doobin

I seem to end up doing a lot of clearance work on fairly steep hills. So ideal for that. Great for wetter jobs too. I will also be able to bolt on steel extensions I will make up to give more flotation, save getting the bog mats out.

Yea, I noticed that too. the fly killer in the yard kitchen claimed it’s first victim today 👍🏻

Started wet, then the sun came out and my goodness was it humid! A momentous occasion this evening as the kitchen window was opened for the first time this year. Bloody lovely.

Not worth the hassle mate. If you want a cheaper machine the sany and luigong are starting to make names for themselves with a pretty good standard spec and good dealer presence. Still more of a gamble than an established brand, but remember that the Jap makes were all regarded the same way when then came over in the seventies. You’d be better off getting a secondhand known make than a new Ouilde IMHO

Got me some steel tracks on mine. £830 a side, easy enough to swap between rubbers and steels for different jobs too. Came from Astrak.

It's a fair bet that the perps were, shall we say, 'ethinic' and that the lamb was destined (possibly when bigger, possibly they were stupid and assumed that was the right size to steal) for 'smokies'

I wasn't impressed with them. Tried to use them for dispensing things like TRF, gave up and bought a caustic rated pump in the end. Way too slow a flow rate and I still got airlocks.

Those logs are for sale then? Otherwise surely you'd just burn slabwood from your mill!

What were you loading them up for? I agree with the sentiment, but you don't want to be cutting saw logs in half!

I photograph the paper receipts and they go into the same folder as the email ones. Back this up to the cloud and you’re good. Agree re cross referencing the bank statement, but I do this last thing. Usually the ones I find are the bloody builders merchants who I constantly have to hound for a vat recipe after them promising to send via email when I place the order on the phone.

How many of your business transactions do you not have a physical paper or email receipt for? Why are you cross-referencing your bank account with phyical receipts that you already have in front of you? Furthermore, if you are VAT registered, a line on the bank statement is not acceptable to HMRC as proof of a valid VAT deductible expense. So OP may as well get in the habit of proper book-keeping from the off IMHO. I do my books every month in just half an hour with a spreadsheet. Physical paper receipts are photographed to preserve for the required six years, email receipts are saved to the same folder.

I'm on the waitlist.

I wouldn't bother opening another account. It's not hard to separate business transactions from personal each month, and most of it you will be doing off email and paper receipts anyhow. If you open another personal account soley for business use, it might be obvious to their algorithms. It will also probably be harder to do a personal loan through a new account. I bought my first machinery with a personal loan, I think at 3.3%! Those were the days! Just tick the box that says 'new kitchen' or some bullshit. If you are getting offered a reasonable rate in the current climate, it's definitely the easiest route. Funny story- I do actually have a business account- opened solely to receive and service a bounceback loan. I don't use it for anything else. NatWest were about to put up their personal overdraft rates to something daft like 30%, so I thought I'd open a business account for a cheaper overdraft. They told me they couldn't consider my banking history of ten plus years running through a personal account, even though I was a sole trader, so they couldn't offer me an overdraft on the business account for a year. Yet in the same breath they suggested I apply for a BBL instead. Five days later, this virgin account had £50k credited to it. So NatWest wouldn't consider my business history in one breath, but were satisfied that I was a genuine business for a BBL? Or.... as soon as it was government backed, no ****************s given! Basically mate, the banks are bent anyhow and so long as you pay it back no questions will be asked.

What’s pointless about my comment? You asked if £4-800 a day was realistic, I told you straight

Same here, despite 5k of finance per month!

Sounds pretty good. I would be looking to underpin the foundations of your business rather than expand, which it sounds like you are. Be ready to weather the storm.

Sounds like you already make pretty good and consistant profit? Out of £2100 per day, how much of that is profit? £1k? Or more like £500? I can feel your pain- you end up thinking, 'Why should I deal with all the stress just for £200 more than a subby?' Perhaps it's time to question whether this is actually scaleble further due to the involvement already required from you. Might it help your mental state to accept this, just for the time being, particularly with the current economic climate? Relax, enjoy the business for the profit it creates you? Possibly invest in some more machinery, so that you can loose a staff member or two if/when needed? Finance payments are considerably less than labour. I'm not sure how mechanised you already or or whether any further machinery would suit your work, so just a suggestion.

£400-800 for what? A man and a chipper? Cloud cuckoo land I’m afraid mate.

We've all done similar mate!

Indeed. Averaged out that suggests there must be a few 10k days in there! I consider myself to be very much on a 'jam' job if I invoice £2.5k for two men and a digger. I usually get one of these a month and it's always down to using machinery to do what would take labour much longer, as well as buying materials by the lorry load and then invoicing them at normal rates. How did you arrive at that figure? I haven't looked back at the numbers posted in the thread, but I know @Clutchyruns a pair of two man teams. £1250 per team per day is more realistic- still very high to do every day but more realistic.

I think it's about this time in life that you realise quality of life is important too. I can relate to the OP at that age.

If you put it back into the business it’s there in machinery etc. not all black and white. Honestly, if you want to be wealthy, it’s less of a gamble trying to get into banking than tree work. Or there are other trades which are much more scalable if business is your forte. I doubt very many tree business owners are on 90k a year for two teams. Far too many other two team businesses are willing to do it for less. So you either need big investment in machinery, or luck/an in to the big jobs. It sounds like you are heavily reliant upon turnover. That’s not a great place to be in a recession. Plenty of businesses expand very quickly, but disappear even faster.

They sure do. I saw the light with the Multione, the Sherpa is just for little jobs but even then it more than pays it's way in labour savings. Actually, if anything, the Sherpa saves more money. The Multione gives you another, more efficient way to do tasks that you'd usually machinery for, such as a digger and dumper. The Sherpa saves actual labour, and therefore cold hard cash.

I'm actually working on a prototype if you wanted to give it a test? I've taken the cone splitter and glued a pack of baby wipes to the tip. If nothing else, it will certainly focus your mind on smooth operating!

Any firm that realises how loaders can speed things up will already have their own in my experience. The others just think '£400? I can have three brash monkeys for that!' To be fair, £400 is a bit steep of a subby rate for a machine that costs £12-15k and runs on ten litres of unleaded, whilst also fitting in a Transit van for the journey to site. I have a pretty good Sherpa setup and the finance is £280 a month. If I use it once and pay the operator and that's the same as getting you in for a day- but it's always there when I need it for any job, no matter how small. £400 is more like basic 2.8t digger and grab subby rate- £30k outlay, 30 litres a day diesel and needs a thirsty truck rated to 3.5t tow capacity plus trailer to haul it. I'm not knocking you, if you need to earn that then that's absoloutely fair enough and you should always shoot for the stars. Just don't expect many trade takers.