Kate Morgan wrote:

My daughter and son in law need a gardener just to keep their garden tidy,
you know the sort of thing cutting the lawn and the odd bit of pruning,
nothing heavy. They have approached several people and the charges are £25
per hour but the gardeners wont do less than 2 hours work. The family are
in Edinburgh, any comments, surely that a bit expensive.

I dont think it is expensive.
I started out self employed in June, mainly gardening, also home
maintenance, but I had planned to do mostly gardening work.

After 3 months, it was clear that charging £15/hour would not earn me a
living, so I have given up on the gardening side, and now do mostly
property maintenance.

To show how it wouldnt pay, consider a busy day - out at 8 am, first job
at 8:30. 2 hours there, £30., second job booked at 11am. 2 hours,
another £30. 3rd job at 1:30, another £30. £90 per day.
It'll be 4pm by the time you get to another place, so pretty difficult
to get any more done.

BUT - getting 3, or even 4, 2 hour jobs in a day is hard to do, you will
likely have 20 minutes of grass cutting, then 2 hours of weeding, then a
small grass cutting etc, but not 3 2 hours jobs to keep you going all
day.

And to top this, I started at £10/hr, so many days I was earning £50 or
less.
Add up the costs - new mower/strimmer/hedge cutter every 2 years -
£500+/yr, van - easily £1000/yr. Then you have the waste disposal. If
you can get the homeowner to get rid of the waste, then it is great, but
many have no facilities to keep the waste, so you need a waste carriers
licence - £50/yr. Then pay to dump the waste - £60/tonne, so I reckon £5
a day when working to tip waste.
Add on fuel costs, and the many other consumables needed, to stay in
business, I would have to charge £20/hr minimum, and do at least 30
hours a week actually working for a customer, and many more hours
disposing of waste, ringing up people, cleaning equipment etc.
Even then, when overheads/costs are taken off, I would just about be on
minimum wage.(as an aside to this, I have kept putting off doing my
accounts, as it'll be too depressing to see how little I have earnt in
the last 6 months)
Then you will have the 1 in 20 ish days where it is too wet to do
anything. then the 6 or 7 bank holidays when you are not earning.

£25 / hr sounds a lot, but it isnt when all factors are taken into
consideration.

If however someone was claiming benefits, running round in his car, and
fly-tipping his waste, then they probably could charge a lot less.

Legitimate, decent traders could not afford to do it much cheaper.

Alan.
--
To reply by e-mail, change the ' + ' to 'plus'.