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THIS IS MY SIXTH STORY for HumbleDollar. You don’t know how happy you’ve made this old hick from Kentucky feel by taking the time to read my stuff, let alone comment on it.
I’ve done and continue to do a lot of dumb things in my walk down life’s path. I hope to share most of them to give you something to think about and maybe avoid on your own. Today, it’s something I call “stupid saving.” Saving is great, but sometimes you really aren’t saving anything.
My family is universally known in our town for holding onto money. A local philosopher once said, “If that family lived on an island that had nothing but rocks then, by the end of the year, they would have all the rocks.” That’s just the way we are. We waste nothing and use everything until it’s so worn out that even the Salvation Army won’t take it.
Shoot, I bought a car so small and that got such great gas mileage that you could fill up the tank, drive it around all day and still have enough gas by sunset for a sizable explosion if someone runs into you. But enough about me.
Or maybe not. I want to give you an example of “stupid saving.” In the country, we tend to have very big yards because land is so cheap. Our house sits on a 1.5-acre plot. To be honest, I hate big yards. But the fellow that sold us the house wouldn’t let me buy any less.
So, with big yards come big responsibilities, assuming you don’t want to make the neighbors mad. You’ll do a lot of mowing, raking, weed eating, bush and tree pruning, leaf blowing and so on and so forth. Let me tell you that “so on and so forth” gets quite old as you get quite old.
The central cost for me is the lawn mower. You have two basic kinds: the lawn tractor and the zero-turn radius mower. The lawn tractor gets the job done, but the zero-turn mower is all that and a bag of chips.
I mow my 95-year-old mother’s lawn with her zero-turn mower and you can easily do one acre in one hour. My 1.5 acres takes two-and-a-half hours with the lawn tractor going full out.
To top it off, I have some sort of degenerative tailbone problem. This old age disease makes it difficult for me to sit down for long periods of time without a lot of pain. I ought to go straight to heaven after I die because I’ve already done my time in the bad place riding that lawn tractor.
My lawn tractor is about 20 years old and I have enough jackleg mechanic’s ability to keep it running. But I really want that zero-turn mower bad. When I get it, it’ll mean less pain and less time mowing. In addition, I hate mowing with a purple passion.
I haven’t gotten it because it goes against my nature to throw away anything that is still “functional.” I’m that guy that keeps underwear full of holes because the elastic waistband still works. But my mower will likely die a painful death in the next year or two, depending on how many sins I still need to work off.
A friend who is also “frugal,” to put it nicely, asked if I got that zero-turn mower I wanted. I replied, “Not yet.” He then told me, “Do you realize that model is up $700 from last year? You not only didn’t save anything, you lost money.”
He was right.
In addition, I’m 65. A good zero-turn mower can last a couple of decades, at least based on my use. I figure that, by age 85, I’ll either have someone else mowing the lawn if I’m lucky, will have moved out of the house to an apartment if I’m luckier, or will be fertilizing some plot of land if I’m normal.
So, why delay getting that zero-turn mower? All I’ll end up doing is leaving it to someone else with a few extra years of use still on it. That’s stupid. I haven’t saved anything and took on extra pain, suffering and hours of working on the old mower for nothing.
So, I think you know what I did. I still have the old mower. I am sick.
By the way, does anyone need a couple of rocks? I’ve got a whole island full of them.
Ken Begley has worked for the IRS and as an accountant, a college director of student financial aid and a newspaper columnist, and he also spent 42 years on active and reserve service with the U.S. Navy and Army. Now retired, Ken likes to spend his time with his family, especially his grandchildren, and as a volunteer with Kentucky’s Marion County Veterans Honor Guard performing last rites at military funerals, including more than 350 during the past three years. Check out Ken’s earlier articles.
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Traveling across the US I see many homes with giant grass lawns. What is the obsession with these giant lawns??? In most cases there don’t appear to be any kids to use them and even if there were, do they need over an acre to play? Then you need a $10K mower to maintain it (or pay someone to mow it). My friend has a vacation home that he visits many weekends. Spends the first half of the weekend mowing the grass??????
The best yard is a forest, let the leaves cover the ground. Clear the underbrush if you want it to appear open. Low to no maintenance.
I’m getting ready to move, so I’m clearing out stuff. I’ve been selling a lot on eBay and Craigslist. You could sell off your lawn tractor and use the proceeds to defray the cost of the zero-turn. Someone else who values a lawn tractor gets that, while you get the zero-turn at less than full cost.
Just be patient, Ken. With any luck, you can claim that zero-turn when your mom precedes you. No point in having two…. Besides a used one is cheaper.
Yards are like portfolios of investments. You need to build the right portfolio and plan for the long term – to have to make very few changes over time, and yet can steadily sit back and admire it.
But if your yard has lots of different green stuff when you move in, you’ve inherited an undesirable ‘index’. You don’t want that. In yards you need to be overweight with only a few things that have proved themselves over the long term. You want ‘ slow growth’, but you definitely don’t want to have the burden of ‘active management’.
I’d even call my lawn ‘tax-managed’. Just before April 15, when the 5-day average soil temperature is reaching 50 degrees, I put down my crabgrass preventer. That is the one move I make every year that always pays huge dividends.
I was going to suggest you spend some money and buy a trailer to pick up your mothers ZT mower and move it back-and-forth.
I might be the first one to tell you NOT to buy the ZT mower. While it is very manuverable, every time you make a sharp turn, the inside rear wheel is simply pivoting on itself and grinding the grass away. There are tractors with 4 wheel steering that might be better in that regard but cost even more.
Ken, thanks for a thought-provoking article. As a retired engineer, I can probably give you a run for your money when it comes to being frugal—sometimes way too frugal. I have frequently thought about the fact that I might be penny wise and pound foolish in many of my spending decisions. I think you should get the new mower, but I also know it would be hard for me if I were in your shoes.
If you’re looking for permission to buy a new mower, I think you’ve got it!
At least you aren’t using a push mower…
Ken, this was great and a fun read. Thanks.
I also dislike mowing but am a very lucky guy—my wife actually enjoys it!
I bought her a top-of-the-line Ego battery powered model and she just mows like crazy. I’ll have to ask Steve A.—maybe this is therapy-by-mowing?
Do you really have a 1.5 acre lawn? Why? Letting part of it go natural or planting trees would be less work for you and better for the environment.
I think that’s a great suggestion.
Your fellow Kentuckian Col Sanders is credited with saying “There’s no reason to be the richest man in the cemetery. You can’t do any business from there.”
Seems spot-on to me.
Ken, as the the old saying goes, He who dies with the most toys, wins….Buy the zero turn mower and never look back. Besides you shouldn’t want to be the richest guy in the graveyard….
Learning to enjoy spending your hard-earned savings is a legitimate problem, for which I have no easy prescription. But it beats the alternative of being a spendthrift with no savings.
I enjoy reading all your articles. We have many similarities, except this will be my last year for mowing and all yard work.
What an insightful article. I’m similarly impaired but could not have written about it with as much self-effacing transparency and good humor as you have done. I have read some of your other five, so I know this one wasn’t a fluke.
We’ve sold our prior tractor to a neighbor before upgrading, go for it!
My husband enjoys his hitched cart for toting bags of mulch or sticks. We add a snowblade to the front in late November. Tractors still have a place in our life!
Ken, thanks for the enjoyable article. I had a similar battle with an old, undersized snow blower. If the snow was over about ten inches, I had to push the unit and effectively plowed the snow. The handle repeatedly broke from the exertion, and I repaired it multiple times per winter. After a decade or so, I finally broke down and bought a nice, new, more powerful unit. We didn’t have snow for the next several years, and I sold it when we sold our house and moved to the beach. My advice, get the zero turn while you still have the opportunity to enjoy it.
Ken, if you have your health you have everything. Get the zero turn. It’s a gift that keeps on giving,
For most of us middle-class types it is as my Father told me when he considered me to be a “real” adult. Just after my first child was born …
“You can have ANYTHING you want. You just can’t have EVERYTHING you want. Pick wisely.”
If you are mowing your mother’s yard, and hers is smaller than yours, why don’t you switch lawn mowers with her?
Also, if you’re 65, it is probably time to start thinking about where you want to wind up at 75 or 85. At the CCRC I’m moving to in October the wait list for a two bedroom apartment is ten years plus.
It’s always good to take a critical look at one’s own behavior. Thanks for the reminder. Plus the dash of humor is nice as well.
Thanks for another entertaining article, Ken. Give yourself credit for being able to engage in accurate self-diagnosis. Now, please get rid of that old mower this week. Maybe the Salvation Army would still take it.
Or a repair place for its parts, or the scrap value.