Christmas Holiday Ideas

Are you an outdoorsy person? Or do you dream of traveling for months at a time? Or maybe just someone who appreciates long periods of down time. Whatever the reason, starting a holiday lighting business may be the answer you’ve been looking for.

While working only 3 months out of the year might seem like a pie in the sky dream, it is in fact more attainable than you probably think. Some people have done it, as have many other professional christmas light installers from around the world.

In most parts of the world, the holiday lighting markets boom for a little less than 3 months leading up to Christmas and then die off for the rest of the year before picking up again after Halloween. Therefore by operating a holiday lighting business you have roughly 9 months (or more in some places) of free time before your work season begins.

But can we really make enough money in 3 months to live on for the full year?

The answer is a resounding YES! Of course, knowing how to live within your means is required. Let’s look at some basic numbers to explain how it is possible to only work for 3 months out of the year.

Most people in the US could live quite comfortably on $50,000 a year, in fact a large percentage of the population would kill to earn this much in 12 months, much less 8. So we will use $50,000 as our required income for the example.

Nobody wants to work 24/7 at any job, no matter how much you love it. Most good paying jobs require you to work 5 or 6 days a week, so we will use these numbers in our example.

Full-time solo christmas light installers typically earn between $800 and $1500 a day. Sometimes they may earn as much as $2000 per day working by themselves. Simply by hiring a laborer to work with you can jump your daily income by 80% or more.

Now that we’ve got all of our criteria nailed down, let’s see how it all breaks down in our 3 month time frame:

- Working 6 days a week for 3 months, means you would be working a total of 72 days per year. And with our required income of $50,000, that means that you would need to earn an average of $694.44 per day.

Looking at the above example, the goal of working only 3 months out of 12 is looking more tangible by the minute and considering that the average residential window cleaning job is around $1400, and the average 4-mand work crew brings in $3,800 per day, earning $50,000 in three months could easily become a reality.