"Janet Baraclough" wrote in message
...
The message
from "bnd777" contains these words:

Boy is the cost of living cheap in your area
Quote down south would be at least £100

Per hour? £4,000 per week, £200,000 per year?

No wonder you can't get enough teachers and nurses down there, they must
be leaving the profession in droves to qualify as tree fellers.

Janet

Quoting time, Office admin time, travelling time, vehicle running costs,
vehicle depreciation, dead time between jobs, rained off time, cost of
equipment, cost of disposal, cost of public liability insurance,
professional indemnity insurance, equipment insurance, sickness insurance,
pension plan......................

£15/hour sounds astonishingly cheap!

Jobbing contractors will have billable hours of 50-75% of their working
time.

£15/hour for 1850 working hours (normal employed working time) x 75% =
£20,800 top line income before any business costs are taken out.

About 6 years ago, I was doing jobbing work in Wimbledon Village and
charging £10/hour to a client in 1.5 acre garden, 6/8 bed house in the
centre of the village. (Value then??? £5M??) They went off for a weekend and
came back telling me that their "friends in the country only pay £4/hour for
their gardener", and clearly expected me to reduce my rates : Our
relationship did not survive very long.... about 30 seconds!

Why is it that because hobby gardeners do it for love in their own garden so
many of them expect to pay a pittance when they have work done for them?

pk