To think we should have paid the gardener more?

[Lilibut]

There was a guy advertising gardening and handyman work in our neighborhood booklet. He cleaned up our garden and did the hedges today for £10 an hour. He was here from 7.20am - 8.30pm. And he came yesterday for 3hours. DH paid him £165. I feel like we should have paid him at least £200 given the sheer manual labour.
Is it normal to tip gardeners?

AIBU?

I feel so crappy. I wish we'd paid him a bit more.

YANBU. I would feel the same as you.

Wow, £10 an hour seems really cheap for a gardener to me, but I'm in the South-East. I think my parents pay more than £25, but that's for a qualified proper gardener,not just a lawn mowing type.

That's less than minimum wage, so of course yanbu!

He worked a 13 hour day ?!

Did he set the price or ask you to pay what you thought it was worth?

Hi all. Yes, it was his set rate that he advertised.
He wasn't a qualified gardener as such, he's like a local handyman, so can cut hedges but I wouldn't get him to do pruning or anything.

Urgh. DH thinks it's fine given it's what the man asked for. I think I will get him to pop round again to give him a tip (he is on our road for some work tomorrow too)

Yes, you really took advantage.

I would've tipped op. We have a man exactly the same as what you describe and he came over the other day to trim our hedges. He must've been there for an hour and a half & we paid him £30

Tight of your husband to only pay £165 and I think it would be very nice of you to give him some more money.

The gardener is daft for pricing his labour so low though.

£10 p/h?

This doesn't seem right at all. That's below NMW, so he's either very ill-informed and needs someone to help him organise his business better, or he's illegally working cash in hand while claiming UC.

If he is pricing himself too low that's not your problem. He gave you a price for a job and you paid what he asked. I used to have a gardener who priced for the job and 3 of them turned up with all the machinery, then when they left another one came and priced the job similar price.... except this person was on their own and didn't communicate that that price was for one hour. I let them go. I was paying a similar price and the job was nowhere near finished.
If they're self employed they need to factor in to their costing the tax, the insurance, the cost of machinery and how long the job will actually take. It is not up to us to tip someone who does not have the knowledge and / or experience to get their costing right.
I'm self employed. If i felt i had got it wrong I'd soon work it out. I wouldn't expect people to tip me.

A tip sounds like a great idea. If the poor man is pricing that low he’s probably desperate to pick up work and I wouldn’t want to take advantage.

This.

Hmm depends if he's declaring the money. I'm guessing not and that's why he's so cheap?

I wouldn't know whether to tip gardeners, but ours gets what equates to £45 per hour for just cutting grass. Always wants cash too.

We’re I. The midlands and pay £15/hour for a gardener and I think that is really cheap; you can’t find people to turn up for love and money so £10 is nothing!

Did he genuinely do a solid 13 hours worth of work though? Maybe he likes to set his prices by the job instead of the hour so that he can take his time and go as slowly as he likes. Unless he did extra work that wasn’t included in the price he quoted, a £35 tip seems a lot.

Defo tip him

I would definitely tip. I would not allow anyone to fo any kind of work for me and get less than minimum wage.

At £10 an hour he likely doesn't have insurance or any kind of liability protection. And he's not covering his costs when you take into account transport, tools, wear and tear, consumables etc. He might be a good gardener but he's a rubbish business man.

I'd say the work was fantastic and give him an extra £30

Was there any paperwork? Any invoice? Any receipt?
Let's say he invoices for arguement's sake £100. So you pay him 100 and tip him let's say 50. He declares the 100. Now let's say he does this a few times a week? Don't get me wrong i don't mind paying the odd cash in hand odd job here and there but on a regular basis i would expect someone who knows what they're doing to know how long a job is going to take and price it accordingly