[RKDinOKC]

When I was 8 and started mowing Dad bought a riding lawn mower for me to use on our acre. Remember mowing the entire acre with the push mower only 3 or 4 times before we got the rider.

I only did two other yards that were big enough to use the riding lawn mower. One was a large lot at the company I now work for that has now got buildings and partking lot on it, the other was the large lawn of a guy that I mowed 3 other houses besides the main family home with the big lot. The only reason I took on the two rider sized yards was because of the other mowing they were associated with.

The company lot I charged $15 for the 3 hours it took to mow the lot every other week because there was one hour of weekly push mowing I got $45 for. Years later a co-worker started mowing the company lawns and it took him 6 hours of push mowing without the lot. Told me I lied to him about being able to mow it all in an hour. At the end of the summer he apologized and said he could see how if someone really worked at it they could get in done in an hour.

The large residence I charged $25 and it also took 3 hours every other week. I only charged $7 for each of the 3 other family houses because they only took me 20 minutes each and I mowed them every week.

I much preferred the smaller lawns that did not require a riding lawn mower because I could get them done so much faster and make a lot more money for my time. I remember meeting with the guy that invented the shopping cart and bidding $40 to mow his yard. He said I was too rich for his blood because he could get a crew a Mexicans to do it for $25. Told him to hire the Mexican because in the time it would take me to mow his yard i could mow 6 smaller yards for $7 each.

I made a deal that I only charged $7 to mow if they let me mow their lawn every week whether they thought it needed mowing or not. The going rate was $15 a lawn. And most people wanted their lawn mowed every other week when it got taller. Once a week it only took me 20 minutes to mow and edge, if a lawn went longer it would take an hour or longer to mow.

Had a savvy relator that had me mow houses he was showing. I mowed them twice a week for my $7 per mow to keep them looking just mowed. He had another guy that kept the properties legal and didn't mow nearly as often. Told me the other guy thought I was crazy for mowing so cheap.

Got more than half my lawn jobs from neighbors that saw me mowing a house every week and would make the comment to me that the guy must be rich to have his lawn mowed every week. After I told them how much I charged, but required them to let me mow weekly whether they thought it needed mowing or not they would have me do their yard too. They said they were spending that much per month getting their yard mowed every other week and it didn't look nearly as nice as getting it mowed weekly.

I would tell my neighbor kids that were mowing my yard about my lawn mowing and how I made more money by mowing more often. Only one so far got it and mowed my yard weekly for half. The others kept mowing every other week instead of taking less to mow weekly.