Lazy Man and Money

When Your Business Doesn’t Scale

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I’m very behind in my writing this week. It’s school vacation week and I’m extremely busy – but not for the reason you might think. It’s not that our kids are around taking up all my time. No, they have a different school vacation than the public schools, so they are still in school.

Instead, I have a house full of dog boarders. With so many families gone away on vacation, they need someone to take care of their dogs. I’m that someone. We’ve passed our busiest month ever (last August) and it is still the shoulder season. The summer vacation time is usually the busiest.

I keep raising rates, but it seems like that only makes me more desirable. Or maybe it’s that I’m still below the most expensive person by about 20% while having almost as many positive reviews as she does.

It sounds like a terrific situation. In a lot of ways it is. In one important way, it isn’t.

Dog Boarding Doesn’t Scale

Let’s say that boarding one dog is one unit of work. You feed it, give it walks, pick up after it, etc. Two dogs are like 2.5 units of work. You have to feed them separately so they don’t fight or eat others’ food. That requires a little coordination. Three dogs are 4.25 units of work because now you have to do separate feedings at different times. Each dog you have also makes the little things in life a little more difficult. Dogs quickly learn that I am the source of food, so they follow me everywhere. It’s not a big deal with one or two, but 5 or 6 following you everywhere can make it difficult just to walk.

When it rains, the unit of work doubles. The effective living space for the dogs is cut in half without a nice sunny, dry yard. Instead, we deal with muddy paws everywhere.

In short, each dog creates exponentially more work. You’d want it to be at least linear. For example, if I were a landscaper or a cleaning service, adding another client is adding one more unit of work. One client doesn’t interact with another in the same way as dog boarding. I feel like sharing the same limited resource such as living space is another reason why dog boarding doesn’t scale. However, landscapers have limited resources like equipment.

Some of the best businesses scale logarithmically. I was amazed by eBay’s business in the early 2000s. They just connect millions of buyers and sellers with very little human interaction (on their part). They build and maintain the software and it does most of the work. They rarely need a human to come in and settle a dispute.

So Why Dog Boarding?

The short answer is that the money is good right now. Many people are still catching up on a couple of years of missed travel. When they were stuck at home they got dogs. The supply of dog boarders is low compared to the demand of dog owners.

A business generating profits is nothing to sneeze at. It may not scale as much as I would like, but I can invest the profit and make that scale for me. Also, I’m able to do other work while boarding dogs. Although, as you may be able to tell, I’m not able to do my best work.

I have some flexibility in shuttling the kids to school and soccer. However, that’s becoming more difficult lately as I’ve started to get a steady stream of daycare visits. The drop-off and pick-up times that people need are when I’m generally least available. I’ve been raising rates on that service to discourage people from signing up for it, but so far it hasn’t slowed down anyone yet.

Rover Review: Make Money Dog Sitting

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I’ve made over $80,000 dog sitting. If that sounds interesting read on.

Dogs do NOT like to be hugged. They feel trapped. This can be okay if it’s loose.

I wrote about starting dog sitting six years ago. Now, I include it in all my monthly reports. Locally, I’m a more prolific dog sitter than blogger at this point with hundreds of reviews.

I fell into dog sitting by accident. We found that there were no overnight dog boarders in our area of Rhode Island which lead us to DogVacay, an AirBnB for dogs. (They later merged with their competitor, Rover.) Using Rover saved us money and it was more convenient. It took a couple of years to go from Rover customer to Rover host, our kids were 1 and -1 at the time. Now, they are 7 and 8 and junior dog experts earning tax-free income in their Roth IRAs.

What is Rover?

As I mentioned above, you can think of Rover as AirBnB for dogs. For many years, when families went on vacation they brought their dog to a kennel. A kennel might have just a small space for him/her that’s little more than a cage. I remember seeing my dog in one as a kid and I couldn’t believe that the dog spent a week like that. Maybe that’s the way things were in the 1980s?

There are pet hotels that offer a better experience than kennels, but the price for them can go way up. In California in 2010, DoggieVille cost us around $40-50 a night. (It’s up to $70 now.) Before finding Rover, we found a place in the Boston area that was $80/night because it was priced per dog pound. LuckyDog, which is the boarding in our area of Newport, Rhode Island charges $150 a night! That’s a combination of people getting pandemic dogs and catching up on missed travel now that they have vaccines. Newport is a big summer tourist trap, so prices on everything go up.

Rover’s price was much better. I think the experience is much better too. When we dropped off our dog for the first time, we barely got back in the car before we were being sent pictures. The dog hotels are good, but they still have a bunch of dogs to manage. I like the idea of my dog being in a home and a family.

Changing From Sittee to Sitter

While planning one of our vacations, my view of Rover changed. The military family who had taken my dog in the past got transferred to San Diego. There wasn’t anyone else nearly us with good reviews. We eventually found a great sitter 45 minutes away, but on the way to the airport. It worked out that time, but if we were going in another direction, it would have been a lot of driving.

I thought, “Why aren’t there any dog sitters near me?!?!” The answer hit me in the face, “Because I’m not a dog sitter myself.” I am an ideal dog sitter. I am known as a dog whisper at the local dog parks. However, we also have a sizable fenced-in yard that is a rare commodity. For some reason, people tend to use electric fences in my area. Lastly, I work from home (even before the COVID). So 90% of the time people know there will be someone with their dog. That sounds like a basic requirement, but there are a number of sitters who aren’t there during the day. It may work for some dogs (including mine), but having someone around almost all the time is more desirable.

If I wasn’t a dog sitter, why would anyone else be one?

I created profiles on both DogVacay and Rover and people started to contact me. It trickled in at first in 2015, but as I got more reviews, my location, and offering stood out from the pack. In 2016, we had 566 “dog days”, which is about 1.5 dogs per day. By the middle of 2017, we had 236 “dog days.” It was a bit of a drop-off, but still good. Some of that may be due to DogVacay and Rover merging. Instead of being in two marketplaces, I was in one. Sure some of the DogVacay clients moved over, but maybe not all. And now I’m competing in one pool where I don’t stand out as much. Rover consistently put people with 5 reviews ahead of me with my 100 reviews even though that person lives farther away or has lower ratings.

This article was originally written in the middle of 2017. Now, it’s the middle of 2021 and we have 2,278 “dog days” which is very close to 1 dog per day. This only keeps track of overnights as dogs that come and leave for the same day count as 0 days in my spreadsheet. I think only about 15-20% of our dogs are day boarders, so keeping track of the overnights is the bulk. We take home about $35 per dog day after Rover expenses.

Pros and Cons of Being a Rover Dog Sitter

I didn’t intend for the introduction to go so long, but finally, we get the point I wanted to cover in the article. Many people are wondering if dog sitting is right for them. Perhaps they’ve had the thought about Uber or AirBnb. I’m going to presume that if you are asking this question, you are comfortable with dogs. No one says, “I think I should be an Uber driver, but first, I need to get a car and learn how to drive. Plus I am afraid of cars.”

The easy answer is whether you should be a dog sitter is: “NO!!! I don’t need any more competition!” (I hope everyone sees that as the joke it was meant to be).

The real answer is a lot more nuanced.

Pros of being a Rover dog sitter

There’s the obvious money aspect. I do more volume than most dog sitters. It would be hard to make career money out of it. As you can tell, I average around $12-15K a year and that’s in fairly optimal conditions. We lost about a year of sitting as COVID shutting down travel, which meant very little business. However, we’re making up for it now as we’ve had great demand and have been able to raise prices.

I’ve written about MLM a good amount on this website. As a comparison, I always say dog sitting beats the heck out of selling MLM crap like DoTerra, Beachbody Shakeology, and Le-Vel Thrive. With MLM, more than 99% of people lose money. With Rover I was more profitable on the first day than they will ever be. Every MLM company I can think of makes money by selling the hopes of a business opportunity that is mathematically designed to fail.

Getting back to dog sitting, there’s the obvious dog aspect. If you love dogs, it is hard to beat to get paid to be around them. Some people get paid millions to play a game of baseball. I get paid much, much, much less to play with dogs… but playing with dogs.

I can also combine dog sitting with my other work from home. Most of the time dogs need fairly little maintenance. I can combine it with blogging and the customer service work I do. It allows me to earn two, albeit small, incomes at the same time. They combine to help me earn a decent income and give me a lot of time flexibility. Dog sitting can eat into that time flexibility as people want to drop off and pick up their dogs are certain times, but so far I’ve always been able to work it out.

Lastly, my kids are learning how to be good with animals. They’ve gotten a lot of it from just our own dog, but with new breeds and new temperments coming in, they have quite the variety. I give them some small tasks like play fetch with a dog, keep another busy while I’m working with this dog, and cleaning up after the dogs (this is still a work in progress). They are learning some responsibility and I pay them as well put money in their Roth IRAs. Normally, it’s very hard for a kid to start a Roth IRA since the income has to be earned, but I can completely justify the amount of money I pay them for helping with my very legit small business. You can read more about dog sitting and kid Roth IRAs here.

Those are some very big pros.

However, it’s not all puppies and rainbows. Well, there are no rainbows at all.

Cons of being a Rover dog sitter

There are times where being a dog sitter is hectic. If you have a few dogs, feeding them can take some time. You have to keep them all separate and only eating their own food. Dogs are most likely to fight over food. When I started, I was trying to feed our 2 and 3-year old at the same time. Their kid table is the perfect height for a dog to eat off of. Now that they are older, they can eat off a higher table, so it’s not so bad.

We found out early on that when one dog pees on a rug, another dog will as well. It’s very difficult to clean the rug to the point where another dog won’t pick up the scent and start the cycle all over. Poop isn’t as bad as it usually sits on top and can be picked up. We ended up tearing up our carpet downstairs and putting some vinyl composite flooring from Home Depot. We got a a new leather couch that was easier to clean from muddy paws.

We have all sorts of minor damage to the house. There was the dog that scraped at our cabinets. There was the dog that scraped at the door. Our lawn isn’t in the best shape due to all the poop, pee, and occasional digging. At any given time, I could construct four Great Danes out of the spare dog hair on our floors.

So just like an Uber driver might consider the wear and tear on his/her car, you might consider the wear and tear of dog sitting on your home.

The next con would be your time. Dog sitting is in demand during the summer, on the weekends, and during holidays. Do you like to do things with your family during those times? Or do you want to be available as a dog sitter? It may sound easy to say, “Oh I’ll take family every time.” I’ve found that being available for major holidays could be worth up to $1000. It’s not just that one day, but people go away for a whole week and holiday rates apply. If you want that week of business, you have to be available. It’s easy for me to have five dogs during those busy times. Over the last couple of months with the COVID travel, we’ve averaged around 3-4 dogs a day.

Giving up a weekend to go visit family could mean the loss of a couple of hundred dollars in bookings as well. In the last couple of months, I wrote in my income report that we’ve taken a couple of vacations. I’ve certainly lost business because of that.

One more con is dealing with the dog owners. A vast majority of them are great. However, just like anywhere else in life, there are always a few who are a little off. I think most animal trainers will tell you that the real trick is training the owners. Again, this is a very small percentage. To be fair, I’ve met some interesting dog owners including a handbag CEO, an antique automobile museum CEO, a New England Patriot, and a house flipper. I’m sure I’ve met other interesting people, but when a client drops off their dog, they don’t give you their resume.

The last con is the “false hustle” trap. Someone initiates a booking with you. You explain why the dog will be a good fit and accept the dog. Then they say, “Oh, I booked with someone else.” This happens a lot with Rover because they immediately show competing dog sitters after someone creates a request. In an extreme case like this past Saturday, I had it happen to me 3 times in a span of 30 minutes. One of them even thanked me for my quick response… while they went with another sitter. That’s a lot of productivity for zero money.

It can be worse with Meet and Greets. These are when dog owners schedule a visit to see the place before booking. Being a blogger, I’m not very big on scheduling things. However, I understand the need and do the same for my own dog. Plus, it’s helpful for me to meet the dog as well. It doesn’t happen very often, but sometimes I’ll spend 30 minutes with a Meet and Greet and the person won’t book. Usually, because it’s their plans changed (or at least that’s what they tell me to be nice).

Sometimes I do freelance writing and I know a lot of other bloggers who do as well. They bake into their price things like invoicing, buying their own health care, and things of that nature. When dog sitting rates are around $40/day (in my area), it’s easy to see how losing an hour to a “false hustle” trap can be a problem.

If you’ve ever wondered why your dog sitter is expensive, these are some of the reasons.

On the other hand, you never know if the next request is going to be a regular client. Regular clients are tremendous because you know their dogs extremely well and you know the owners well. I can accept a booking in less than 15 seconds with a one-liner of “Happy to have Fluffy back again!”

Your Turn

Do you think dog sitting could be right for you? If so, head on over to Rover and sign up.

Maybe it isn’t a good fit for your particular life circumstances now, but what if you were able to do some work from home, freelance, or do it as a second act in “retirement”? Let me know what you think in the comments.

This article was originally written August 9, 2017. It was updated on July 26, 2021.

Could You Save ~$100,000 by Age 18? She did!

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I often read a lot of financial articles and think, “I should write about this.” About 10% of the time, I actually do. The rest of the time… well that’s how I earn my nickname.

One of those stories that I always meant to write about was the story of this 18-year old young woman who had saved $85,000.

It’s the perfect personal finance headline and story. Everyone wants an easy recipe to wealth and it’s tempting to think, “I’ll have what she’s having. I’ll do what she’s doing. If she can save so much by age 18 with a full school schedule and part-time jobs, maybe I can do it too.”

I don’t know what is possible for you or not. I can only walk in my own shoes… others’ don’t fit me well.

As I went through the story, I realized that (reading between the lines) her financial life got complex quickly. I think it would make for a better case study in a book rather than a one-page web story with a few quotes. I’m sure I won’t be able to do it justice here, especially because I have to make some, possibly erroneous, assumptions.

Before I get started, I want to stress that the drive that she has and personal responsibility* are unmatched. If I get a little critical, it’s because personal finance has entered a time where we must to point out privilege – especially in any kind of success story.

What we know is that she grew up in Marin County, CA. You may not know Marin very well, but having lived in NorCal for 6 years, Marin County is a very wealthy area. It’s possibly one of the most wealthy areas in the country.

Why does that matter? This young woman started as a dog and cat sitter, moved to baby sitting, and finally as a waitress. As a dog sitter, I can tell you that areas that have higher costs of living pay more. Rich people love their pets. The same translates to babies. I’d imagine that tips are better in wealthy places too.

Here’s another thing about dog sitting, you need to have a house. Many apartments don’t take animals, and most of those that do probably require the pet to live there full-time. Because we have a home with a nice fence and I work from home, my kids can get started on a Roth IRA at an absurdly young age. That’s going to part of their privilege story. However, they’ll have to do the work too.

Kids Roth IRA

There are a couple confusing parts about the original SF Gate article.

It mentions that, at 18, she lives with a friend and independent pays for food, phone, car, clothing. Presumably this is a new arrangement for an 18 year old, so it probably isn’t too significant… and thus not worth the mention in the article.

Next, the article says that the parents made a number of money mistakes which the young woman learned from. Yet, she claims to have gotten “really intrigued by money” when the parents bought a new house, the year she started her pet-sitting gig. We don’t get details on what mistakes the parents made, but it seems obvious to see that the house made the income opportunity a possibility.

The obvious elephants in the room is that many kids in Marin County-type areas don’t have expenses. They aren’t expected to help with family bills. Thus almost every dollar earned is a dollar that can be invested. While on the topic of investing, the market had been up the previous 8 years (as of publication in 2017), so it’s possible she was able to double her earnings in the market. It was mentioned that she has multiple investing accounts and had bought Apple stock. Kudos to her!

Another important thing to consider is that she only sleeps 5 to 6 hours a night. She’s obviously very successful with that amount of sleep. That’s obviously a rare trait to have. The importance of getting more sleep is one of the few things that nearly all health experts can agree on. Getting by on less sleep could be great for your financial bottom line, but it might not lead to a high quality of life.

Final Thoughts

This is essentially the blue print that I would want for my own kids. I just hope that in the rush to make money she hasn’t missed out on being a kid. That’s my concern for my own kids as I fight my natural instinct to push them to do more and more.

Focusing on the privilege aspects in this article has been difficult for me. I’d much rather say, “Let’s celebrate this awesomeness!” And it is nothing less than awesome.

You may have noticed that I didn’t use the young woman’s name. I was curious to see if there was a follow-up to the articles that came out a couple of years ago. I found that her social media accounts were private. This is my way of granting some of that privacy, while still talking about her financial accomplishments.

* Personal responsibility seems to be a big political buzzword nowadays. I don’t mean it in a political sense. I simply mean that she seems responsible, which, of course comes with the dog sitting and baby sitting gigs.

Past, Present, and Future

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I’ve never liked click-bait titles. You know, those kind of titles that end with, “… and you won’t believe what happened!” I am almost always disappointed because the “unbelievable thing”, wasn’t so unbelievable.

So today, I’m going to do the opposite and start with the most boring title I can think of. By setting the expectation low, I can’t help but surpass it, right?

We’ll start with:

The Past

It’s Memorial Day in the United States. For many it is a time to reflect on the people who gave their lives for our country. For some it is an excuse to drink beer and eat burgers. If you are in the later group, I hope you spend some time reflecting on why we have the holiday. Having an appreciation might make your beer and burger taste a little better.

It’s tempting to write a whole blog post about Memorial Day, but this site is about personal finance. There are some great military blogs and news sites that will do a far better job than I will

The Present

Long weekends are great for my dog sitting business. It was looking bleak for most of the month, but in the last week, we booked up completely. I even had to turn away a couple of dogs. (That’s always a heart-breaker.)

We’ve had a lot of rain this weekend, so I haven’t gotten out much. I’m a long ways away from The Shining territory, but I am starting to feel a little trapped. My 4-year old suggested that we play memory for Memorial Day. I liked his logic. The four of us played and my wife cheated by using her photographic memory. She got twice the matches I did. I got twice the matches my 4-year old did. And the 4-year old got twice the matches my 3-year old did. Sounds like an SAT problem.

The rainy Memorial Day weekend is significant for our local economy. We get a ton of tourism and Memorial Day is the unofficial start of summer. (Shop owners can in some ways say, “Happy Memorial Day!” and not have it sound weird. This is when they make most of their money.) With the rain, people didn’t come and didn’t spend money. I’ve seen restaurants gut their staff after such a hit.

The Future

Today is also 5/29. For personal finance blogs like this one, it is a significant date. It’s an annual reminder to those of us who have kids that we might want to contribute to their 529 Plan.

If you are new to 529 Plans they are tax-advantaged way to save for college. They almost work like Roth IRAs where the money grows and comes out tax-free. That’s a decent tax perk. In my state, Rhode Island, we can also deduct up to $1000 from our taxes per year. Since we are saving for our kids college anyway, it makes sense to do it this way.

It seems that Rhode Island has another tax perk that could prove very interesting. It seems that a couple is allowed unlimited carry over of this deduction. I understand this to mean that if we put in $40,000 today we could deduct $1000 off our taxes for the next 40 years. I need to consult my tax advisor on this to make sure I understand it correctly.

If that’s true, it is not too shabby to have that tax deduction hanging around. Of course, who knows if we’ll live in Rhode Island or be alive in 40 years. The only downside is that a $1000 state tax deduction may only amount to a $40-60 savings each year at Rhode Island’s correct tax rates. Hmmm, that’s not too exciting after all.

It is a little dated now, but 10 years ago, I wrote a brief guide to choosing a 529 plan. The main ideas are still helpful, but the specific numbers for the states probably have changed.

I found that if your state offers one with some tax deduction (like Rhode Island), usually that’s the way to go. If your state doesn’t (California didn’t when I lived there), it may be best to explore another state’s plan. Back in 2007, I decided that Ohio’s was the best fit for us. I still have a couple of accounts with them today.

However, you choose to spend today, I hope it is meaningful to you.

Dependent Care: 20 Children or a Dog?

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I usually try to write to a more national audience, but today a local news story caught my eye: “Substitute Shortage Leaves Six Classes Uncovered.”

The story explains that there was a flu outbreak and 8-9 substitute teachers were covering classes (aside from the 6 uncovered classes). While that sounds like a one-time thing, finding substitute teachers seems to be a continuing problem according to the town officials.

What really caught my attention is that substitute teachers are paid $70 a day. A quick search tells me that the school day goes from 7:30AM to 2:30PM.

At 7 hours that works out to be $10/hour. The minimum wage in my state (Rhode Island): $9.60/hr.

Let that sink in…

Let’s Look at Dog Sitting

I’ve been writing about my dog sitting gig for a couple of years now. I love dogs to the extent that I believe they are better than people. That’s a topic for another day.

I have to make that clear because I don’t want to diminish the value of dog care.

Some of the competing dog sitters in my area charge $55 a day. That’s for an overnight stay. It’s not worth doing an hourly rate, because dogs don’t need hourly care.

Would you rather have a dog (playing with your dog) in your home for 7 days or spend 5 days teaching 20 children? If money is a motivator, you’ll make more sitting the dog.

Dog sitting isn’t for everyone, but neither is being a substitute teacher. In order to be a substitute teacher it seems you need a Bachelor’s degree and certification (according to the article). Dog sitting doesn’t require either.

As a result of this incident (6 classes going uncovered), the town officials voted to raise the rate for substitutes to $90/day. That seems to be competitive with other surrounding towns. It still doesn’t seem enough, does it?