Who's lawn mower breaks at the end of the season?  Mine does, of course.  After trying several attempts to revive the old "Montgomery Ward" mower, I gave up.  It had already been patched and jerry rigged enough times, I decided it was time to get a new one.   But I was on a budget, so I was looking for a bargain.

I wanted a new lawnmower.  I didn't want to go to Craigslist and get a worn out one.  (I did check by the way... nothing worth much.)  I don't have a giant yard, so I didn't want to spend the money for self-propelled.  I really didn't need anything fancy so I ended up buying the cheapest mower still in stock at Menards.  It was a yard machines MTD 21" mower.  It was a mulcher, with a bag option.  It was $10 off for summer closeout special, so the total was $179.00.

This wasn't the cheapest they sold, but it was the cheapest they still had in stock.  So I went home and put it together.

Which actually took about 5 minutes.  I don't know if this was a display model they just packaged up, or if they really are that easy.  Basically, I had to attach the handle bar and move two screws, back out the handle bar 8" from the deck, add oil, add gas, and start it up.  It was pretty slick.  I didn't even need any tools.

Oh, and it even comes with it's perfectly measured amount of oil.  Perfect!  Only problem was the oil container was leaking a little bit, so it got a little messy.

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The trickiest part was attaching the bag to it's frame.  It probably would have gone smoother if I read the directions, but I'm a guy and we don't do that.  I figured it out.  On a side note:  the directions are a bit confusing and I just tossed them.  The bag is really easy to attach to the deck.

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It cut great, started on the 3rd pull.  (Not bad.)  Seems like a good value, and here's hoping it will hold up for many more years.

 

 

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