I'm a pool owner. AMA

amother

↑ OP ↓

Wed, Jul 10 2024, 2:44 pm

amother Burgundy wrote:

If someone would reserve your pool let's say for every Monday 9am to 10am. Do you have a way to lock them in to keep their word? If they don't show up you lose an hour that you could have given to someone else, no?

Steady groups prepay for the entire summer.

amother

Lightpink

Wed, Jul 10 2024, 3:02 pm

amother Petunia wrote:

https://www.lathampool.com/automatic-safety-covers/
We have something like this over our pool. It holds up to 400 pounds so if a child or an animal were to run past our locked gate they wouldn’t be in danger. It’s easy to open and close. You just flip a switch. I highly recommend for any pool owner. It can save lives.

Would it close if a kid is inthe pool and someone accidentally presses the button ?
Tbh this scares me that someone will be trapped in the pool

amother

↑ Petunia

Wed, Jul 10 2024, 3:10 pm

amother Lightpink wrote:

Would it close if a kid is inthe pool and someone accidentally presses the button ?
Tbh this scares me that someone will be trapped in the pool

For us it’s not a button. It’s a key you need to put to get to to open and close. I don’t see how that possible to leave someone in the pool and close it. You know and can see who’s in the pool before closing it. It’s not like a public pool that’s huge and you can’t see the other side.

amother

↑ Burgundy ↓

Wed, Jul 10 2024, 3:11 pm

OP I'm thinking you're leaving out some expenses in the calculation. Maybe you're not calculating how much you're spending on running your pump plus the heater. In any case you're paying a very low fee for opening and closing your pool. Do you not take cleaning help to clean up after so many guests at the pool? What about chemicals to balance the water? Ads? Repairs and replacing equipment. All this really ads up. Or Maybe it's just where I live the prices are higher.

amother

↑ Burgundy ↓

Fri, Jul 12 2024, 1:27 pm

amother Burgundy wrote:

I want to add that I have my pool for over 20 years already so I'm very aware of the short and long term expenses.

Anyways I wish you loads of continued success and may you earn this year even more then 40k.

amother

↑ OP ↓

Sun, Jul 14 2024, 9:06 pm

amother Burgundy wrote:

Yes you're right. I did miscalculate some stuff, like de for the filter (around $100-200 per season), new beach chairs every few years, new pool rope and lifeguard tube, new noodles. These need to be replaced every 3-4 years, so it's not a yearly expense which is why I didn't count it in as part of the expenses. It's probably 1k more than I originally said it is.

We do use a very cheap pool guy for opening and closing, and ads aren't too expensive. I think a total of 200-250 per season.

amother

Tomato

Sun, Jul 14 2024, 9:22 pm

amother Hosta wrote:

I'm not the one who asked but I am curious and keep going through to see if you answered it.

Mostly I'm curious because I wonder how it would affect taxes, how it would be classed and how much that income would be taxed, and how it would affect your bottom line.

I do tend to make decisions on how much to earn on the side and what worthwhile side hustles would be, based on how the IRS sees it. This is a novel idea, I never knew pools could earn so much and be so profitable, and so I wonder how it affects tax reporting, tax brackets, etc.

I am not the IRS and for the next few years not living in the US, but I have always dreamed of having a pool for my own family, and wondered how renting it out works. You've answered a lot of my questions but this is still a big thing that worries me (and DH would never agree to renting a pool out without the answer to this question, or agree to having a pool if it didn't cover its own costs).

(BTW about cleaning ladies, I would expect that if it's her full-time job that she does report her income. And babysitters and mothers' helpers don't usually earn enough to report, if they are teens at least. If it is a full-time job then of course they report? But in those cases it's usually not a side gig but their sole income, so it doesn't affect tax brackets the same way a profitable side gig would. I think.)

It’s a business. So you would subtract expenses from gross income to get your net income. And pay taxes on your net income. It’s actually very simple.