Ok so as a contractor you figure out your hourly charge by calculating your salary plus you overhead divided by the amount of hours you plan on working in a year. So say you do that and it comes up to $95.00 a hour. Is this the same rate you guys charge for anything from a hour long service call to a job lasting a month? OR for the bigger jobs is your hourly wage adjusted?
sometimes it's easier to look and see what you netted in a month period of time... that sometimes lets you see where you are really at.
if i am charging $75 or $125 or flat rate or pull a number out of a hat, after a month of doing that, how much did i make? not gross,
but how much money did i make to spend on having a life when i'm not at work.
today, i went and looked at something i have to do tomorrow, when the building isn't alive and running.
drove over, looked at it, figured out a cool way to do it, picked up 200' of aluminum rigid... put racks on
the top of my van, tossed a tall ladder on top, and went to lunch....
after lunch, was gonna swing by another job, looked at waze on the iphone, saw how bad the traffic was in
that part of LA, decided monday would work better instead... came home, and am gonna take a half hour nap,
then go thru the van and sort stuff out for next week... that's it for today.
tomorrow, i have 100' of pipe to get in, then i can finish it up during next week.
lotta days are like that, some are really productive, some not as much.
the last 30 days running, including 3 days between christmas and new years,
when i normally don't work, brought in $7,500 or so, net.
it's not that much, but i don't have employees, tools and vehicle are paid for,
my days are pretty ok, and i keep bidding work.... i have somewhere above $120k
out to bid, and just keep plugging along.
and if i ever need a gratitude shot, it can be found northbound on santa fe ave. in
compton, just past del amo, looking at the several hundred old beat up $1,000
mini motorhomes that litter the street, with people living full time in them....
one of them will start up a generator, and three or four will plug in, taking turns
so everyone doesn't have to run their generator every day.....
most of us, if you are posting here, it means you are probably solvent enough
and stable enough to have quality problems. your house isn't 8' wide and 14'
long, and has duct tape and cardboard over the hole in the side of it, and a blue
home depot tarp over the top of it.
and i'm not one of the 800,000 chinese who work in the worlds largest factory,
where working conditions are so bad that the facility has three full time therapists
for suicide counseling, and they have placed nets around the taller buildings to
catch people who jump. the nets have saved over 30 lives so far, according to
the company, who probably want's a medal for their humanitarian efforts.
and before they hire you, you have to sign an agreement not to commit suicide.
suicide, in the company handbook, is grounds for immediate termination.
if you're posting here, take a moment to appreciate what you have, whatever it
looks like.
very few buildings in north america have nets around the top to catch the jumpers.
even in compton.
