Handyman prices

My dad's a self-employed handyman and charges =A370 per day (based in=20 Liverpool)

He is below the minimum wage then. That isnt a sustainable rate. I know because I used to charge £75 a day. I lost £3k in my first year, last year I just broke even. £100 a day has got to be a minimum for a 7 hour working day. I leave home at 8, and expect to be home for 5. Any less, and you start to regret doing the job, as you are not making enough to live a life.

Alan.

Too right. He would be better off working at McDonalds. Does he have insurance & pay tax?

I charge £160 for a full day which I think is cheap (£20 an hour). That alone won't generate enough to run a business properly, for smaller jobs I charge the first hour at £45, then £20 an hour, so a couple of 3 hour jobs a day + mark up on materials generates nearer £200.

I'm currently booked fully till mid July with more work coming in every day, so I'm looking at putting my prices up a little, I just need to find a way of presenting it.

Self employed people erroneously belive that being cheap gets them more work & it does - until you fill the diary. Then your competitive 'edge' is lost and you are working for peanuts. The world is full of busy fools.

If you asked me for a 'fixed price' to carry out a list of jobs I would either overquote or turn down the job. I'd only take on a 'list' on an hourly rate. Otherwise I could loose money sorting out snags that were unforseen.

Only if he is doing over 12hrs/day. The over 22 min. wage is currently =A35.52 set to rise to =A35.73 on 1st Oct.

In Liverpool?

No offence intended, but if he has any left after paying tax, PLI and running a car/van and buying replacemnet tools, I suspect this is a "cas= h only" rate, even then I reckon you'd be hard pressed to make much profit= .

Well it *is* North Cheshire. Last time I was up there the guy who was driving said "We've got a footballer's wife behind". I looked back, it was a brand new lilac Bentley.....

It was last October it went up to £5.73.

Thanks for the replies, i have a guy starting this afternoon who is charging me £30 per hour. I think this is a fair price and is probably what i would want if i were doing the work for someone else. He claims to be paying tax but is not VAT registered not that it makes much difference to me anyway.

Perhaps worth checking if they have liability insurance etc, in case the house catches fire or they fall off a ladder ..

I did that, and they have a policy for cover up to £5m. This is for damage, public liability etc.

Tom

Presumably he's talking about the equivalent of minimum wage once the overheads and costs of being self-employed are accounted for.

David

Eh? I checked... check again, Ah, not that any of the websites that are = on the first page from google are proper from the horses mouth government pages... but hard to read acurately press releases from organistaions wi= th an axe to grind.

=A35.80 from 1st Oct 2009. Still needs to do 12hrs work to get =A370 tho= '.

I've started putting 'gov' & 'uk' in my searches for such things these days, it seems to find the info with fewer of the misinformation sites.

Absolutely, MHM's rates seem about right to actually survive in business.

But that £70 is not cash in pocket is it. Insurance, van tax/insurance/MOT/servicing plus originally buying it. Cost of tools. Cost of clothing (I get through a pair of trousers every

Add in the capital costs of vehicle renewal every 3 years or so, regular tool replacement/renewal. That assumes the lowest possible outgoings, and the maximum income of £70 a day. In reality, these figures would be hard to achieve. From my experience, £70 a day would equal around £10k actual income after expenses/capital costs.

Add in the work in the evenings going out to give estimates and all the related paperwork of running the business, then the hourly rate will drop even more, so my view that it is below the minimum wage is looking right.

Alan.

If using google, add "site:gov.uk" without the quote marks as a search term.

I use this site for a general portal:

I live in north Bristol and for £20 per hour or £100 for a day I can get several people who are reputable jobbing builders who will undertake anything. They come with vans, tools and equipment as necessary.

Great tip, thanks.

If you employ a handyman to work at your house and he then falls off a ladder why should it be your problem?

Adam