I live in the south and we have bugs, in every home.   And I really don’t like bugs.  I’m not sure that anyone does, but I’d place myself on the spectrum of people who really don’t like bugs.  I also consider myself a strong independent woman, but when I see a bug, I am no longer one.  I immediately scream to my husband to come and deal with the situation.  If I am home alone, I am fully capable of dealing with the situation, but if he’s home, I definitely act incapable and as if it’s an emergency that needs to be immediately dealt with.

For the past 20 years I have subscribed to some version of a pest control service.  The one we’ve used for the last at least 10 years is Breda Pest Management, and if I am going to use a pest control service, they are great.  But on my recent quest to achieve FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) and cut out any and all unnecessary and superfluous expenses I started to ask myself I really needed a professional pest control service.  Every quarter when they call it’s always a little bit of a hassle to coordinate a time for the treatment, and when they come there’s a very strong chemical smell that always sort of concerned me.  I did a little research on some DIY treatments and found one that was very affordable and seemed to have good reviews.  So, my husband and I agreed to give it a try.

We researched a number of options and in the end decided to purchase the Essentria IC3 EPA Compliant Botanical Insecticide and a 1 gallon pump sprayer from Amazon.  The two items cost us $49, had great reviews, and shipped free in 2 days via Amazon Prime.  If you don’t have Amazon Prime, it’s totally worth the investment and you can try a 30-day trial for free here.

We figured we would try it for an initial investment of $49, and worst-case it doesn’t work and then we could revisit our options.  The good news is it’s working!  And it’s not just a little bit cheaper, it’s 87% cheaper in year 1 and 95% cheaper over 10 years!  We went from paying $376 a year, to paying $49 for our first year (as we had to invest in the treatment and the sprayer).  The Essentria pesticide we purchased will last us 2-3 years before it runs out, so I’m being conservative to assume 2 years and that has the average annual cost over 10 years at $18.50.  See below for a full comparison of costs and benefits.

I can’t believe we’ve spent almost $8,000 over the past 20 years on pest control services, when we could have been doing it ourselves.  At least we’ve learned this now, and we can save over the next 20 years.  If we had been investing this money each year, this would easily have become a year of college for one of our kids or even a reliable car.  This one small change can have a such a large impact.

Next up is me experimenting to see if I can do this for DIY mosquito control in our yard.  Stay tuned for that test and the results.

DIY vs. Professional Pest Control Cost Comparison

DIY vs. Professional Pest Control Benefit Comparison

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