by Tricia
When we purchased our first home, we made a big decision. No gas powered mower. I think most of our neighbors give a chuckle when they see us see us mowing our decent-sized yard with our reel mower, but that’s okay.
We wouldn’t have it any other way.
1.) My son can mow with his little toy mower basically right next to me. I don’t have to worry about things shooting out at blazingly fast speeds and hurting someone. Also, when I stop, the mower blades stop. I love our mower for the safety aspect of it.
2.) We don’t have to worry about purchasing gas which is really handy right now with the higher gas prices. It’s funny how a decision made almost three years ago is really helping to save money right now.
3.) You get some great exercise. All you have to do is walk the mower around your yard and you get some exercise as well as a nice looking lawn.
4.) It’s quiet! Although not completely silent, it is quiet compared to a gas-powered mower. We can easily mow or lawn during times that would usually be off-limits for a gas-powered mower.
Not only was our mower very nicely priced ($80), it has been an excellent addition to our simple life. If you have never tried one, give it a spin. You just might like it.
Hmm, I couldn’t get DH to give up his riding tractor at home, but this might be a good option for around our camper at the campground. . .
The other thing is that it’s self mulching when you leave the clippings on your lawn. I never liked emptying the mower bag. Yuck.
Also non-point sources of emissions are hard to control and most NPS’s are gas motors which move around, ie cars, leaf/snowblowers, mowers, etc. So you’re saving the environment from greenhouse gasses too!
And it is a lot cheaper. We just had to buy a lawn mower. We paid over $300 for it.
Hmm…I just thought about it a little bit. We are an environmentally friendly family (emissions-wise). We drive a fuel-efficient car (Toyota Echo), we use a reel mower and we have an electric weed wacker.
It turns out that all of those decisions also save us money 😉
Since I work nights and this kind of lawn mower is quiet, it would be perfect to mow my lawn at 11 pm which is really my 11 am….diffenetly something to discuss in my own pf blog in the near future…. great article. thanks for sharing.
– Kevin (DebtFree4ever)
This is a pretty old post but I just stumbled on it.
We have a reed mower, and the main downside for me is that you can’t let the grass get too long before you mow. After a certain height it’s like chopping down a tree with a butter knife.
As long as I do it weekly or biweekly (depending on how much rain we got) it’s alright though.