I-Team: Comparing the cost of lawn care services with buying the equipment yourself

(WFSB) - Like almost everything else, the cost to get your lawn mowed has gone up quite a bit in the last few years.

John Seifel in West Hartford prefers to do it himself.

“Just enjoy it, it’s a beautiful day to be out and just enjoy doing it myself,” said Seifel.

However, if you do not have the time, or the equipment, you may turn to someone like Mac Bellingrath, the owner of Bellingrath Bros. Landscape and Design.

“In terms of like the mulching and the actual maintenance of actually taking care of the beds and everything, it’s a lot easier for us to do it with the machinery that we have and everything like that,” said Bellingrath.

A professional service has machines to do certain things the average homeowner may not be able to, but that comes at a price.

Bellingrath says the company has raised prices about 15% over the last 2 years.

“It’s been tough. Also labor costs have gone up, definitely,” said Bellingrath.

The increase in price has more and more people turning to places like River East Power Equipment.

The owner, Dan Leblanc says the business has seen a 20% uptick in sales over the last few years.

He says most zero-turn mowers start between $3,000 to $4,000. However, you don’t have to pay for it all at once.

“0% interest financing brings down that cost to as low as $80 a month in some cases to mow your lawn,” said Leblanc.

If you take that financing option and pay $80 every month, that’s $960 a year. Leblanc estimates you will also pay around $200 a year on maintenance costs. That’s $1160 a year to mow your lawn yourself.

Channel 3 looked at the pricing for 6 different lawncare companies. The average cost for a mow was $63. If you estimate 4 cuts a month from the start of May until the end of September, that’s 20 cuts. That all adds up to $1260 per year to pay a professional to mow your lawn.

That means you’ll on average save $100 if you mow your lawn yourself, but once you pay off lawnmower you would save more than $1000.

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