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. I should know because I’ve 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 I 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.