It may be only mid-May, but the dogs days of summer are not far from us. That means a number of things, but what it means for us is working on in our yard. We have been homeowners for six years now (Geez, has it really been THAT long) and we have learned numerous ways to save money on our lawn care over those years. The key that we have learned is that it really does not require much extra work, but a little creativity helps you save money on your lawn.
Save Money By Doing it Yourself
This was probably the thing that we were most guilty of in our first few years, we hired out part of our lawn care which really does nothing towards saving money. We hired Chemlawn to treat and fertilize our yard and it did look nice, but it cost upwards of $400 to have them do it. After watching what they did, we bought ourselves a spreader and do it all ourselves now. As long as the seed, fertilizer or weed control is granular in nature you can use the spreader on this and really does not take much time. This gives you the added benefit of being outside plus you can use that money on other things as opposed to paying someone else to take care of it for you.
Watch For Sales
Another great way to save money on lawn care this time of year is to take advantage of sales at home improvement stores. We’ll go through their fliers each week so we can see what’s on sale plus it often gives us landscaping ideas we can use for our yard. Just be careful of the “rebates” that some offer as they’re not actually cash back, but coupons good only at their store. By going through the circulars we find what we want beforehand so we can go in knowing what we’re looking for which helps us cut down on needless spending. We’re not terribly loyal in terms of where we buy our lawn care products and usually shop by price. However, if you have a Chase Preferred Card you can get 5% cash back this quarter on anything you buy at Lowe’s, which is a nice little bonus to have.
Know What You’re Dealing With
Before we started doing our own lawn care, we were garden enthusiasts. We’re always looking for frugal gardening tips and discovered that our local county extension office was a great resource to use. By taking in some of your soil for testing they’ll tell you what how you should amend it to support a healthy, productive garden. If you’re not a gardener, they can still be of help as they can tell you what type of grass seed, fertilizer and weed control you should use. This can help you save money on your lawn care as you’ll learn what exactly you should be doing to make sure your lawn maintenance is doing what it should and not wasting your time. They can also tell you how often you should water and the optimum level for your lawn mowing so you do not stress your yard too much. They have been a great help to us and some extension offices will even offer this service for free.
Do you hire out your lawn care, or do it yourself? What ways have you found to save money on your lawn care?
Image by Adam Farnsworth/Flickr
We recently decided to hire out for our lawn care. We just don’t have enough time to do it, and the cost isn’t too bad.
It can be a wise move as long as you can afford it. The worst part of hiring it out was always dealing with their continuous attempts to sell to us.
We have an acre of grass, and a second acre of woods. Hiring out our lawn care would be gruesomely expensive.
We make sure to give our lawn only what it needs. We fave money by buying off-brand for some products, but we make sure that the fertilizer has the correct percent of slow-release, etc. I’m also going to bluegrass in front and back–poa supina in the shade and a regular bluegrass in the sun. I am SO tired of overseeding the fescues!
I would say so Jenny. I would hate to see what that would cost. 🙂 We follow some of the same things and buy generic where we can and not go over the top in terms of caring for it. As long as it looks half way decent, then we’re ok with that.
I have a small garden in my home and a beautiful lawn which me and my wife takes care of. It’s good pastime for us and also saves hundreds of dollars every month,. Thanks for your tips BTW!
We like to garden quite a bit as well to save money as well as to be able to eat healthier. What types of things do you grow in your garden?