Price per acre - bush hogging

[prof fate]

Well, depends on how you do the accounting whether you 'made money' or not. And what was your goal? That can be a factor too.

Since accounting wise the trailer and tractor are depreciated over time, THAT is the number you need to use. If you're talking cashflow then the payments might matter more, as they are 'real money' and the other is 'paper money'.

And being a fixed asset the more you use it the cheaper it is. If it's costing you $300/month for a payment, times 12 months, $3600, and you get 100 hours of work a year then the cost of the tractor is $36/hour...if you put 200 on it, 100 paid and 100 for personal use then you should calc that the commercial use is $18/hour and the rest is personal.

it's all numbers on paper...

Insurance, fuel, mileage, marketing are all expenses, some fixed and some variable.

Then you have your time...mowing, travel, estimating/sales, marketing. accounting, maintenance, etc.

And escrow for repairs/replacement.

Like most 'side hustles' you can usually make more money working a part time job waiting tables or something with less hassle.

And if you can dedicate a room in your house for the business you can write off a percentage of your house expenses for the business - I use about 1/3 of my SF for my DJ/photo business - so 1/3 of my prop taxes, utilities, repairs, etc are written off. It's about $5k a year.
Mileage is another biggies, $2500 a year.
And if you used your truck for work say, 30% of it's miles you can write off 30% of the loan interest!

So I've got to make $8k to cover those expenses...but they're more on paper than real money. I probably pay income tax on less than half my gross sales.

You have office expenses (computer, paper, printer, ink, postage, envelopes, etc) too.
To deduct a phone you need a dedicated phone for the business.
Perhaps internet as well?

I started doing this last year and have been surprisingly successful with a simple Craigslist add. I have obtained insurance and run this as a business, but as a side business only.

My fees are pretty simple:
- $60/hr for tractor and cutter.
- 4hr minimum unless it is one of my regulars. I have a handful of good customers that are excellent and I'll bend the rules for them.
- Same rate for mobilizing to the site. I start charging as soon as I leave my driveway. Usually my machine is loaded the night before.
- I do not charge going home.
- I do not take work that I cannot look at and estimate beforehand. I did estimate one from Google Maps, and that was not ideal, but not entirely a problem.
- I'll quote the hours and total price.

LD1 is absolutely correct, most homeowners would rather pay $480 for a job that takes all day, but will balk at $60/hr.

I will find out how it goes once I finish our taxes this weekend. My total profits did not cover expenses, with the new trailer purchase this year. My rate was a market rate, not really a total cost thing. My pricing really doesn't cover that much:
- My tractor and KTAC insurance payments are very low, so it would bear that cost
- Fuel was covered
- Insurance was covered
- Repairs (PTO shaft and loader stand)
- Chains, binders and straps
- Maintenance
- A little less than a third of the cost of the new trailer to get the tractor to the jobs.

And that's it. Notice, that I haven't included the trucks in there, or maintenance of the trucks. I figure I will break even in 3 years, and maybe I can rent to the trucks to the business if needed.

 

[YLee Kioti]

Looks like this confirms the new for a sub-forum on shredding/clearing.
I downloaded a pdf from A&M with a chart for ranch work tasks.
Looked an a two year old receipt and was charges 35 an acre for 8 acre of shredding.
So a sub-forum by national region would be big help.
This way we can share business models, equipment et al that is common for a geographical region.
Once I'm done this spring, I'll be looking for side jobs shredding. Start small see how it goes. Use winter for repairs, etc.
Anyway, if any mods happen to read this, please ponder this as a potential.
Thanks...

 

[seasled]

If you aren’t making a $100. An hr.for a small machine, You will not be commercially viable, based on 20 operating hrs per week to a bank . Just an FYI

 

[4570Man]

$100 an hour is way overpriced for a little machine. That’ll get you construction equipment in the job.

 

[LD1]

Rephrase that....if you ARE making $100/hr with a small machine....there is no way you are even gonna come close to 20hrs a week

 

[prof fate]

machine needs to be sized to the task to be most efficient.

before I bought my place, 2 acres, they mowed the front 3/4 acre and had the back 1.25 hogged twice a year. You'd not want a big machine in there for many reasons, assuming you'd get it on the property and under the trees/wires in the driveway.

the township bought a 1 acre plot of land next to a park and brought in a hog on an an excavator arm...made very short work of that acre, trees and all. Here an acre would be too much for a small machine.

I do 22ish acres of horse pasture..did it with a 4' hog then got a bigger tractor and 6' hog..shoudl probably have a 7' (based on performance of 6' on my tractor) as it takes nearly 20 hours to mow it all - and there are placed between trees I can't fit, some posts on the old fence the 6' hog won't fit between, so there is manual work involved. There is a lot of rough spots that make one go very slow - something you can't know until you get out there in it.

On PAPER I should be able to hog 2 to 2.5 acres an hour -reality isn't that though.

So how does one estimate the time to mow? Or the size of the area to be mowed? And what if you're wrong?

you CANNOT trust the homeowner..my neighbor told me he has 3 acres...no, same size lot at mine and it's 2 acres..i've seen the deed on both properties.
I'm taking the word of my GF on the 22ish i'm mowing..she has just under 25 acres, some in woods, some with a barn - BUT - some of the neighbors property is in use by her...

 

[Rmart30]

it all depends on where, what and who you are doing it for. EVERY place is different and thats whats usually always missed in discussions like this. If it was broken down into areas of geographical location or state, and tractor sizes youd get a much better "feel" for what its worth in your area.

On the "where", what joe bob in mississippi farm country can charge is different than what bill on the outskirts of a major city with no ag around can charge.
On the "what", is it pasture land, or overgrowth with saplings or around old farms or barns with hidden obstacles to ruin tires.
On the "who", is it family, friend, neighbor,stranger or commercial?

All those variables come into it and in my case the way I look at it is like this.
If joe bob has a saturday 4 hr side gig 12 miles away from home with his tractor and charges $150 for it has he made or lost $?
Lets just say Joe bob makes $18 a hr at his regular job. If joe bob worked 4 hours over time on a saturday hed make $108. With his 4 hr side gig he makes $150... So he made more $ right? or did he? Figure in transporting it to the site, then the fuel the tractor uses, then the wear and tear on truck, trailer, tractor and implements. Joe bob IMO woulda been better off working 4 hrs of OT at his regular job for $108 rather than his 4 hr side gig @ $150. All he has done is gained a extra $12.50 a hr for his tractor, truck and trailers use and wear and tear over his regular jobs pay.

If I cant at least double what my OT rate is at my weekly job I wont even load the tractor on the trailer unless the work is for family, friend, or a neighbor I could just drive down the street too. Just not worth it to put the wear and tear on a tractor and implements for the few bucks more a hour.

twice a year I mow a .30 of a acre lot @ $175 a trip. It literally takes me longer to load and unload the tractor than to mow it. But its commercial, they dont own a tractor, and its less than the cities spring and fall fine of $350 to pay me that to cut it, and they are happy to pay me.

Down here with a mix of metro and rural not much AG left you will see guys with a 8n that their great grandfather bought with a 30 yr old cutter behind it charging $35 a hour pulling it behind a 1/2 ton pu on a 16 ft car trailer with the cutter hanging half off the back of the trailer. With something like that I guess you could come out ahead on at that price. But not with anything remotely new.

if you are in Ag country what you can get per hour for your 70hp tractor with small batwing is probably less than what the "lawn care specialist" would get for his sub 25 hp mini tractor in metro atlanta.

A lot of tractor work is done too cheap. And yes its everyones choice of what they value their time and equipment cost at but heck you can see lawn guys down here with a $2000 mower, a $150 weedeater, and $150 blower knock down $100 or more a hour.

 

[Jstpssng]

One way to get the rough acreage is on Google Earth. It's surprisingly accurate for that purpose.

 

[3Lfarms]

There are apps that calculate area based on satellite photos of the area. I have been using Home Outside. It’s a landscaping design tool. I’ve found it very accurate. You can draw the boundaries and it will tell you acreage and distances.

 

[ovrszd]

My favorite is "findlotsize".