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?

You don’t need an experienced gardener. Anyone can weed.
That’s three hours a week to juggle with other jobs. One of my DC ran a gardening business for some years and it was really only worthwhile doing full or half days. As others have said, overheads are high, it’s seasonal so you have to have other employment for the low season, and a spell of poor weather can put paid to earnings over a number of weeks. This has to be factored into charges, along with travel time, tools, transport and insurance. They eventually packed it in because it was so difficult to get people to pay for work that had been done (and done to a high standard). The better off clients were generally the most reluctant to part with their money. DC found this annoying and demoralising.

@Sallycinnamum

I'm in the London suburbs and I pay £15ph for our gardener.

He's coming in every fortnight for a couple of hours to have a proper clear out of our garden and worth every penny as he's cleared more in a few hours than I managed last year!

I'm the same, exploiting a pensioner for.£15ph in Gtr London. It would have been £12ph but our neighbour told him the previous person charged £15 - she doesn't understand the difference between a trained gardener who's been to college & a handyman who does what he's asked to do and has to be told what not to do 🙄

YABU. It doesn’t matter that you aren’t using all their tools, it doesn’t matter if you would prefer working outside to inside or how small the job is.

You’re asking experienced gardeners, so you’re going to get their rate for their expertise regardless of how small the job is.

If you won’t pay the going rate you need to look for a teenager who wants a bit of extra cash.

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

No, it's not. Before they can even think about take-home pay, they have to cover the following:

• pension and NI contributions.
• business insurance.
• vehicle costs, maintenance and insurance.
• tools and equipment.
• sick days, annual leave, and days that are rained off or called off due to bad weather.
• all the non-billable hours that include paperwork, tax returns, VAT, sorting out receipts, accounts and invoices.
• putting money aside for their annual tax bill.

Then they have their take home pay. But they also need to eke that out to cover bank holidays and the quiet winter months where they probably get no work at all.

Threads like this really show how little idea some people have about being self-employed and all the costs that are involved in working for yourself. They won't be taking home anywhere near what they charge you per hour.

Reminds me of that plumber joke - lawyer gets a plumber in to fix his loo.
'That'll be £170 please'.
'But that's more than I make as a lawyer!'
'Yes, that's what I said when I was a lawyer too.'

This is one of those classic threads, isn’t it?

OP - am I being unreasonable?
MN - yes, completely unreasonable
OP - oh no, I’m not!

You are also paying for their knowledge. Will a £10 per hour know the difference between a weed and a plant? I doubt it.

No idea re the gardening, but I had really bad SPD in my first pregnancy, but not in my second. You may be lucky!

I used to pay a local teenager £2 to clear my front garden

The hourly rate is slightly steep tho £20 ish around here

But

Remember they have to

pay tax and ni
Upkeep of tools
Pli
Travel costs

As bare minimum

They won’t be working all day every day so won’t make the amount people are saying

If all you need is weeding and the odd prune, this isn't a complicated thing. If you need more garden management over the whole year, you will have to pay more. Try Next Door, searching the past posts or post one of your own.

My neighbour is a gardener. There are at least 3 months of the year he scarcely has paid work. He wants regular jobs that are at least half a day at a time, or else he has lots of unpaid hours loading and unloading his kit and driving around. He is no shirker and he is not a rich man. He works outdoors from heatwaves to rain, wind and cold.

Like many others have said, you want a labourer. You can grumble but everything finds its price.

@VinylDetective the AIBU poll is 68% in favour of me not being unreasonable

[quote LaBellySausage]@VinylDetective the AIBU poll is 68% in favour of me not being unreasonable[/quote]
The comments aren’t.

@VinylDetective yes but 186 people have voted. Far far fewer people have commented. It's hardly a unanimous decision is it.

Mine are.

I cannot believe anyone would pay over a tenner an hour for weeding. I’d do it for minimum wage- it’s just weeding and it’s nice to be outdoors most of the spring and summer too.

Virtually all of the comments about the gardeners worth and overheads etc can also be applied to cleaners. Whilst they are true society only cares about the jobs traditionally done by men.

£18 an hour for a gardener is not expensive. The fact you only want weeding isn’t relevant, why should he do that for less? Weeding is a back breaking tedious job, I do think £26 an hour is expensive though.

[quote LaBellySausage]@VinylDetective the AIBU poll is 68% in favour of me not being unreasonable[/quote]
Hours per day
Travel
Seasonal work
Sick pay
Holiday pay

How much do you think they really get?

And if you are paying your cleaner £13 an hour, how much do you think they get per week?

Bearing in mind what they have to do to protect themselves, to cover potential days off sick, days without clients, holidays.

Of course - £26 - if they can get away with that, then good for them.

If it's too high, they won't get work.

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.

It’s clear you don’t value the work that a skilled gardener does. Maybe the one that gave you the higher quote sensed that. I always give high quotes for jobs I don’t want to do, like most tradespeople.

There seems to be some rule where the more inexpensive the area, the more expensive freelancers are! I think its to do with the lack of jobs. So many seem to assume that anyone with "money" ie a job, is stupid and ready and waiting to be fleeced, on the basis of their having to travel to the job. Because obviously no-one else at all has to travel to their job. I actually gave up trying to get fencing contractors and we did it ourselves. It wasn't that hard.

That’s truly bonkers.

Get a student or teenager- advertise on something like gumtree. Pay minimum wage (it’s weeding!!)

There are some people on here who are either being seriously obtuse or not reading the thread - or even just the OP's posts.

She is NOT in the SE
She does NOT want a gardener.

I think you just need to advertise for someone to come and do some weeding in your garden for £9ph. State that you don't need them to have a van / take garden rubbish away / have any specialist equipment.

State that's what the job is. State that's what you are offering, and you will get loads of answers.

Above minimum wage, for unskilled work, with flexible hours - you'll have your hand snatched off.

@AppleKatie

Virtually all of the comments about the gardeners worth and overheads etc can also be applied to cleaners. Whilst they are true society only cares about the jobs traditionally done by men.

No they can’t. Cleaning isn’t seasonal, it doesn’t involve being out in all weathers and the client supplies the tools.

My gardener’s a woman, by the way and she charges the going rate.

Go on your local FB page or NextDoor...am sure there will be a student or garden maintenance person. My student son did that kind of work for £10 hour last year .