Do you pay kids in cash?

May 08, 2023 Last reply: 3 years ago 6 Replies

Do any of you hire high school or college kids to do lawn work or other stuff around the house?



How do you pay them? Cash? Cashapp? Venmo?


1) Do cashapp or venmo require the payer to have a cashapp (or venmo) account? Or can one just use its webpage without having an account. (I'm sure it's the latter but googling kept giving answers to the wrong question.) A young man gave me his card and he listed cashapp for payment.


2) But I'm asking mostly to find out if anyone still pays in cash. A guy posted an ad on Nextdoor for a college student to work in his yard



10 hours a week. And twice he said that he would pay cash, daily. And his post was removed by Nextdoor as a possible fraud. Is offering to pay cash, daily, suspicious? I think an algorithm will think so.

He was personally offended and I've tried to convince him it wasn't personal. :-) He's about 78 years old. Nextdoor gives the approximate address and every home on that block is beautiful on a beautiful lot, with a swimming pool, which iirc he said his employee could use.



His ad was 4 times as long as most ads for college gardeners. Do you think that made the ND algorithm suspicious?


[snip]

Up to a couple of hundred dollars usually in cash.

I pay cash. I don't use venmo and such. No idea why Nextdoor would flag his ad. I assume the people I pay will properly report any income for tax purposes.

No. We do the work ourselves or hire a professional. I don't want some high school kid assing around with a chainsaw on my insurance.

If I did, I'd pay in cash. I pay my housecleaner and my mother's housecleaner in cash. They're older than college kids.

I'm retired so I have plenty of time to do things myself. I'm on government payroll so to speak so speed isn't an issue. It's good to stay active also. Winter is time to hibernate. My dad reroofed several of our farm buildings and did whatever maintenance was needed. You probably already know about the new IRS rules regarding cash payments. $600 will be the reporting threshold.

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A lot of older homeowners need help with simple yard chores -

- jobs that a supervised teenager is _perfect_ for - < no chainsaws or working on the roof >

I would pay cash and I'm sure the teen would gladly accept it. $ 20. per hour would probably do it. John T.

I am an older homeowner. Old-ish, anyway: a kid of 66.

This morning I'm planting six bare-root shrubs. Bare root is my accommodation to not being as strong as I'd like (and joint pain is my constant companion). I "enjoy" two inches of lean topsoil over six feet of yellow clay.

Tomorrow I'll mow my two acres while riding my lawn tractor.

Good tools can make up for a lot of age-related degeneration.

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