Charge neighbor for snow plowing?

Just be careful with the neighbors that you don't really know.
Some slip and fall lawyer might cause you to defend yourself in court because you plowed and the snow melted and turned into ice. Never underestimate the inability of people to accept any faults of their own.
Charging them just might create a liability for you.

 

This ^^^^^^

 

Well, if one neighbor is having landscaping done, where will the wash from the snow plow go? It may open a can of worms next spring once the snow melts and the sod is peeled back and top soil dug up. No matter how careful you are, it always seems to happen.

 

Yeah, I wouldn't go looking to make a few bucks plowing without liability insurance. YMMV. Sometimes being neighborly works out. I've done the ends of the driveway of a couple neighbors when I use the tractor bucket to clean up the frozen glop from the town plow but I don't go any further in than that. Just the hard to shovel stuff.

 

I'm pretty well off as I have the lawn tractor with blower, a small single-stage and a bigger 2-stage (not used in years) so try and catch as many on my street as I can. I think my record was 14 including mine. Don't expect or want money but every once in a while someone will donate money and/or treats.

 

They should chip in on the common driveway, i mean if you didnt do it some other guy would charge whoever to do it. If i were the neighbor i would offer you money and/or favors for doing it.
I dont know what current market is for plowing, but maybe a neighbor discount? Have you met them yet? Seem like reasonable folks?

 

Yes, they are pretty nice as neighbors go. Both work at home engineers. He's mid 40's, she's late 20's.

I certainly don't mind helping people out, and I've done my share in the past. I try to be a good Christian. However, I feel there is a difference between helping and enabling.

 

I have other plowing arrangements now, but when we needed it our neighbor plowed our driveway for a few years and never asked for a dime, nor would accept any money. We get a lot of lake effect snow inland from Superior so it was no small job for him.

I take every opportunity to help him or his family when I can, and if he was in immediate need I would drop everything. This has gone both ways for over 30 years now, and this reciprocal relationship between our families is much more valuable than money.

This past summer our son and I helped him and his family for a couple days building a house for his daughter and son-in-law.

They are among our closest friends.

 

I don't charge neighbors.
If they offer a fuel donation, fine.
I get along with my neighbors. We watch each others places when we go away. Let out each others dogs during the day...
Thats what neighbors do. No need to make money off a neighbor

 

x2, well said.

 

X3

 

^^^ is very true also

 

Same.

I have a few neighbors that I help for free, and one that pays me, but she is a snowbird so I just hit it at the end of the storm, and is someone I had never met because she lives on the opposite side of the road that I never go on. I also live on a private road that we maintain ourselves. We pay a company to plow it for us, but I will still go through and clean up as necessary after the storm.

It killed me to charge one of my neighbors that I really like last year during a blizzard because he went away for a month, and I had a vacation that I needed someone else to plow for me during a storm that came up. He insisted on paying, but that wont happen again this year when he goes for two months.