Busy Fools

[treesnatcher]

2 kids beautiful wife and rent to pay. could not do it on £120/day

[Hodge]

You can't live on £600 a week? Wow. I was suggesting £120 as an idea for the fella. I think a lot of people would be happy on £120.

 

 

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[treesnatcher]

no. And i still cannot afford to buy a house.

[Ty Korrigan]

2 dirty landies full of dog hair...?

Ty:laugh1:

[Syd_B]

Everyone is different, £120 a day wages ain't to bad:)

 

 

Sent from Hodge's eye phone using the new fancy Arbtalk Mobile App:)

 

£120 take home is'nt bad, but if you have to find your overheads out of it that £120 soon gets eaten up.

[spuddog0507]

Hi all just spent best part of an hour reading all the posts on this thread, and it seems all one sided to me i.e what i want to earn,what i need to earn and what i should be earning,but you all seem to be missing a very important point ? none of you have mentioned any thing about the economic climate that we are in and thats not just the u.k but most of the countries in the world, times are HARD for people (thats your customers) they have had wage cuts,there working hours cut and the cost of bassic living keeps going up so there for that = less surppless money in the average house hold, one of my sayings is all ways look at things in life from all angles and that means going 2,3,4,5 years from now and look back at what you do today and how it will affect you in 2,3,4,5 years from now and where do you want to be in 5 years ??. try and charge sensibly and you will still be here in 5 years charge the earth and you proberbly wont ?,we are going in to a tripple dip in the recestion with a forth forcast for the end of the year so its going to be hard for a few years yet (someone mentioned all ready).When i set up in buissness 1n 1984 the mortgage rate was 17.25% yes 17.25% and some of you will have experianced the same, today its .5% so its pretty good compared to the 80s,and another point i will make is one of my customers is the environment agency the guy i deal with is a great bloke very open with what he says his budget to spend in 2010/2011 was £250K 2011/2012 was £125k 2012/2013 was £75k and he recons his 2013/2014 budget will be £40/50 k thats a 80% reduction in 4 years ,em, so guys charge what you feel is right,and lets see who survives i have been here 30 years in march, got 4 monthes work in the book and its only mid feb, theres a few tree ladds round me goe to the wall recently all had nice new shiny kit, do you really need all that,??????? as pat ferrett said just get on with it and quit your moaning and i wish you all the best but only the srongest will survive.

[Syd_B]

I appreciate that, BUT, if you don't price a job correctly, your finance, tax, wage bill and your own income takes a hit as well, and as you said, the cost of living keeps going up.

 

I've priced myself out of (an unrelated) business before and I'm only just getting back on my feet after the fallout, you still need to bring more in than is going out.

[Hodge]

Even though there is a recession and money is tight it doesn't mean your costs alter. Insurance doesn't go down because moneys tight. When you know the tree game then you will know how to price, trying to explain it to people who are starting out is hard, sometimes you just gotta let them find out the hardway like a lot of us have. I have nothing on finance anymore thank god but I found that was the hardest thing, if you have a quite week you still have that money to find. Now if I have a quite week it's not as bad because I know that I can make up the money in a busy time. Owning all my own gear and keeping outgoings to a minimum is the best thing IMO.

 

 

Sent from Hodge's eye phone using the new fancy Arbtalk Mobile App:)

[Hodge]

£120 take home is'nt bad, but if you have to find your overheads out of it that £120 soon gets eaten up.

 

I agree, that's why I said wages. Day rate minus costs, wages and anything left is a bit extra get a good accountant and they are worth their weight in gold.

 

 

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[Horatio]

This is a good thread! As someone who is about starting out in business, doing mainly hedgecutting work small tree work and grounds maintenance. What would you suggest i should be turning over each day? The kit i'll be using won't include a chipper but i will have chainsaws, ppe climbing kit, hedgecutters, mowers etc etc.

 

Come on guys, enough of this "what should I be charging?"

Seriously if you don't know, go and get employed by someone who does.

Jokers

This industry is full of people who as soon as they THINK they can, they go and start up then sponge off the knowledge of people who have done it the hard way.

I was working for the same guy for near on 9 years before I went self employed.

I know some clowns who as soon as they can get to the top of a 50ft cony they call themselves Arborists.

No matters to me as they may have a lower day rate, but seeing as they are slow it take them twice as long. I price for 1 day they price for 2 days.

You carry on noobs you make us proper Arborists look good!