Beth Rogers is taking the family’s finances into her own hands — literally.
The 35-year-old from Fayetteville, Ark., ditched her weekly housekeeping service and now mops her own floors. She and her husband, Stanley, work in the yard after canceling their lawn care contract. She cooks at home instead of the family eating out, and she told her husband to iron his own shirts rather than send them to the cleaners. Total savings? About $10,000 a year.
“It made me feel embarrassed, because I realized the things we were hiring out was just me being lazy, or things I could do for myself,” said Rogers, a stay-at-home mom who made the changes after business began to slow at her husband’s car wash company.
Across the country, people are taking on chores that only a year ago were hired out to someone else. They’re dyeing their own hair, shoveling their own snow, washing their own cars and taking up paint brushes to brighten their living room walls.
The do-it-yourself trend has hurt some businesses and created opportunities for others. While every shirt ironed by 35-year-old Stanley Rogers is one fewer for the local cleaners, it also means the Rogers family will be buying more detergent and fabric softener.
Multiply the chores the Rogerses are doing by the millions of people like them who are changing their habits and the future looks bright for the do-it-yourself market.
Experts say that area will be among the first to recover once the nation’s housing sector regains steam. The research firm Mintel International, which follows a narrow segment of the market from tool rentals to building and decorating supplies, predicts the sector will make steady gains over the next two years, ultimately growing to a $15.1 billion market in 2013, or about 50 percent over a decade.
Home improvement stores Lowe’s Cos. Inc. and The Home Depot Inc. reported stronger sales of snow blowers this winter as people stopped paying for snow removal service. And they expect gardening and house cleaning items to be among their best sellers this spring and summer — a time when overall store sales traditionally are so strong that it’s likened to the industry’s Christmastime.
“We sense that people kind of want to get their hands dirty,” said Home Depot Chief Financial Officer Carol Tome.
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