Terri and Gerry mow the lawn

Terri is a columnist for the WSJ (Fiscally Fit) and yesterday posted her "how we're dealing with the gas crisis" obligatory article. It seems that a few years back she and her husband were having regular battles about upkeep of the lawn--he enjoyed doing it but just found better things to do with his leisure time. Finally, they agreed on a lawn/edging service, but the husband continued to do the weed and seed part. Each year the service went up about $5, but this year, due to gas prices it went up $10 (apparently Terri and Gerry's incomes didn't go up during the same time period to cover increases in cost of living--or did it?). Enough of this, said Gerry, I'll do it myself, and began looking at $2500 riding mowers. Terri panicked and went online and found one for $1750. So now Gerry and their 8 year old are bonding on the mower ($11.50 for 3 gallons of gasoline to run it.)

Call me crazy, but this doesn't strike me as a sound financial idea if you factor in trips to the ER. It's not a safe way to bond with a small child; it's eating up time they could be doing something else; we all know Terri will end up mowing the lawn when the novelty wears off the new pet. Terri needs to click over to the left and check out my posts on finances. We're obviously different generations. Letting an 8 year old mow the lawn with a power mower isn't a good idea. Let them sort laundry or run the vacuum cleaner.

That's not Terri in the photo; that's Sandra of Tedandsandra.com. But you can hardly tell the difference, right?