It seems there's a few issues going on here... one is "what should you make?" the other is "what can you make" and the third is "do you have any idea at all what you make a day averaged out per year net after all your expenses or do you just try to get as much cash as you can even if you are making no money at all?"
What should you make?
This is probably the easiest. We all know what the going rates are for labor in our area. In my area in australia its about $350~$400/day for a good climber, a bit less than half that for a good groundie. Take off a bit more if either are not that experienced. Supplying a vehicle? Then add about $10k/year. Add up the replacement cost of all your saws, ropes, spikes, harnesses, small tolls etc. Divide that by 2 years so you can replace them. Add in whatever is the going rate for rental of any heavy equipment you have. Now add in insurance, tax, PPE, advertising, boots, clothes, phone, internet, sick leave, holiday pay plus about 15% extra on top of all that to cover things that go wrong. If you bought all this on credit then add in the interest. If you used your own money then don't sell yourself short; consider it a directors loan as any corporation would, and pay yourself interest. Divide all of this by the number of days you expect to be *working* in a year. Take about 20% of those days out of the figure just to be real sure. Now you've got a fully burdened rate.
What can you make?
Generally not as much as you should be making... if you want to average it out over the year. What you can make depends a lot on the economy, what other guys are charging, how desperate you are. Whey the market is great, I've hit some real cream. There's no denying how sweat it is when you get it. I've had a couple (very rare) of those golden $3k+days. They were hard work, I won't kid... But there was a smile on my face thinking of those dollars. More recently I've done some bargain basement deals. Silly deals, deals that don't even really cover my costs. Some would say that I'd be better off not lowering the bar, but generally at that point the bar has been lowered for most people, and if I didn't work at the market rate then I'd be losing a lot of money, instead of a little. At least I'm not sitting at home drinking coffee. I recently removed 7 pines that all needed to be climbed for $1500. They weren't small. A few years ago I would have charged $5k+. Embarrassingly, I've recently done some single tree removals for $250. That's called fighting the current, and it takes you backwards at a slightly reduced rate. Local currents vary ;-)
What do you make?
If there's one conclusion you can draw from this thread, it's thank god that tree guys aren't accountants. Some do this work because they cant get any other work, a lot do it for the love of it, though I've yet to find the citibank account manager who gave up his day job to cut trees ;-) I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that the vast majority have no idea at all what their daily net is when averaged out over the last year (or any year for that matter) was, or even how the expenses broke down, what the hourly rate in the pocket turned out to be. I'm pretty sure the least used phrase in the English language is "is that the tree guys Ferrari parked outside?", and there's a reason for that. If you are truly averaging $3k a day, then you are clearly in the territory of investment bankers, specialist surgeons, top shelf lawyers. Obviously you would own your own home, plus several investment properties, a few holiday homes, one in belize, perhaps another in the caymen islands. A few nice cars, a 6 (or 7) figure siss bank account, a sensible investment portfolio. Your own personal playboy bunny, a butler, maid and gardener and a gold plated rolls royce. What else would you expect of someone earning three quarters of a million dollars a year?
The truth though, is illustrated by that old joke about the tree guy who wins the lottery, and when asked if he'll retire, says that he'll just keep working until all the money is gone. Most tree guys I know drive old trucks. They don't have new saws. They don't have $100k in the bank. Sometimes they dont even have enough cash to fill the tank in that old truck all the way to full. They don't have an american express platinum card, or get big time respect from their bank manager. They struggle to get by, some months the numbers just don't add up. It's a plate spinning act. Lucky for me, I don't do tree work full time, it's a sideline to my main business of building. That means i can afford to keep cutting trees ;-)
Shaun
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