Did you know that 7 out of 10 Americans could not afford the median listed price for a new house? The median price of a new home in September 2023 is about $418,000. If you’re in a position to change your life and take a new job at a moment’s notice, there are many jobs that will pay you a good salary and even offer free housing.
Depending on the position you apply for, you might be granted free housing in a room or apartment. You might be granted the use of a company car and be given paid vacation time. It all depends on the job, your experience, and the extra perks that you can negotiate.
Here are two jobs, groundskeeping, and butlering, that pay over $45,000 and offer free housing. If you have hospitality experience you could make $90,000 as a butler.
Groundskeeper ($45,000+ and Overtime)
You don’t need any credentials or certifications to become a groundskeeper except a high school diploma or a G.E.D. To help you acquire good-paying work as a groundskeeper it would help to have some relevant experience and skills or recommendations before applying.
A groundskeeper is responsible for the aesthetic and landscape appearances and upkeep of properties, land, and buildings for an employer. An academic institution, business, center, or private property might have lawns, topiary, walkways, driveways, garden landscapes, gates, fencing, painted property assets, and so on that require consistent maintenance and repair as needed.
Groundskeepers could be responsible for putting up and taking down holiday landscape decorations, mowing and trimming lawns and removing weeds on a schedule, and taking care of all landscape equipment like lawnmowers, garden shears, leaf blowers, and so on.
Groundskeepers may be responsible for garbage and recycling collection and processing depending on where they work. You may be the sole groundskeeper or work with a team that answers to your direction as the head groundskeeper.
Keep in mind that you could be on-call for services 24 hours. You may have to coordinate and maintain nighttime maintenance routines if there are pest or animal problems that are ruining the aesthetics of the facility. Additionally, you may accidentally become the first line of safety and defense for the facility if you witness a crime and need to call the police.
In short, it’s your responsibility as the groundskeeper to ensure that the aesthetics and grounds of where they work are always visually acceptable, appealing, and well-maintained.
While being a groundskeeper might include a free apartment, you should be physically fit, accustomed to outdoor working conditions, handy with tools, and good at maintaining schedules.
A typical groundskeeper can make anywhere between $13 to $21.45 per hour with the average being $16.50 per hour. You can make $45K annually as a groundkeeper with benefits, a 401K, and the option to make $4,500 in overtime annually as well.
Butler ($76,000)
You have watched enough TV shows and films to understand what a butler is, but in a nutshell, a butler is basically the on-site servant and hospitality coordinator for a private employer. While “servant” is a loaded term in the 2020s, there is no better way to describe the position.
You would basically be responsible for being professionally attentive and alert to all of the household social coordination needs of a family or employer. As the butler, you could be responsible for a staff and delegate duties based on your instructions.
You would be responsible for duties like designing the weekly menu, cooking, and laying out meals. Unless you have a staff under you, it will be your responsibility for all cleaning and laundry duties.
It would be your responsibility to answer the phone and door, announce guests, or plan social events that are ultimately signed off by your employer.
Your job as a butler is to make your employer feel as comfortable as possible at home, be attentive and available at a moment’s notice, and yet also be out of the way as needed when it comes to personal problems that would overstep your professional boundary to get into, like personal arguments initiated by the family int he household.
You might want to have a degree in hospitality, communications, or management when applying for butler positions, especially if you have no experience. A lot of people become well-paying butlers through experience and certifiable referrals, not necessarily answering want ads since employers have to engender a lot of trust with strangers who will become privy to personal information.
This doesn’t mean that you can’t get work as a butler, but you should consider what types of skills would differentiate you from other applicants. Prior experience in working or managing a restaurant, hotel, and other hospitality industry jobs can make you stand out to potential employers.
You could be the butler for a family, private club, social club, or exclusive organization that strives to make social time and events for members as pleasing as possible. No, you probably won’t be a butler to a well-known celebrity, but there are probably a lot of low-level millionaires (dentists, doctors, restauranteurs, businesspeople) who live near you who may be looking for trustworthy household employees like butlers, so think out of the box when applying.
A butler can make as much as $65,000 to $89,000 annually with the average being almost $76,000.
Butlering is not a 9 to 5 working hour vocation. It’s great work if you can find it, but keep in mind that you will be on call 24 hours and be responsible for maintaining the 24-hour professional social comfort of a person or their family at the very expense of your own.
You may have to wear a servant’s uniform all the time and groom your personal appearance to standards as mandated by your employer.
You will be part of another person’s life or family strictly as a professional servant, which can be psychologically taxing if you can’t adapt.
Conclusion
Not in the market to become a butler or groundskeeper? You could apply to become an internationally placed teacher, a traveling nurse or medical professional, a park ranger, a cruise ship employee, an au pair, or many other professions that pay well and offer free housing.
However, these jobs may require you to move at a moment’s notice, work long or irregular hours, adapt to new environments, and even potentially sacrifice a lot of your own personal time.
Don’t make such life-changing decisions on a whim, and make long-term plans about how long you would stay in such a profession if you applied.
Free rent in a spacious apartment granted with a good salary sounds great, but there is always a trade-off in life relative to what you want. You might have to sacrifice a lot of your own personal and social life to benefit from such opportunities.
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Allen Francis was an academic advisor, librarian, and college adjunct for many years with no money, no financial literacy, and no responsibility when he had money. To him, the phrase “personal finance,” contains the power that anyone has to grow their own wealth. Allen is an advocate of best personal financial practices including focusing on your needs instead of your wants, asking for help when you need it, saving and investing in your own small business.