[tonyoliver]

Before you get out of your van and do a clean
Has anyone worked out how much it has cost to get you outside the property ....,
I mean that pro rata the van ,insurance ,mot ,tax ,road tax equipment, uniform ,liability insurance odds and ends and so on
and on.
I know we all have different kit androunds but expenditure before we actually start a clean must be similar?
Each job must have a set cost to you even before you even start cleaning
Any ideas

[Smurf]

More than people think especially doing wfp work.
That is why some happy to earn a low hourly rate could end up actually losing money if not careful.

[chris turner]

More than people think especially doing wfp work.
That is why some happy to earn a low hourly rate could end up actually losing money if not careful.

Silly comment there smurf. It would take a very low hourly rate to actually'lose' money.
£30 an hour is a very reasonable rate to be aiming for. Even if you minus £10 an hour of that, which realistically you shouldn't have that much expenditure, then £20 an hour is still a good wage.
7 hours a day =£140 × 5 = £700 a week, obviously less after tax/insurance but that's still comparable to a £33-34000 salary a year for a 48 week year.
If you speak to the average Joe they would be shocked window cleaners are earning £30,000+ a year after expenses.

[Smurf]

More than people think especially doing wfp work.
That is why some happy to earn a low hourly rate could end up actually losing money if not careful.

Silly comment there smurf. It would take a very low hourly rate to actually'lose' money.
£30 an hour is a very reasonable rate to be aiming for. Even if you minus £10 an hour of that, which realistically you shouldn't have that much expenditure, then £20 an hour is still a good wage.
7 hours a day =£140 × 5 = £700 a week, obviously less after tax/insurance but that's still comparable to a £33-34000 salary a year for a 48 week year.
If you speak to the average Joe they would be shocked window cleaners are earning £30,000+ a year after expenses.

It's not a silly comment at all if you're just starting out and don't have a compact round. How many have you seen that just do one or two in a street then have to drive a way to the next job? 

[richard groves]

I aim for £30 ph.
Most my jobs are well inside of that e.g. less than an hour
Funny how most customers don't even bat an eyelid at quoted prices yet ( like I had to on one job last week because I had no idea how many hours ) when you quote an hourly price their jaw hits the ground 
To op's original question , no I've never worked it out ( cannot be bothered ) but like already said doubtful all things considered it would cost any more than £10 of that "hourly rate" - probably less.

[slap bash]

Turn over is not profit.
We  earn net profit.

[8weekly]

More than people think especially doing wfp work.
That is why some happy to earn a low hourly rate could end up actually losing money if not careful.

Silly comment there smurf. It would take a very low hourly rate to actually'lose' money.
£30 an hour is a very reasonable rate to be aiming for. Even if you minus £10 an hour of that, which realistically you shouldn't have that much expenditure, then £20 an hour is still a good wage.
7 hours a day =£140 × 5 = £700 a week, obviously less after tax/insurance but that's still comparable to a £33-34000 salary a year for a 48 week year.
If you speak to the average Joe they would be shocked window cleaners are earning £30,000+ a year after expenses.

Silly comment yourself. 48 x £700 = £33,600. What about running costs? Sick pay? Pension? I doubt you'd have £25,000 left after those are deducted if you're WFP.

[chris turner]

More than people think especially doing wfp work.
That is why some happy to earn a low hourly rate could end up actually losing money if not careful.

Silly comment there smurf. It would take a very low hourly rate to actually'lose' money.
£30 an hour is a very reasonable rate to be aiming for. Even if you minus £10 an hour of that, which realistically you shouldn't have that much expenditure, then £20 an hour is still a good wage.
7 hours a day =£140 × 5 = £700 a week, obviously less after tax/insurance but that's still comparable to a £33-34000 salary a year for a 48 week year.
If you speak to the average Joe they would be shocked window cleaners are earning £30,000+ a year after expenses.

Silly comment yourself. 48 x £700 = £33,600. What about running costs? Sick pay? Pension? I doubt you'd have £25,000 left after those are deducted if you're WFP.

Read again

That was AFTER deducting £10 pH for running costs.

[richard groves]

More than people think especially doing wfp work.
That is why some happy to earn a low hourly rate could end up actually losing money if not careful.

Silly comment there smurf. It would take a very low hourly rate to actually'lose' money.
£30 an hour is a very reasonable rate to be aiming for. Even if you minus £10 an hour of that, which realistically you shouldn't have that much expenditure, then £20 an hour is still a good wage.
7 hours a day =£140 × 5 = £700 a week, obviously less after tax/insurance but that's still comparable to a £33-34000 salary a year for a 48 week year.
If you speak to the average Joe they would be shocked window cleaners are earning £30,000+ a year after expenses.

Silly comment yourself. 48 x £700 = £33,600. What about running costs? Sick pay? Pension? I doubt you'd have £25,000 left after those are deducted if you're WFP.

Yeah but, he's already counting on £30 ph, less £10 running costs, your calculations above are after running costs, just saying.

[chris turner]

More than people think especially doing wfp work.
That is why some happy to earn a low hourly rate could end up actually losing money if not careful.

Silly comment there smurf. It would take a very low hourly rate to actually'lose' money.
£30 an hour is a very reasonable rate to be aiming for. Even if you minus £10 an hour of that, which realistically you shouldn't have that much expenditure, then £20 an hour is still a good wage.
7 hours a day =£140 × 5 = £700 a week, obviously less after tax/insurance but that's still comparable to a £33-34000 salary a year for a 48 week year.
If you speak to the average Joe they would be shocked window cleaners are earning £30,000+ a year after expenses.

Silly comment yourself. 48 x £700 = £33,600. What about running costs? Sick pay? Pension? I doubt you'd have £25,000 left after those are deducted if you're WFP.

Don't know about you but iv only had about 4 maybe 5 sick days in 5 years. I rarely get ill and when I do I normally just get on with it.
What's a pension? 

[Smurf]

Most new starters think of an hourly rate as if they are working for someone else which is not the case.
As rightly pointed out it's nothing of the sorts as it's net profit you should be looking at.

[8weekly]

More than people think especially doing wfp work.
That is why some happy to earn a low hourly rate could end up actually losing money if not careful.

Silly comment there smurf. It would take a very low hourly rate to actually'lose' money.
£30 an hour is a very reasonable rate to be aiming for. Even if you minus £10 an hour of that, which realistically you shouldn't have that much expenditure, then £20 an hour is still a good wage.
7 hours a day =£140 × 5 = £700 a week, obviously less after tax/insurance but that's still comparable to a £33-34000 salary a year for a 48 week year.
If you speak to the average Joe they would be shocked window cleaners are earning £30,000+ a year after expenses.

Silly comment yourself. 48 x £700 = £33,600. What about running costs? Sick pay? Pension? I doubt you'd have £25,000 left after those are deducted if you're WFP.

Read again

That was AFTER deducting £10 pH for running costs.

Apologies, read too quickly. To achieve £30 p/h, you need to be charging around £40-£50 ph on the glass unless your work is compact.

[SeanK]

More than people think especially doing wfp work.
That is why some happy to earn a low hourly rate could end up actually losing money if not careful.

Silly comment there smurf. It would take a very low hourly rate to actually'lose' money.
£30 an hour is a very reasonable rate to be aiming for. Even if you minus £10 an hour of that, which realistically you shouldn't have that much expenditure, then £20 an hour is still a good wage.
7 hours a day =£140 × 5 = £700 a week, obviously less after tax/insurance but that's still comparable to a £33-34000 salary a year for a 48 week year.
If you speak to the average Joe they would be shocked window cleaners are earning £30,000+ a year after expenses.

Silly comment yourself. 48 x £700 = £33,600. What about running costs? Sick pay? Pension? I doubt you'd have £25,000 left after those are deducted if you're WFP.

Don't know about you but iv only had about 4 maybe 5 sick days in 5 years. I rarely get ill and when I do I normally just get on with it.
What's a pension? 

Nice sensible post Chris, I was employed for over 29 years and never got a paid pension, if your not in the public
sector then sick pay is also something that  means very little ( a few quid a week paid after 3 days )
Plus unlike us an employee cant claim for costs that can soon mount up if you have to travel a distance to work and back,
some of these guys need to get a grip.

[Tosh]

Weekly running costs 290/wk

[SeanK]

Year one £15k
Year two £5k
Into year nine and its coming in at around £3500 a year without deducting the capital value of my equipment and van.
So from day one your talking around £28/29k.
I honestly could have done it a lot cheaper as there must be at least £2k of that wasted on rubbish gear that was hardly used
and I bought a ready built system.
The thing is it doesn't mean squat as there will be guys paying £3k a year on insurance alone and other things like metered
water and high fuel costs that don't effect me.

[Perfect Windows]

Before you get out of your van and do a clean
Has anyone worked out how much it has cost to get you outside the property ....,
I mean that pro rata the van ,insurance ,mot ,tax ,road tax equipment, uniform ,liability insurance odds and ends and so on
and on.
I know we all have different kit androunds but expenditure before we actually start a clean must be similar?
Each job must have a set cost to you even before you even start cleaning
Any ideas

Divide your expenses last year by the number of jobs you did last year.  Simple.

Vin

[Spruce]

Yes I have. I did it a couple of years ago.

Each job cost me £3.97 in expenses (excluding wages) just to arrive at the door. Expenses include equipment costs, van depreciation, insurance, fuel, MOT, servicing  etc. Or put in another way just over 40% of my turnover for that year. I don't have a new van so depreciation is minimal.

The figures were a little skewed as it also included a couple of large annual commercial jobs counted as one job each (one takes us 5 days to complete). So whist £3.97 wasn't a suitable figure with these being far to low, the % of those jobs was too high.

We are in the North East so we would be fortunate to get £9 - £10 for a 3 bed semi. We often get asked to clean two top dormer windows, so getting an idea of what our expenses are helps us not to waste our time. Its full house or nothing. It also helps us to realise that there is a good reason to have a minimum price.

It would be too difficult to put an accurate costing of annual expenses against each job either as a value or as a percentage as your expenses are never the same each year and turnover or the number of jobs done are also never the same.

Unfortunately those figures will also change the following year.

But I have used that figure of 40% to briefly explain why my quote was much higher than they expected.

[Spruce]

Before you get out of your van and do a clean
Has anyone worked out how much it has cost to get you outside the property ....,
I mean that pro rata the van ,insurance ,mot ,tax ,road tax equipment, uniform ,liability insurance odds and ends and so on
and on.
I know we all have different kit androunds but expenditure before we actually start a clean must be similar?
Each job must have a set cost to you even before you even start cleaning
Any ideas

Divide your expenses last year by the number of jobs you did last year.  Simple.

Vin

If I remember correctly Vin, it was your suggestion that influenced me to do it.

[Spruce]

Year one £15k
Year two £5k
Into year nine and its coming in at around £3500 a year without deducting the capital value of my equipment and van.
So from day one your talking around £28/29k.
I honestly could have done it a lot cheaper as there must be at least £2k of that wasted on rubbish gear that was hardly used
and I bought a ready built system.
The thing is it doesn't mean squat as there will be guys paying £3k a year on insurance alone and other things like metered
water and high fuel costs that don't effect me.

I agree Sean.

My figures would be better if I could do twice the work I'm currently able to do because of health.  So working out a cost per job is only applicable to me and no one else. They say that statictics are like a musical instrument you can play any tune on.

My son is working along with me at the moment as he trashed his van in the summer. My expenses haven't changed but if I add his turnover to mine (we are currently helping each other to get through both of our customer lists) then our cost per job and % is much healthier.

I think your figure of £3.5K is a pretty good expenses estimate.

One thing I have learnt is that expenses tend to remain reasonably constant no matter how much work or how little work we do a year.

[Stoots]

Everyone's different.

I don'T count van depreciation mot and insurance into the equation as it's my only vehicle and i would have a vehicle regardless of employment status. Yes there may be a slight difference from running a car but if there is its negligable.

Outside of that resin filters costs poles bits n pieces uniform flyers website would be about a grand a year.

Public liability is about 100 quid. Diesel maybe a fiver a day.

Not worked it out proper as can't be arsed but my tax deductable expenses for the year tend to be about 2 grand but a lot of that's van mileage based so over what my actual expenses are. So whats that a tenner a day roughly in expenses.