Forums >Off the Beaten Path>Snow Shoveling Pay
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We are having a neighbor kid shovel our sidewalk/driveway for all of February.. Driveway is short, one car wide and sidewalk is typical suburban lot. How much should we pay him? Could be a couple of inches or a couple of feet. Flat amount, per foot, per snowfall etc? It's a fairly high cost midwest suburban locality.
My former neighbor wanted something ridiculous, like $500 to plow driveways for the winter. None of the driveways are that big. Maybe $20 (thinking maybe it takes an hour) unless you get a significant storm, then increase it?
That said, do kids need service learning hours (aka forced volunteering) for school? In Baltimore city last year, they were really advertising that option when we got 2 feet of snow.
If it takes a 1/2 hour or less, I pay $10 in my hood. Over 1/2 hour but under an hour, $20.
More than an hour, I fire that kid and find one who isn't trying to milk it.
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I made $3.00-$5.00 for shoveling neighbors' driveway in the early 70's. According to a nifty inflation calculator, that would be the same as $9-$15.00 today. Perhaps, 20.00 for an end of Feb bonus.
Wow, neighborhood kids still shovel snow for money nowadays? We don't have snow but there are absolutely no neighborhood kids in my area mowing lawns for money anymore. I guess their parents just give them the money. Like JimmyB I shoveled snow for ~$5 a driveway in Bedford, Mass for the winters of 1973 .and 1974. I also mowed lawns in the summer and delivered the Boston Globe year round during those two years. That was fun in the winter! Hadn't thought about that in many years ... makes me think of my old paper customers and going to collect from them every week (or was it every other week?).
Cumberland, RI is where I spent my formative years as the rank amateur snow shoveler I would become and still remain. Only about 50 miles between our towns, but for a Rhode Islander that's a wicked far way to go.
I walked up hill in the snow to and from school.
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We are about the only ones on our block that shovel our own sidewalk and for that matter, about the only one that doesn't have a landscaper to cut the grass. So we never do see kids shoveling either, but just seems easy to have the neighbor kid do it. Maybe $20 retainer and $20/hour?
I would pay per event, with a bonus if there is a serious storm. We did that when we travelled in the summer and needed our lawn mowed. DH gave a deposit to cover the first few mowings, with the expectation that if we had a wet summer, we would pay for additional days as they came up. Since it was a very dry summer, we ended up not owing.
Where we live, snow is really erratic. Some years we only get a few small storms, some years a couple of major ones. Average is a half dozen medium sized. I wouldn't want to pay for more or less work than is actually done.
Standard practice in our neighborhood (a mixed use, upper-middle income, northeast, mini-metropolis, subdivided, colonial rebate zone): Piece-rate pay by the cubic foot with a time completion bonus and a melt-ratio penalty clause. Spit-balling here, but I’d reckon 50 cents a cf. I know a guy who’ll get you a discount on a butterfly swap weather hedge to protect yourself on the upside. Probably draw the contract up for you too.
Come all you no-hopers, you jokers and roguesWe're on the road to nowhere, let's find out where it goes