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?

Did you know that in sone European countries, both the employed and the self employed can deduct their travel to work exirnses from their income tax bills? Believe it or not, only the self employed can do so in the UK.

Not entirely true.

A self employed person in the UK working from a set premises cannot claim travel expenses to and from work. A self employed person going between different premises can. But usually an employee person going between different premises (eg visiting clients) can claim milage from their employer to cover costs, and if they can't theyb are entitled to the tax back on the HMRC approved milage rates.

@chomalungma

And no, of course, I don't bloody "charge the client" for my own time silent working out my tax - I do it in my "leisure time". Tax isn't that hard once you sit down to do it, but what I do kniw is that a lot of the self empyed "expenses" on here are tax deductible anyway

You do as such - because you charge more per hour to the client.

Which is why the hourly rate you charge your client is more than the hourly rate you end up getting for running your business.

So your £40 an hour you charge equates to £15 an hour actual paid work.

Because it's not leisure time when you are doing your tax. It's work time.

No, I don't "charge the client" - I don;t send invoices, and I don't set the rate. I'd get told, very politely, to take a running jump, if I attempted to set the rate. Do you really have no idea at all how the working world works? Of course I bloody well do my tax in my leisure time and don't charge a random university in France where I've been asked to appear at a conference for it!

I don't have time to address your million and one countless points. I get it, you think we live in a sort of communist eutopia, where semi skilled workers are "owed" as much as highly skilled workers, but thats not reality for the vast majority of working people. £26.50 for weeding is taking the p, and if you over-charged a vulnerable eg elderly person too much, you can end up being charged by the police. And rightly so.

I don't know how you have so much time on your hands to try and constantly post saying the same thing over and over again. I know people work different hours, I like to pop in on here on my coffee break, but I've been quite generous in explaining what I do. What is it you do? Do you have a job? I would expect that the OP, being a doctor who objects to paying someone more than her own hourly rate for pulling weeds, is working...

I actually think HMRC should publish average rates for various self employed trades, including qualified and unqualified rates. But of course we all know that a lot of it will be cash in hand and either not declared, or only partially declared, so it would be almost impossible to get a true figure. But we have standard rates in many other employment fields, eg nursing is on a pay scale, as are most jobs, so why not?

Wierdlynormal @GreenlandTheMovie I trust your academic work is not in economics or a business subject* its in an area where some of us have our eye on a nice little consultancy or 1 day per week well remunerated government post, once we've made enough contacts or have enough on our cvs...whats with all the little nasty digs on this thread?

JeezyPeeps you are absolutely correct. In the Netherlands however, employees can deduct their actual travelling expenses from their income tax bills. Theres a mileage maximum, but I think its very generous, something like 120km, and theres no limit beyond that on claiming your actual costs for either public transport or private vehicle. Meanwhile here, you only get the pitiful government set mileage allowance and if wfh, as many of us are, the even more pitiful employee allowance for that, which in no way covers real extra costs in electricity, gas, provision of office equipment, etc. Or if it does, I will claim once I've checked for next year but since most people aren't self assessed, how would they even go about justifying the amount of time it would take to provide receipts and make such a claim?

I totally agree that the WFH allowance is pitiful.

I don't think the mileage allowance is too bad amount-wise (and your employer can pay more, you'd just be taxed on anything above the HMRC approved allowance). Of course, for people with expensive cars that use a lot of fuel, it's low - but for people with cars that have good fuel economy, it's great as it is designed to cover more than just actual costs so they can do fairly well out of it.

I think it would be great if we could claim commuting costs against tax. Maybe we should start a Mumsnet campaign!

Of course I bloody well do my tax in my leisure time and don't charge a random university in France where I've been asked to appear at a conference for

If you are doing business work in 'leisure time', then it's work time.

It's not leisure time.

Leisure time is when you do things that aren't working.

I run my own business.
It takes time outside of my client time to do work for that business.
I charge £30 an hour.
I may do 2 hours actual work for that job - but I spend an hour working actually with the client.
Actual pay per hour is £15.
Client gets charged £30.

So the client has been charged for the time I actually spend running my business. But they just see it as an hourly charge and some people may think I've only done an hours work.

@chomalungma

Of course I bloody well do my tax in my leisure time and don't charge a random university in France where I've been asked to appear at a conference for

If you are doing business work in 'leisure time', then it's work time.

It's not leisure time.

Leisure time is when you do things that aren't working.

You are wrong. If I'm not paid for it, its leisure time. Or whatever you want to call it. Its not chargeable time for me, and I'm partially self=assessed.

Not every person does the same kind of work. My work is for universities. I don't get to charge them for doing my tax bill. There is no way I can factor my charges into my "charges". I get paid a set rate. I'd get laughed at if I asked for more - I know people that have tried that and they were dropped. You have no idea what the real world of work is like outside your own area - what exactly is that, as you've never mentioned it?

I actually find tax quite fascinating.

You are wrong. If I'm not paid for it, its leisure time. Or whatever you want to call it. Its not chargeable time for me, and I'm partially self=assessed

Of course it's not chargeable time.
But if you were were to work out your 'hourly rate' - ie income divided by time spent doing everything to do with your business - it would be a lot less than the actual rate you quote a client per hour.

If you are doing anything to do with your job, it's not leisure time. It's work time. It's not chargeable time but it's time spent doing your job.

I'm not sure if you're misunderstanding this @GreenlandTheMovie

I charge £225 per hour. I am not able to charge all of my work hours as some work is CPD (has to be done, relates to every client, but can't be 'billed'). So I get to charge a fee that in effect has to cover my other hours although they don't get to be billed to a specific client. So my fee might be £225, but I don't actually earn that, nor could I. I can't do my billable hours without the other stuff, but no one gets billed. Part of my work is CPD but of course I get paid for that.

My hourly rate remains £225, but I don't earn that. Unfortunately.

.. I should also be working now, and garbled emails are the result!

@chomalungma

You are wrong. If I'm not paid for it, its leisure time. Or whatever you want to call it. Its not chargeable time for me, and I'm partially self=assessed

Of course it's not chargeable time.
But if you were were to work out your 'hourly rate' - ie income divided by time spent doing everything to do with your business - it would be a lot less than the actual rate you quote a client per hour.

If you are doing anything to do with your job, it's not leisure time. It's work time. It's not chargeable time but it's time spent doing your job.

Look, I'm a very patient person. I'm going to say it again. Nicely.

I don't "charge clients". I get offered work, at a set rate. I do not invoice. I'm still self assessed for it. There is no charging involved.

Its just one of those things that many people working have to suck up, along with unpaid overtime.

I'm also going to point out, as you're probably blissfully unaware too. But you know how salaried jobs are advertised at, say £50,000 pa? I'll let you into a secret. Thats not actually what you get paid into your bank account Yes, I know its hard to believe, but even employees have to pay income tax, national insurance and their pensions out of that.

Have you ever had a job?

I don't think that many employed people actually work out their hourly rate, including unpaid overtime, commuting time, doing extra little admin jobs such as tax and sending off professional affiliation, but if they did, you'd probably find that your massively overpaid £26.50 per hour gardener was earning quite a lot more than many highly paid software engineers, doctors, nurses, etc.. Which really does go to show how massively overpaid £26.50 for a bit of weeding is. As I say, different if they do something like Charlie Dimmock and design and plant a whole garden. But weeding - no.

I don't think that many employed people actually work out their hourly rate, including unpaid overtime, commuting time, doing extra little admin jobs such as tax and sending off professional affiliation

Teachers do.

When they work out what they 'actually' earn per hour, it makes some of them think.

Their headline salary looks great.

Their hourly rate spent doing everything to do with their job is atrocius.

I'm also going to point out, as you're probably blissfully unaware too. But you know how salaried jobs are advertised at, say £50,000 pa? I'll let you into a secret. Thats not actually what you get paid into your bank account Yes, I know its hard to believe, but even employees have to pay income tax, national insurance and their pensions out of that

And nor does someone quoting £22.50 an hour as a chargeable fee earn £55,000 per year - as you pointed out upthread.

Because as you have now realised, they do uncharged hours outside of that time, they have overheads to take out etc.

So I have no idea where you got that idea of an actual income of £55,000 from

I'd ask your cleaner if she fancies doing it. Ours does various extra bits as she's already here and happy to do it for some extra pay - ironing, weeding, cat feeding when we're away, waiting for deliveries etc.

I live with a registered nurse with almost 20 years' NHS and overseas experience who works with the elderly. Their hourly rate is about that BEFORE tax. I regularly point this out to members of various editors' groups I belong to where many of the other members think £40 an hour is a minimum as they're so terribly clever and experienced. I think there may be a few reality checks in store for several professions in the next few months...

Op 26. is steep.

This is an interesting website to work out what a self employed person should charge to get the salary they would like

goselfemployed.co/knowing-self-employed-hourly-rate/

It discusses everything we've talked about.

Bottom line is it's a tedious job and as we move into summergardeners will have the pick of mowing, strumming, pruning - they might weed as well as these but I wouldn't take on a weeding job for a few hours a week ( travel time when you could be doing a whole day job elsewhere) - so the high rates are because they don't want it

And another website with similar ideas

rsaccountancy.co.uk/working-out-what-your-self-employed-day-rate-should-be/

With a caveat

The last thing you want to do is alienate customers and potentially lose business, by charging excessively high prices. However, if you don’t make some adaptations to your daily rate, you’ll be stuck working harder but earning less than if you were making the same salary through employment

@LaBellySausage

Due to start F1 in August, now reconsidering retraining as a Gardner. We can go into business together perhaps 😂

Considering*

@Retrogal

I pay £18 per hour for my very reliable gardeners in SE. There's 4 of them and they spend an hour in my garden every fortnight which is enough to keep weeds down and grass cut and dead matter cleared

So £4.50 each per hour?

Have you heard of modern slavery?

Gardeners round my way charge £20 an hour minimum. When people are self employed they don't get sick pay or holiday, they also have to factor in that there will days they can't work because of the weather etc, they have to pay travel and other expenses, insurance, equipment etc.

If you just want a student to do it cash in hand then post on your local Facebook pages but generally you get what you pay for.

@LaBellySausage

Thanks for the helpful comments- I'll post on FB and Gumtree to see if anybody wants a bit of part time weeding work for around £13/hour, or ask my cleaner if she fancies the extra work.

Don’t be surprised if your cleaner takes offence and quits.

She’s a cleaner. Not a skivvy to do any shit job you don’t fancy.

£20ph is not remotely unusual for a gardener.

My husband's a gardener and charges £25 per hour.

Like people say, once admin time is taken into account, tax, a vehicle and seasonality of work it's honestly not a massive wage.

Agree with others - if you want cheaper you could try and find a handy person or a student to work for less.

rural SW here and my gardener is £10 an hour for mowing the lawn/weeding, and £15 an hour if he uses hedgetrimmers, strimmers etc.