[masraum]

Originally Posted by Danimal16

Don't try to keep up with the Joneses, just think of a "tidy" yard. I have neighbors that have tidy yards. They inspire me to not overdo it; just tidy.

Also, I have a gardener/service that comes every week and keeps it very nicely maintained. For me the two best "luxury" services are my lawn service ($120 per month) and the lady who cleans my house ($130 once a month). Both really take the maintenance burden off of me and allow me to use my time otherwise.

Yep, in our last home, we eventually discovered the joy of a lawn service that was $100/mo (this was <2014). They ended up doing a large portion of our neighborhood. They generally had 5-7 guys going at one time. IIRC, 2 mowers, 2 weedeaters, 1 or 2 blowers. They did a great job on mow, edge, blow. I timed it more than once, and it took them ~7 mins to do the whole yard and be gone. It was fantastic! The same job took me 2 hours.

We tried 2 or 3 other people before we stumbled across them, and the others did not do a good job.

We also tried 2 or 3 house cleaners, and had problems with all of them.