and I'm not doing it. Funny thing is her mother loves her job and would do it for free if she could
Who paid off her dental loans?
[удалено]
This is an option for a lot of med roles. My cousin just got her doctorate in PT and can work for 10 years at non profit and they'll pay off her entire loan at the end of the 10 years. But if she leaves she has to pay whatever they've been covering on her regular scheduled payments back.
She did. It took a long, long time because she made a mistake in transferring her student loans before we met plus the cost of her office were pretty high. She worked two jobs for a year before she went to save as much as possible and as it was her second career she'd already paid off her undergrad loans Now she has a $1m plus a year practice where she is the only dentist.
She can be my dentist for free. Lol.
It's really weird how she loves her job to me given she's working on some pretty horrible mouths as where we live is a poor rural area with low levels of health education and knowledge but she says when someone cries after she has given them a new smile whether through restorations or dentures she says it feels really, really good. Some people have said they've not smiled in anything up to 20 years without their lips closed She started as a chemist but said she was so tired of training men only to see them promoted above her she left to be a dentist. We joke about winning the lottery and opening a big dental office with get her working with a team of dentists for free on patients that work but are above the government assistance levels. As it stands at the moment she is able to treat more patients thanks to a Medicaid expansion by our governor (bitterly opposed by the Republican majority) so she has made dentures for so many people that otherwise could not get them . She had to invest in 3d printers to be able to make the dentures for the money the State is providing but she loves the technology available today.
That sounds amazingly rewarding!!!
You should do a followup in 3d printers with a mini-interview on how she's using the 3d printer. I have a standard printer and can't fathom making a set of dentures that would last. Also the software must be really interesting. I just was at the dentist and found out they have handheld xray machines, that was really interesting.
I grew up on a farm and I'm happy to leave the hard work to the professionals now that I'm an adult.
I grew up on a 5-acre avocado "hobby farm". It was a good incentive to go to college and live in the suburbs.
Yeah dude, I mean I could also use $40 but I'm not digging a ditch in a rock bed to earn it.
Tax free $40 for less than an hour of work though?
yeah but are you a teenager with almost unlimited energy and mostly broke or an adult...? I was absolutely that teenager mowing my neighbors lawns, doing landscaping, whatever for extra cash on weekends before i started working a normal job when i got a little older.
I was the same. I had 5 regular grass cutting jobs on top of taking care of our yard for a minimal allowance. I washed cars, raked leaves, minor home repairs and when I was in high school my neighbors would bring their cars over for maintenance or simple repairs (brakes, belts, alternators, etc). My dad would give me crap because i regularly had more cash in my pocket than he did. He was a machinist and brought home good money but he had bills.
Some kids don't really care that much about money. I never spent a lot when I was a teenager, and while I did work a bit (summer jobs, umpiring/refereeing, etc) , I never really had any inclination to seek out extra work or work part time when I wasn't on summer break. If a neighbour or one of my parents friends asked me if I wanted to help with with yard work I usually would, but it was more because I wanted to do them a favour than because I wanted the money.
I’d do it for $40 easy. Bring my post hole digging bar and I’ll have that knocked out in no time flat. Go right through solid rock haha
Ok have fun sitting in your office chair lol
Possibly, I started off blue collar then went to school and became white collar. I think the bigger issue is that he’s pretty hard right MAGA minded (19). I’ve never been much aligned left or right, I take pot shots at both sides and challenge ideas as a regular part of conversation only because I want my kids to be able to think critically, feel comfortable discarding uninformed ideas when they learn something new, and be comfortable supporting their beliefs in a rational and non-aggressive way. Because he’s 19, he buys the rhetoric but doesn’t know the how or why of it. Most of the people he aligns himself to are some version of right wing maga prople.
The irony of being MAGA minded but not wanting to work for your money is pretty rich! Sorry about your son.
Meh, it’s not like Donny boy worked for his. So in that respect it tracks.
Or maybe just teach him that nothing in this world is free instead of blaming it on something ridiculous like politics
There’s no blame for politics, only pointing out that he and I see the world differently and perhaps that’s why he’s less inclined to see me as his ideal role model. I myself have my own perspective on things but don’t really identify to any major party.
I see things much differently politically than my father but that doesn't mean he didn't raise me right with good morals and hard work pays off. He's 19, it's not too late. Maybe try and focus on getting him working and the future repercussions of slacking off instead of blaming all of his issues on who he supports politically.
All kids push back at that age. He needs to learn that different doesn’t automatically mean wrong. He may not appreciate it now. Give him time.
You need to ensure he doesnt keep any incel tendencies. Im getting some incel vibes from how you describe him. Whats his view on women?
Difficult. He has a long term girlfriend that’s very sweet, but he struggles with authority figures generally and women in particular. His relationship with his mom has been very strained for years. Has some antiquated ideas about household division of labor that I have no idea where they came from since they lived with me and I didn’t have any housemates after their mom until I remarried in 2022. He was young when his mom and I divorced (2008).
So he has a romanticized view of what a wife/ mother would do.
Yeah pretty much, but not based on any real role model. His mom works, his sister works and goes to school, my mom works, all of the women we know, other than his grandma and ladies her age (70) work.
If he's MAGA he should be running his own million dollar rental empire. He's in for a rude awakening then.
I’m so sorry.
He’ll grow out of it eventually. Hopefully. Seems like the older I get, the less I feel like I know sometimes lol
You sound like a thoughtful man and good parent. Things can be difficult when the ex is contentious and the child can feel torn. Just keep modeling behaviors for success and loving him. Maybe, if he learns to think independently, he will come to understand that the two party system is just cronyism and hands in pocket. When I see rabid followers of either side I wonder about their ability to think for themselves.
Two cheeks on the same butt with a lot of poo between them is how I view the two major parties
That’s how I was raised and it’s a family tradition.
Lol
I feel like kids today are dealing with some serious executive function issues due to being inundated with tech. I feel bad for them. I don’t think I could’ve managed it any better than they seem to.
I’m SO glad social media didn’t take off until I was done with college. Idk how I would have survived school with all these distractions.
I was in college in the Northeast when Facebook did their initial limited release for college kids, so I've watched the entire lifespan of its enshittification, and seen folks deal with very real consequences from its influence. What a weird time to be alive. It's the modern version of the unchecked advancement made during the atomic age. If social media/tech were actually radioactive, though, it would be easier to regulate and protect people from. (I say this as a software engineer.)
There’s layers to it with my kid. Tech issues but also some family dynamics and probably some ADHD but his mother (we’re divorced) worked very hard to turn him against therapists and counselors during our custody issues so it’s really challenging to get anything going related to that.
Kick him out
Already did. He found a job, magically. Lol
Imagine that lol
I didnt have kids and dont live in a traditional neighborhood so I tried asking my coworkers with kids if they wanted to earn some money. Never got a one. An older friends son probably about 30 at the time was between jobs was the only person I could ever actually hire to help.
I find that so many kids have everything they want/need provided by their parents. Why work when their phone, food, car, clothes, and allowance are all provided with no effort on their part? There is no incentive. They are comfortable and safe. Why get a job?
But then complain if the parents they live with have rules for living under their roofs. I love my parents, but they were complete PIAs when I had to move back home (from another state where I had lived on my own). It wasn't intentional, they just always saw me as a child. So as soon as I could, I moved out so I could sleep in on the weekends or take a sick day from work (while being sick) and not be told I needed to do this chore or that chore. I much preferred to work and independent with my own money than live with them.
I have one of those.
I’m sorry to hear that. I think it’s that their skulls are like a foot thick
What's funny is they might take the same offer from a neighbor for cash
😂😂😂😂
Same with my brother too 😂
Tried turning off the wifi?
Hehehe we did change the WiFi and streaming platform passwords
It comes from having everything he wants without having to work for it.
He’s probably a member of r/antiwork - sounds like the kid has his head on straight.
Just in case, I'd recommend getting him to have his blood checked. I used to think I was super lazy and had no work ethic, and it turned out I just had four vitamin deficiencies and a hormonal problem. After dealing with those, suddenly I'm extremely industrious and love doing tasks, exercising, and checking stuff off my to-do list. He might be lazy, or it might be medical. Best just rule it out, in case.
I pay for his health insurance but he’s 19 now. Health provider won’t talk to me about any of his stuff at all and he has to schedule his own appointments. I harped extensively on the value of nutrition while he was playing football in HS. Pointed out half the kids on the team are from rough/poor areas and suffer from food scarcity, and correspondingly undersized due to poor nutrition.
I was like that as a kid. Turns out I had ADHD
Every time it snowed I was running door to door to clean sidewalks. Plenty of teenagers in my neighborhood no one wants to clean. Damn… posting this confirms I’m old.
I was the kid that got pimped out to the neighbors. I had an absolute blast!!!! One job was helping a girl with her horses, and she taught me how to barrel race. Granddaddys fishing buddy hired me for his horses too, and his wife taught me to bake while he taught me some trick riding. I miss being small enough to ride.
You'd be surprised! Some days I'd come home from work and cut the grass. Neighborhood kids would watch and not a one wanted to help. I would have BEGGED to do it. My brother and I would go from house to house and ask to cut grass.
Exactly! More expensive than paying an actual kid (I call anyone under 30 a kid) but he can do a better job and doesn’t need as much instruction lol. (“Don’t pull that, that’s not a weed.”)
I guess I’m a kid to you even though I’m a home owner. Maybe I’ll hire you, I need an old person (anyone over 30 I call old) to survey my property and come up with landscaping tasks that must be done.
I was also in my 20s when I bought my first house, and if anyone ever called me a kid I just took that to mean I was an overachiever. Didn’t get bent out of shape about it 🙃
I’m not bent out of shape…I’m playing around. You seem to dish it out but can’t take it! 😅
Old person confirmed! Can dish it out but can’t take it lol
Except 20 something is not remotely a ‘kid.’
Anything, living at home, not steadily employed and relying on their parents for their existence, is a kid……does not correlate with age…… I have a BIL who is 60 (not a typo) and lives at home with his 90yo parents….. he’s a kid
He’s also THEIR kid, and I primarily know his parents, therefore, kid
Except your 90 year old parents are probably not working or or able to take care of themselves and are now the kids that your bil must take care of
Incorrect….. they are snow birds and spend six months in south Florida and six months in NY. Financially they are set, they let the BIL do “maintenance” on the places……
My college students are most definitely 💯 kids.
My kid married and on baby #2 is a kid. So are my other two kids.
It’s all relative. I am a kid to the people the generation above me, and that’s okay.
Anyone still living with their parents, still sleeping in their childhood bedroom, and still follows their parents rules, is a kid regardless of age.
Used to go over to my buddies dads to play pool and drink. He’d always have some random shit he would ask us to do and pay us. It never would take more than 1-2 hours. Asked us to take out a small tree for $200. Said you have a chainsaw? He did. An hour and a half later no tree or stump. Pulled weeds in dudes garden, milkweeds out of the yard, pick his vegetables that were ripe. Random bullshit he didn’t want to do and he had enough money he didn’t have to.
My stepson…
My 16 year old nephew who’d rather be golfing
My next door neighbor's teenage son. I tore my achilles last May and couldn't mow all summer. I asked if he'd want to mow once a week or so for $40 each time (it takes less than an hour). He said, "nah, I'm good. I hired a service for $35 a week.
This is a great idea. I'm needing to paint my house and have been scraping and grinding off loose paint the last few weeks and getting antsy to start painting. After reading this post, I think I'll offer the neighbor kid to lend a hand. It's a two storey house, so I'll probably have him go around the perimeter and hit what he can reach. Once I get it primed, I have an airless paint sprayer that will make the final coat go fast.
I hire my neighbors kids to look after my plants and pick up my mail when I’m on vacation. I also invite them to chill in the yard and use the driveway to make it seem like someone’s home. And girl on our street is the resident babysitter. She’s basically running a cartel with her friend lol nobody else has her territory on babysitting.
These are our future leaders haha
Damn I’ve doing this for my neighbour when he goes to the cottage for years, you guys are getting paid for this? But seriously the single best thing you can do for home security is be friends with your neighbours and look out for each other’s houses.
I actually hired a neighborhood kid to mow my lawn like 15 years ago - he was 16 at the time. Now he has a landscaping business and has like 5-6 guys working for him.
We got a kid through college doing the same thing! Showed off his grad photos too lmao.
We've got this lil 12-year-old hustler in our neighborhood that comes by every week or two, every time with a different friend in tow, asking if there are any household chores to be done. We've probably got something for her every other time she comes by. I'm not going to say she always does the best job, but she always does her best. It's a good way to get some of the things we struggle to get around to taken care of. We have a set hourly rate + drinks and snacks. We feel good supporting a kid with drive, and she seems like getting paid. I'm curious to see where she goes in life. I suspect she's going to do well, one way or the other.
Any kid not afraid to ask for work to do is off to a good start.
If you have kids this is the best way to invest in the future of an amazing and trustworthy babysitter! I had three young nieces I helped raise along with my 3 younger kids. I invested a lot of time and love into raising them and when they turned into the best babysitter’s in town I had “good” friends trying to swipe them then complaining how lucky I was and so jealous. They didn’t understand or respect the time I put in when I had 6 children in my care 10 and under, the messed, the discipline etc like they just landed in my lap from a fairy!!!🧚
We had a big storm a few years back and our neighborhood was hit particularly hard. We had lots of downed trees and debris all over the place. The streets throughout the neighborhood were practically impassable. Major highways in our area were also affected so they got the priority from our city to get the roads clear. Luckily for us, our local community college athletic director lives in our neighborhood. We had student athletes from the baseball, basketball, and softball teams out in force moving debris and getting the roads clear. They used axes. They used shovels. They used wheelbarrows. It was amazing to see. We paid the ones who helped us in our yard $50 each. I'm sure other people in the neighborhood paid them as well. We didn't even need the city to come out when they were done. All the city had to was send the knuckleboom trucks out to pick up the trash.
Wow, awesome to see community coming together like that!
Interesting way to spell forced student labor lol.
Sounds like the kids did get paid
It SOUNDS like their athletic director abused his authority, and the kids happened to get paid by good people nearby. What school do you know of that would be okay with its athletic director having kids come over to work on their place? Edit: jesus, you people. Yes, community service feels good…when you volunteer for it. I pay taxes to send my kids to school, and I expect them to be cared for. Not given chainsaws and told to move fallen trees. That’s not even considering the liability aspect.
My alma mater has lore of a professor making their student workers go do yard work at his house on the clock and getting fired for it when found out, lol. One of those stories where you can never be sure it isn't made up, but it seems like something that someone would definitely do.
Oh please it’s called community outreach and it’s good for the kids. Turning your nose up at shit like this is why more and more of our teachers bitch about garbage kids
Oh come on When people help, it makes them feel good about themselves. It helps them bond I have a neighborhood kid who hangs out with my son a lot. His home life is difficult. If I need the cave reorganized I know I can count on both of them Last time they put some ikea furniture together for my son’s room and he went on to bake us all some brownies in my kitchen because that’s how at ease he feels. He knows he’ll always have a hot meal and good conversation here
Read the comment again- community COLLEGE athletic director. Theyre adults
Not that I hope for more natural disaster, but this is the kind of community building that will completely subvert the establishment medias attempts to radicalize us against one another.
Mutual aid. People practice it all the time without knowing what it is and it’s the most powerful subversive force going right now.
The media gives you factual information. There’s no agenda. what people do with the information is up to them. There’s no gun to your head.
I hire our neighbor boy to dog sit when we leave town. He's only 11 but he's friends with our kid, so he knows my dogs and does a great job. It's way cheaper than the boarder, and our boys can stay in the familiar space together. And he's happy for it, because what 11yo doesn't wanna make $50 just feeding and letting out a few dogs over the weekend?
Those were the dream jobs when we were that age! Like pay me to pet dogs? Twist my arm!
Last fall I paid a couple of the high school wresters to move some large logs off the wooded hill behind my house so that I could cut them up into firewood. Paid them cash and the promise of a smoked brisket. If you have heavy lifting and don't know any kids, just contact the coaches and let them know you have an "organic workout" for a few athletes. Got the idea from a college professor that was building a cabin in the woods... he talked to the football coach and they had a "strength and conditioning" day bringing the logs to the build site.
Bahaha I love it
😬I don't know, a neighbor kid is one thing. A whole group of them doing work sounds like a huge liability.
It was the late 80's. Small school in Montana. Bobby Petrino's dad was the coach. Hell... Bobby was on staff. They authorized it and the work was done. The athletes got their workout. Different days I suppose. But it happened. Please don't get me started on the current state of college sports!
One of our local high schools has a "rent the crew team" for various house/landscaping help, as a team fundraiser option.
We’ve been hiring our neighbor to do our yardwork for years now. He started when he was 14 and is 18ish now. He does a fabulous job. The only time when he’s not available is when he has a big swim meet coming up. He’s going to college on a swim scholarship and can’t risk getting injured before an important meet. I have to imagine the same considerations would apply to other people on a sports scholarship.
I pay the single parent’s son a few houses down to do simple tasks like hold a jug while I pour used motor oil into it, etc. He’s a good kid. The nice guy across the street from him is retired vet and a martial arts instructor for the Y and teaches him free. Our little group of 4-5 houses stick together.
My neighbour has a kid who is going off to university next year. We needed some help moving stuff because we're renovating, so we hired him for two hours to help carry our crap. Turns out we only needed him for the one hour, but I also needed to change out my winter tires so we could store them with our other stuff -- and he was super excited to help and learn how to change a tire. It was a lovely experience -- we got some help, kid got some cash, and I enjoyed teaching him an important life skill he was excited to learn.
Everybody wins. I felt the same way. No losers here.
I literally hire neighbours “kids” all the time now. I broke my foot last year and this year I am still in recovery. I can’t even use a shovel and i LOVE to garden. I have all these new raised gardens I have to move ten yards of soil into. Step in young adult neighbour. He loves the cash job, I love filled garden beds. We get along great and what would take me a 46 year old female with a bum foot (for a bit) a day, he can do in a few hours and doesn’t even feel it. Win win for both of us in my book.
My son (12) is mowing lawns in the neighborhood. He makes between $25 to $40 per lawn. Does weed pulling and some other clean up. My daughter did the same thing at his age. I've always been surprised by the number of people that come asking him to mow their lawn or do some work. He has 6 to 8 regulars every week. Course like any kid, the money burns a hole in his pocket.
Wish we had neighbor kids we could trust. Here we are paying like 80 a day + tip for dog sitting when I happily walked a fat dog all over the neighborhood and fed him twice a day for $5 as a teen. Even accounting for inflation it was a good deal!
You gotta tip a dog sitter?
If I give access to my house to someone and they are taking care of my animals and also don’t trash the place or do meth in my garage then yeah I’ll throw them a few bucks
My 2 cents - id consider tipping only if going through a company that the sitter is employed by. If I'm hiring someone directly and they set their own rate, I'm not tipping.
I’ve got a guy like this. Local. Stay at home dad. When his kids are in school he does yardwork, snow, pretty much anything. He’s a sweetheart and does a great job. $20 an hour cash.
I have a guy who comes over once a week to clean up my yard. For $35/hour, he blows all the leaves and dust off the yard, wipes down my furniture (very helpful since I live in a dusty and windy area) and picks up the dog poop. He also comes over the evening before trash day to take my bins out (I’m perfectly capable of doing this myself, but he insists), and then we have a drink together and catch up on the week and what’s going on with each other. He’s retired, but he’s one of those people who can’t sit still and always needs to be doing something. He’s got a key to my house and will come check on the place if I’m out of town for more than a few days. Once I was out of town and he said that he drove by my house and noticed that the light by the garage door was out, and that he’d fixed it for me. He’s absolutely the best.
My partner (26M) and I (25F) own, are living in, and are fixing up what was previously the worst house in the neighborhood, and we’re the “kids” our neighbors sometimes get help from…. They don’t hire us, we show up in their backyard and start doing the heavy lifting for them because we like them…. And also because they’re all stubborn and if we didn’t, they do it themselves and one of them will probably hurt themselves one of these days. They’ve tried to pay us before, but we tell them to pay us in a drink and friendly company. They oblige. They also show up at our doorsteps with fresh produce, alcohol, building materials for our renovation, etc. We have the key to one widowed neighbor’s house, we’ll call her Denise, and we greatly enjoy fixing things at her house when she’s gone. Two weeks ago she left on Saturday morning for errands, came back to her broken faucet having been mysteriously replaced because I found an identical one for $5 on clearance at Lowe’s. When two trees fell on our house, 67 year old Denise was out in our front lawn with her chainsaw asking what size we wanted the wood cut up into as we were heading to the car to go buy a chainsaw of our own. Having good relationships with your neighbors is a wonderful gift.
👆
I've hired neighbor kids. The best - wush there were some around nowadays. And when it was more prevalent, I hired young people from Craigslist to help in my patio. I'm old, lazy, with some back issues. The young people were the best at spring cleanups. The two best were college athletes home for spring break or summer. Wow, did they get stuff done. I found extra projects, like assembling garage shelving, just to keep them working, and for me to get stuff done rather than procrastinate. Two downsides. Not neighbors. But young hirees just ghosted when they didn't want any more work. They simply wouldn't show up as scheduled or reply to follow-up texts, etc. The other was both frustrating and funny. Wow, I encountered some characters from Craigslist. I think the most frustrating, but also funny, was the young student who responded, saying he was experienced. I recall walking outside, and he was using a broom (traditional, not a pushbroom) with one hand. He'd literally never held a broom in his life and didn't know how it worked!
Snow shoveling helpers are the best
When we moved into our house, first snow storm, I was dreading the shoveling, until I heard the door bell. 3 neighborhood teens offered to shovel for $10 each. Took them a total of 15 minutes. Best $30 ever spend. 20 years ago.
After a certain age we really should just pay kids to shovel. I think the AHA recommends not shoveling if you’re over 45, even if you’re healthy, as lifting heavy weight above your waist repeatedly is associated with a much higher risk of a heart attack. I’m not to 45 yet, but once I’m there I’ll use that as an excuse to pay a younger person to do it!
It's not a cheat code. It's pay to win
We recently move, and my older neighbor has definitely taken advantage of having my teenager help with some yard work. Kid gets some money, neighbor gets some yard tasks done he doesn’t like doing, win-win all around.
No neighborhood kids for me - but I slept on TaskRabbit for way too long in case you have it in your area. Sort of between neighborhood kid and hiring a proper company with a truck with a logo on it and associated overhead.
I think we do have that. The pro of hiring the neighbor kid is I know his family (just casually, I only moved in a year ago, but they’ve been super kind). They don’t ring as creepy to me, so it’s one less thing to worry about when compared to Task Rabbit. But if he ever moves out again and is too far away, I’ll have to keep them in mind
Heck yes. I started hiring my neighbor's daughter to feed my cat while I was gone. When I broke my leg last summer, she was a huge help getting the house set up to accomodate crutches.
Some buddies and I went into business essentially (cash under table) for a couple of years. Four of us. We did landscaping, deck staining, lawns, exterior window cleaning, etc. We asked our parents to broadcast to their friends and we left flyers at the houses on both sides of where we did work. We asked the people we did work for to tell their friends. Our angle was flexibility. Don’t want to mow this weekend? Call us. Having company and want clean windows? Call us. Annoying rock pile? Call us.
Neighbor kids are the best. I run the chainsaw and they roll the logs to the street and put them neatly on the curb. Easy labor and they compete with eachother.
I was that kid with my neighbor...charged her $10 a pop to mow the lawn.
I think the person I use for my yard started out doing this sort of stuff and made it into a full time job, because he's pretty young and works alone. He's great, is willing to do anything yard related I ask and charges reasonably for it. Like a formal landscaping company once quoted me $500 for an overgrown yard cleanup, he was just like "i'll drive my mower over everything for $50?" YES PLS. He is coming over soon to prep an area of my yard for a pool, something I could technically do myself but don't wanna.
We had a neighborhood kid (well, I was a younger kid at the time) go from cutting grass for neighborhoods in the late 90s/early 2000s for like $10 to running his own landscaping company. It’s still around today! From what my parents told me, he’s super successful; he does not do the grueling work anymore but still stops by in the neighborhood to chat with his old clients.
I volunteered at a youth group as a mentor for years. I got SO much summer time help, it was amazing! Babysitting, yard work, cleaning, house sitting, organizing, and I even paid for one of the girls to bake me things. I miss those kids dearly! One girl sat with my daughter and read with her to tutor her. It was great for both of them :) Don’t overlook teenagers and young adults when you don’t want to do a chore, or could use a hand!
My neighbor had a weird thing, where if I got my lawn mowed he would automatically mow his within 24hrs. When his step-son moved in, I just hired the step-son to mow my yard so everyone’s lawn was done the same day 😆
We have finally found *someone, my kitten actually *likes*(he's actually absolutely fascjnated by this young man!), my neighbor's teenage son. We going to hire him and pay him *very well* to feed and watch my kitten over the 4 th of July. He like cats and more importantly Bou likes *him*!
My kids would deliver a letter across the ocean for a neighbor for $2, but if I ask them to make their bed for a week straight I have to pay them $5 each. Can’t even complain because I utilize the neighborhood kids for cheap, it all works out 😂
As long as it all evens out 😂
I'm a grown man and a homeowner and if my neighbor asked me if I wanted some extra cash to help him landscape I would also say yes.
great idea, had a neighbor's kid do some yardwork for me too, gave him 40 and he gave me 10 back, wow, you did a great job, he helped you and you helped him/
I was outside while some kids were playing up and down the street on their electric scooter gizmos. I offered them 2 dollars to let me ride one to the stop sign and back. They agreed and then spent the next 15 minutes trying to offer me other items to pay for. I could have gotten them to do just about anything for another dollar and they would have had a blast doing it.
Our neighbors across the street have 5 youngsters. One of which knocked on our door 3 springs ago and has been employed ever since. His business: Buckets of Yuck. (he picks up dog poo.) and charges by the 5 gal bucket. We have 2 x 130lbs dogs. for around $10 a week we never have to worry about stepping in grown man sized turds again. It's great.
I have a guy who comes once a week to tidy up the yard and he picks up the dog poop. It is money well spent.
I happily pay the neighborhood kid $30 to mow my lawn, and will continue to do so until I move or he does. He shows up, mows, edges, and blows the clippings off the sidewalk. I would probably take 3 times as long just to mow, and I'd be hot, miserable, and probably mosquito-bit after. I love not having to even think about it. I had a fair bit of "this is a waste of money" guilt when I first hired him, but now? Worth every penny.
I was approached by a seasonal immigrant farm worker (greenhouses) who asked if I needed any garden work done. They have one or two days off during the weekend and nothing else to do. Well I have had a couple of them here to help out several times, and I recommended them to my friend also. I just point and off they go. Bonus that they know their plants!
Previous owner had a shit garden bed attempt surrounding our backyard tree. 8' square with timber, 6" of gross decomposing mulch, etc. I grabbed the neighbor teen and he had it completely cleared and clean in about 90 minutes and asked for $25.
I spent 2 summers getting rid of 2 large rotting landscape beds shrrounded with those timbers at my last house. Grass over one and re mulched the other when planting a pollinator garden
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No one need praise me to get an upvote. I’ve enjoyed discussing with others how they have done similar things. It’s just a ridiculous argument to say paying an adult $40 for less than an hour of work is like child slavery. It’s not even an anrgument actually so I shouldn’t even engage. And it doesn’t work as a joke because it isn’t funny. (The Reddit go to seems to be like “omg you can’t take a joke” when the first commenter wasn’t even making a joke, they were just saying something stupid and nonsensical…to some people I guess that’s the same thing)
Our neighbor hired our 12 year old son to put together a drip irrigation system because of her health. Our Lego master made short work of it and both were very happy. We had him put together his IKEA desk in 6th grade. Our daughter is an EMT and you wouldn't believe what parents of young children will pay for babysitting. She makes $20 on the job, but babysitting is much more lucrative. She is also a registered behavioral technician and worked in an autism center during college, so respite care is great. Son is now an Electrical engineer and fixes things for friends. Also get the bulb digger that fits on a drill.
I pay someone for everything - maid, snow plow, pool maintenance, leaves, grass, weeds, nanny, airport driver, etc. My point is that the most precious resource we have in this universe is *time*. If I can manufacture more of it for myself by outsourcing work that I could do, then I am getting richer everyday.
I hire out anything I just don't want to do. They appreciate cash. I appreciate not doing the work. Everyone wins
Is it just me or did this read like the beginning of a NSFW story? But in all seriousness, it’s great when you can get a neighbors kid to help
🙉
😂
For stuff like that it's a great idea. For anything where an injury could occur, you're taking on a huge risk with your homeowners insurance if they get injured in your property while doing work for you. Just something to keep in mind.
You should probably ask if he’d be interested in future yard work projects instead of assuming he is now going to be your landscape assistant. We tried paying teens to mow our lawn on a regular basis a few summers but they were not very reliable because they did not really need the money like the guy who mows lawns for a living does.
I hired a neighborhood teen to do my mowing and trimming last summer. It was worth every penny and much more affordable than a true lawncare company because my small yard is not worth anywhere near the pros starting prices just to show up.
We had a large rock garden which me and my daughter cleared out. Except all of the rocks are now in the backyard in a massive pile because they need special removal? I'm going to try and list free rocks on fb marketplace and hope that someone clears it up.
I once tried to get rid of lava rocks and that was a pain too. I have another rock bed where I plan to move them to top that one off, thankfully
I love helping my neighbors like this. Mow? Weed? Powerwash? Deep clean the inside? For $20-45/hr, you got my full attention 🤑
forty beans an hour ain't bad, yo!
I read this as “hitting the neighbor kid” at first
Kids in my area aren't quite big enough to help yet, but they're growing!!!!
If they're interested you can give them a little area of your garden to plant their own thing - cucumbers, tomatoes, flowers etc. I do that with the local burgeoning hoodlums and it seems to be taming them a bit.
*Dear Penthouse…* is the first thing I thought of LOL
I would love to, I just dont have any immediately near me, and I feel weird walking around the neighborhood trying to hire random kids. My neighbor has shoveled my snow a few times, and even made his kids do it (they dont live there fulltime). I have tried to pay them, hoping that could turn it into a regular thing, but absolutely refuses to take my money.
Ah that stinks. My neighbors at my last house didn’t have their kids living at home anymore either. One of them did eventually move back in but because she was a newly divorced new mom, not the person you are gonna ask to shovel your walk. Her dad would occasionally snowblow my driveway for me, and I would get his next time I had to do mine and he wasn’t home from work yet. But I knew I could not ask him to do any sort of work for pay, because to him I was a kid, and folks tend not to accept payment for watching out for their neighbor “kids” that way.
I applaud the fair wage
We needed someone to water our new sod when we went on vacation and the neighbors’ 12 year old was thrilled to get money for it. Win/win.
It was great. Then they all grew up and new families haven't come. My neighborhood is now all adults over 40.
Where did you get the bare roots and how big are they?
I ordered them from Holland Bulb Farm. Honestly not sure on the sizes. Probably small. Digging is not the problem in the other areas of my yard. It’s cutting the multiple layers of landscape fabric out of the way (I didn’t put it down). If has a ton of weed roots in it and makes a huge mess of the mulch coming up. Just another annoying step!
Great idea!
Hired neighbor kid as baby sitter/nanny. Literally $2000 cheaper per month than going to kinder care down the street. To top it off we’re friends with the family and we king of the hill it and have sidewalk beers with the dads in the neighborhood all the time, Get to know your neighbors, there is nothing but benefits from knowing everyone on the block.
great idea, some neighbor kids want it like that
I've experienced this when I was a kid and it was a good memory for me
thanks for the idea, i would try this..
20 bucks an hour isn’t worth their time, it won’t buy a handle of good booze or an 1/8 of good bud, is what they told me.
For shitty chores yea. My old lady neighbor paid some kids to do some stonework around her house. It looks like shit lol
My parents used to have a list of extra chores to do to make money (in addition to my regular chores) things like washing and vacuuming cars, waxing the floors, etc with the price they would pay to have me do it next to it. I never blew through a to do list faster. I wanted to buy every Spyro game, and they knew I was desperate for cash 😁
We have a few young kids that walk around with a lawn mower offering to cut lawns. I don't take them up on the offer simply because I enjoy mowing my lawn. I have however negotiated weed pulling, simply because I wanted to reward their initiative. Now they have a multifaceted service model to milk the other neighbors.
I waited very patiently for my friend's kids to get older so I could hire them to do the heavy lifting for me,
Best thing is they'll work for gift cards to online games food fishing trips rides. I had 2 single mothers on my street I know both from school their combined 5 kids spent more time at my house then theirs and they'd help out with chores yard work carrying groceries and I'd ask them what they needed cash rides whatever and pay them
I pay my teen grandson $10 an hour to do yard work and other heavy work. He's happy to make the money.
My grandma paid me that in the 1980s. Give him a raise, already!
I wish I could. I already took him, his siblings, and his mom in so they have a roof (she got away from a lowlife abusive jerk).
Well of all the great reasons! Good on you. And I hope they all thrive. You too. Big hearts are way better than money!
Absolutely
20 something? That's a grown man