That £26.50/hour for weeding is insanity?

[LaBellySausage]

I'm looking for someone to come around for 3 hours/week to help with weeding the garden.

I was given a couple of names of local people who do gardening. I expected to pay somewhere between £10-12/hour, perhaps £15/hour if the person was an experienced gardener. I believe minimum wage is £8something but I don't think people can live on that.

The first person wouldn't give a quote til they came to view the garden and then was hesitant to give an hourly rate, preferring to give a rate for 'the job'. It's not a job that can be finished- it's like when I shave my legs the bastards on the other one have started growing back when I start the second. I just want a few weeds less per week. He eventually said £18/hour. I thanked him for his time but said it was a bit more than I had budgeted. The second guy said £26.50/hour!

This is simple weeding. Trowel and hoe provided. £26.50/hour is about £55,000 annually.

I worked jobs like this while in uni at minimum wage. For reference, we live in a very inexpensive part of the country- he would not be weeding Chelsea Flower Show. Both candidates were local so didn't have more than a 5/10 minute drive.

Am I being unreasonable, or is this a crazy rate?

It is you who is being obtuse CandyLeBonBon

Understandable in the first instance if you are self employed yourself, but you seem incapable of understanding that there are thousands - probably millions of people out there who are quite happy, and quite legally able to earn "some money" without it being a full time wage on which they can pay rent and bring up 2.4 children.

People are allowed to earn money without paying tax.

You have to earn a certain amount to pay tax. Many people who are either
retired, or
part of a couple where one is a SAHP or
a student or
on a zero hours
or small number of hours contract, or
doing a job such as a dinner supervisor where there are only 6.25 hours a week available, or
who have a job in a bar or a shop or at a sports arena where they might only work one or two days a week
or are in 6th form
or are unemployed but unable to claim benefits
and probably loads of others that I don't know about

Loads of those people would happily go and do some unskilled work in a garden for a couple of hours a week. I'm not sure why you find that so difficult to understand

They're pulling weeds ffs. I was doing that since I was about 8 years old. It's not brain surgery or designing a nuclear power plant. It's pulling fucking weeds - you don't need to be an expert on flowers! Jesus Christ. Put a sign up in your nearest convenience store advertising the job with little cut off bits with your telephone number on the bottom. Some teenager would love to get 30 quid for dossing about pulling weeds. Have the bold writing as 'would suit teenager looking for first job' or something.

@NannyGythaOgg

I'm having a garden makeover done - so landscaping, without the design. The man doing it is an experienced brickie/flag layer. He has a labourer and an apprentice.

His rate is only £20 per hour and he is excellent. He charges his apprentice and labourer out at what they cost him. (£60 each for 7 hours). They would definitely be capable and willing to 'weed' for that. Most of their work is digging and soil shifting and they work pretty well none stop apart from a drink and a sandwich.

Once my garden is done I am offering some advice on increasing his charges as I am getting an absolute bargain.

The OP just wants someone to pull weeds?

Btw, since aged 8, I hated it. We had to weed the potato drills and the carrot drills and the cabbage, lettuce, scallions, turnips etc. At that tender age we were simply told what the 'good' plant was and anything around that was to be weeded. Half an acre and there were 2 of us child labourers (myself and my bro). Not a 2 metre square plot.

The only thing WORSE than weeding was picking stones. Now that was one thankless task. I suspect a lot of MNers have never so much as smelled cowshite?

Prob don't really want or need the work and would rather take on bigger projects , also they have to factor in holiday pay , insurance , tax , ni etc
A company that pays someone min wage doesn't just pay out £8.50 an hr they will pay ni etc on top and have to pay holiday pay , potential sick pay etc
Asking someone for 3 hrs work means prob 4 with travelling etc and may mean they can only fit another short job in
All cleaners around here are more £14/15 an hr and more if one off

My dd16 earns 15 pounds an hour teaching violin. Once a week. She is quite excellent on the violin and a good teacher, so her parents are happy with the price. She also babysits said child for free sometimes, so it's all good.

This is work a teenager could do if they want extra money. Not someone qualified.

Our gardener is paid £20 an hour, he has his own personalised mug, and we give him our RHS magazines, we have two gardening bins so no waste to take away and everyone is happy.

He does a really good job, my DH is a high earner (by MN standards) however his skill set does not extend to gardening, anymore than mine extends to a good clean once a week.

Who, with their own household to run, could cope with less than that an hour, bearing in mind they will work nowhere near 35/40 hours a week, and have expenses on top? No holiday or sick pay.
Fair enough if its alot to pay for you (or any of us), but surely it's not hard to see it's a fair wage?

Get a student in if that's all you can afford.

It's like employing a physicist to solve a slow computer issue.

You don't need someone qualified in anything OP. Just a willing/desperate/bored teenager.

Or a marine biologist to feed your goldfish while you're away.
Or a gynaecologist when you're having a heavy period.

You need to advertise it as casual labour. In your neighbourhood.

Christ, I did it aged 8.

@typicalvalues sorry, I didn’t quite get that, were you aged 14?

[quote JackieWeaverIsTheAuthority]@typicalvalues sorry, I didn’t quite get that, were you aged 14?[/quote]
I think my post clearly states aged 8?

11?

Actually I would have been 7 and my mother was pregnant at the time. As my sister is 7 years younger. We (my brother older by 3 years and myself) were send out to work on the 'farm'. Or the vegetable patch (half a fucking acre to be weeded). That was our Summer holidays.

I bet your school was 3 miles there and 6 miles back, all uphill and done on foot?

I'm old. It was before a child centred approach came in. Children on a farm were sent out very young to do what they could do.

@JackieWeaverIsTheAuthority

I bet your school was 3 miles there and 6 miles back, all uphill and done on foot?

It was 2.8 miles which didn't qualify us for the school bus so we were driven to school in a car whose battery frequently failed, particularly in the snow so we would have to push it to get it going lol.

Very embarrassing pushing your car outside school with all your friends watching. Any fucking wonder I'm a disturbed adult lol!

But back on topic, this is something that if I could do aged 7, a teenager could do.

brilliant!!

Oh Christ almighty I was bullied every day of my life because my father wouldn't buy a car that actually worked. All the Mums/Dads/Us would have to push this Ford Escort to get the battery going. Oh, happened more times than I can count.

To get it going from the house, we'd have to call the neighbours as 2 small kids were not enough to push it to start it. Weird times.
Bizarrely, I left the lights on on my car many years ago and nobody had jump leads (male environment - I worked in the office of a manufacturing company) so they said they'd push it. So they pushed it and told me to pull off the clutch in 2nd gear - It worked. It was very embarrassing.

@typicalvalues

The only thing WORSE than weeding was picking stones. Now that was one thankless task. I suspect a lot of MNers have never so much as smelled cowshite?

I suspect not. A lot of people do seem to way over-estimate how terribly difficult anything remotely physical is. Particularly if it involves getting wet or cold or working outdoors in winter. I think it takes on a rareified, mystical air in their minds sometimes.

Theres people who can get on with a simple job and just get it done. Then theres other who try to turn it into something its not, to make it worth £26 per hour.