Your time is not free

[o2batsea]

wow, your personal in-house shop rate is more than my last employer charged for a fully equipped, tandem axle service truck to show up on your jobsite and work on heavy construction equipment. you must do awesome work.

Dude that's just the funniest stuff. I am actually pretty good, yes. Awesome, well, I'm close, but not there yet.

 

[Cat_Driver]

Service rates were explained to me this way.

$5.00 to fix the problem, $85.00 to know what the problem was.

 

[doall]

One way it could cost you more. We had a sign in our shop that read "hourly rates. 1 domestic=$50 per hour 2 imports= $60 per hour 3 If you have already tried to fix it $100 per hour."

 

[brain55]

Service rates were explained to me this way.

$5.00 to fix the problem, $85.00 to know what the problem was.

Ain't that the truth. I actually charge $90/hr for my services. I get paid more for what I know, than what I do.

When I am busy it makes more sense to have work done by others. When I am slow like I am now, I do more stuff myself. The 30K service just came up on my wife's car, normally I would have her take it to the dealer and pay the $300, this time around I bought the $50 in parts and spent the hour to do it myself. I take pride in being a mechanic and having the financial ability to not work on my wife's car. The last thing I want to do, is wrench all day, and then come home and work on her car.

I get the point that was being made. Maybe it is because I actually charge $90/hr for customer work. Or maybe I didn't over analyze it.

Brian

 

[smstonypoint]

One way it could cost you more. We had a sign in our shop that read "hourly rates. 1 domestic=$50 per hour 2 imports= $60 per hour 3 If you have already tried to fix it $100 per hour."

Good one!!:thumbsup: I read this over at the JLC forum -- "My rates are $50/hour, $75/hour if you watch, and $100/hour if you try to help."

Steve

 

[Mace Canute]

Most of the responses seem to be from misanthropes anyway. I think everybody here thinks exactly the same thing as I do ...

That's pretty funny!
Didn't think that one through, did ya?

You strike me as someone who, quite simple put, is "Full of himself."

 

[MikeD74T]

Mace, it was worth reading 14 pages of this thread just to read your assessment! :thumbsup::thumbsup:

As to the OPs thread: I filed my first income tax return in 1966 as a teenager. Have been working in blue collar since then, mostly as an employee with about 3 years of self employment. Even when self employeed I never had the option of unlimited work thus my income was limited. Wanting to do better for my family I often did weekend work but never made enough to pay for others to work for me. Much of that extra work was improving my home and property. 25 years ago I took 3 weeks off and put in an inground pool. When finished I had a better pool /patio for $7500 in materials than a friend had for $21,000. Granted he only had to write a check but I'll bet he didn't make $14,000 during that 3 weeks, nor could have I. My children enjoyed the pool for many years as do my grandchildren now. Because I worked some weekends my family was able to vacation on others rather than sit at home & watch tv`.

Last month I got my annual social security wages/benefit summary. I've earned (paid social security on) about $1.4 million over the 43 years. I have two paid for homes, assessed at about $510k, about $360K in savings, and about 80K in stuff, vehicles, toys, furniture, etc. Considering that I paid almost 1/3 of the 1.4m in taxes, 1/3 in living expenses, I figure I've still got 1/3 of my total earnings. Guess that made my free time worth about $21k per year as I figure I only have this "worth" because of my sweat equity. I don't know what this all means but I think I can retire in 6 months & several of my classmates that paid their way thru life rather than work weekends, etc, can't afford to. Only time will tell...which I hope to have a lot of soon. MikeD74T

I do have a question for the economists. Carpenters primarily have only time to sell. It's worth is based on their knowledge as well as their productivity. Most carpenters now use nailguns rather than a hammer. Nailgun nails cost (my pricing is probably outdated but..) 8 times the cost of loose nails & nailguns, compressors, hoses are expensive as well. The question; why would any carpenter trade money for more expensive tools & nails to save time when time is all he has to sell?

 

[Bison]

Good one!!:thumbsup: I read this over at the JLC forum -- "My rates are $50/hour, $75/hour if you watch, and $100/hour if you try to help."Steve

Funny,i watched a mechanic fiddle with a bolt he could not get started,after 5 min trying and cussing he laid the bolt down and walked away to get some other tool,I took the oportunity to try it myself and ran it in with no problem.
When he came back and wanted to grab the bolt it wasn't there.The look on his face was priceless when i told him the bolt just needs torquing,i put it in for ye,just delete 10 min from the bill.

 

[Willl]

Funny,i watched a mechanic fiddle with a bolt he could not get started,after 5 min trying and cussing he laid the bolt down and walked away to get some other tool,I took the oportunity to try it myself and ran it in with no problem.
When he came back and wanted to grab the bolt it wasn't there.The look on his face was priceless when i told him the bolt just needs torquing,i put it in for ye,just delete 10 min from the bill.

Awesome, sometimes ya just gota see it from the other side. :laughing:

 

[zmoz]

One of the major reasons I do everything I can myself is because nobody else knows how I want it done besides me. Furthermore I don't trust most people to do it without watching them. There are lots of times I find myself doing stupid things late at night in the shop and I think "I should be hiring somebody else to do this", but by the time I find the right person and explain exactly how I want it done and then check it over when they're finished...I could have just done it already!

Last time I thought I was "too important" to work on my brakes, the shop I went to managed to ruin all four of my wheels and forgot six lug nuts. How do you even do that? When I came back to chew them out there was somebody else already there who's front wheel had just FALLEN OFF because they neglected to tighten the lugs.