Tyler was salting a sliced tomato from his mom's garden at supper on Tuesday when he asked, "So what did all that mowing come to, anyway?" I said I'd have to look. He said, "You know exactly." He was right. I'd been waiting for somebody to ask.
We've tracked every extra dollar on the Extra tab of the sheet since spring of last year. The mowing really got going in June 2025, so I picked June 1, 2025 through May 31, 2026 as our first full year of side income. Here's every dollar, the taxes and where it all went.
The total
| Source | Amount |
|---|---|
| Mowing, June to September 2025 (86 mows at $35) | $3,010 |
| Mowing, late April and May 2026 (40 mows at $40) | $1,600 |
| Furniture flips, profit on 13 pieces | $1,020 |
| Odds and ends | $310 |
| Total | $5,940 |
That's $5,940 before taxes, or about $495 a month on top of our paychecks.
Mowing was the big one at $4,610. Last summer's six yards brought in $735 in June, $1,050 in July, $595 in a dry August and $630 in September. This spring, with nine yards at $40, late April and May added $1,600. His first ten mows back in May 2025 came before our year starts, so they aren't in here.
For the furniture flips, I count profit, not sales. Most of what a buyer hands me just pays back the dresser and the paint, so that part was never new money. Nine pieces from October to February made $640. Four more from March to May, a bench, a dresser, four kitchen chairs and a buffet, made $380.
Odds and ends came to $310: $120 from Mr. Dale for helping paint an empty unit in one of his other duplexes, $90 for hanging Christmas lights for two mowing customers, $60 for fixing a neighbor's leaf blower and another neighbor's tiller, and $40 for hauling a coworker's old couch to the dump.
Then there's selling clutter. The $318 from cleaning out our spare closet in December is on the Extra tab, but in its own section, not in the $5,940. That was our own stuff sold for less than we paid, and our preparer told us in January that it isn't income. It went to the house fund all the same, minus one pizza. Tyler's overtime last summer isn't here either, since it came on his paycheck. And my pet sitting started in June, so it counts toward year two.
The taxes
From the first mowing payment, 25% went into a separate tax bucket. For this twelve-month stretch that was $1,152.50 from mowing. Since January we've also set aside 25% of flip profit and odds and ends, which added $153.50. That's $1,306 in all.
The mowing math worked out last winter. Tyler's 2025 mowing taxes came to about $760, and we'd set aside $840. My flips were the gap. I hadn't set aside anything for them in the fall, and they cost us about $190 we hadn't planned for. That's why everything gets the 25% now.
We checked in June, the way our preparer suggested. With the withholding from both our paychecks, she said we didn't need to start quarterly payments this year, so the 2026 part of the bucket is just sitting there, waiting for next spring's return.
Where it went
Gas, blades, trimmer line and the spring tune-up for the mowing came to $290. We spent $141 on purpose, which in our house means somebody said it out loud in the kitchen first: $85 on my own used sander, and $56 on a steak dinner in Moberly the night Tyler finished his last mow of 2025.
Everything else, $4,203, went to the house fund, most of it within a week of coming in. Last winter's tax bucket ended up there too, since our taxes came out of our refund instead of a separate bill. So the honest answer to Tyler's question is that almost all of it is sitting in the house fund right now.
Per hour, the two of us are not in the same league. Tyler's 126 mows took about 126 hours counting the driving, so about $36 an hour before gas and taxes. My 13 flips took about 106 hours, so about $9.60. Tyler has brought this up exactly once, which I appreciate.
The bigger lesson is that small money only adds up if you write it down. $5,940 came in as $35 here and $40 there and $140 for a dresser. Not one payment felt like much. Together, it's about a fifth of what's in our house fund today, and it all came from evenings, Saturdays and a mower somebody else was done with.
Year two is already running ahead. Nine yards at $40 makes for a very different summer, and the pet sitting has been steady. I'll add it all up again next June.
