to think £20 an hour is too much for a gardener?

[toastlover100]

My elderly gran has just told me that her gardener has put his hourly rate up from £15 to £20.

This seems like a lot to me, and a bit percentage increase too!

I have 3 large areas of grass. My gardner cuts and strims the lot for £30. He makes a great job - worth every penny.
Could your Grandmother ask him if he does pensioners rates?

Or maybe he's just worked out that given the enormous cost of living increases we've seen in the real world

Which is fine however the Ops gran is elderly and likely to be more vulnerable to just agreeing to the price increase, it is obviously a worry to her as she mentioned it to the Op. I assume that gran is living off a pension and does not have lots of disposable income whilst also dealing with the cost of living increases.

It's not unreasonable to question why there has been such a large increase in an hourly rate.

My gardener is £25 ph - I'm paying for her expertise and her hard work. The garden looks fab when she's been.
I was paying £15 over 15 years ago.

We pay £40 for 2hrs.

Heard plenty of stories from the otherside of little old men and ladies who get their lawns mowed for a slice of cake and a cup of tea; but a few months down the line there's some proper landscaping going on - for the same slice of cake.

It does seem like a big increase but could it be the first increase in a number of years?

It isn't an ridiculous amount to pay. Gardener will have cost of travel to/from there (vehicle, vehicle tax, insurance, petrol & time), cost of all of the tools, possibly PI insurance, time/ cost for accounting, pay taxes and maybe more before he/she gets their wage from it all.

I charge more than that per hour. I'm in the South East. As others have said it's not an hourly rate for just labour, there are overheads. Van plus associated costs, public liability insurance, waste carrier's licence, charges to tip the waste, the buying, fueling and maintaining of equipment. I turn down work almost every day because I'm so busy, so I'm pretty certain my prices aren't unreasonable.

No, it isn't at all.

It's only £150 a day, most tradesmen charge double that, and it's not like gardening isn't bloody hard work.

He mows the lawn and that's about it. Nothing fancy, doesn't do any landscaping or the like. Just basically goes around neighbouring villages cutting grass for the elderly who can't do it any more.

He is 35 ish, single, living with his parents. Travels max 3 miles.

Maybe I was wrong to question it! DP in engineering and doesn't earn that an hour.

We pay £20 ph. It seems fair to me.

£20 per hour is the going rate here in Cambridgeshire too.

YABU £20 p/h is completely acceptable for gardening.

It's fine. He's a sole trader, not a charity for old people on pensions.

Maybe he'd eventually like to be able save enough money to move out of his parents? Maybe your DP should move out of engineering and into gardening if he'd like to earn more?

DP in engineering and doesn't earn that an hour

Presumably he's employed though and has paid holidays, pension and other benefits? So he actually earns more in total than his hourly rate.

Whereas the gardener's "salary" is a lot less than £20 an hour after you deduct overheads.

£15 per hour is the going rate in the North East . I'd say it all depends on if you think he works reasonably hard in the time he spends there or is it a lot of dawdling around?

I've had both types before and I always think if you start to resent paying them it indicates they are cutting corners etc and that's where the resentment comes from not the actual hourly rate.

He mows the lawn and that's about it.

So no more than a 30 minute job per house then unless these houses have huge gardens. Did he give her any information regarding his decision to increase the price?

He is definitely the dawdling type. Seems to come for a chat as much as anything, which is fine! He is also pretty unreliable.

Says he will be back in 2 weeks, which turns into 4 weeks.

I agree it’s the going rate here in the London suburbs. It’s more than a cleaner would get but that’s offset by the fact that it’s not a year round job. They have to earn enough in the summer to see them through the quieter winter months.

Shearwater I agree. There’s also pretty much no work some months too, or lots of lost days due to conditions.

Our gardener finishes round about now and starts back up in March.

March/April/May is garden maintenance and grass cutting June/July/August he’s pretty much got his hands full keeping on top of people’s lawns, September/October/November is maintenance again.

He works very, very long hours in the summer, dusk til dawn really.

Oops, cross-post.

Your Mother might be on a fixed income? I don’t know? Plenty of pensioners are not though, some are pretty wealthy.
Pensioner does not equal poor / nor daft.
My brother is an actual landscaper/ gardener and charges around £15. He knows he is undercutting and wants to keep his clients. He is in the south west.

In the south west

He is definitely the dawdling type. Seems to come for a chat as much as anything, which is fine! He is also pretty unreliable

I wouldn’t pay £20 for this.

Wow! Wish I could get that. I do gardening and domestic cleaning.
Some days I can be outside for 6 hours. I only get £10 an hour and do two gardens.
I'd be chuffed to get so much, but then it depends what the gardener does. I'm more of a weeding/pruning/lugging mulch around kind of worker.

I wish people who hire others at an 'hourly' rate would realise you don't take home that amount per hour. You take home roughly half of that. Employed people get paid to travel between appointments, paid to do admin to set up meetings, get pensions and NI contributions paid by employers, get paid to prep work prior to a meeting etc etc. Self employed workers have none of this so their hourly rates have to cover for the unseen work and expenses.