I carefully set out the pros and cons ( puttig a lot of emphasis on the pros) to show how reducing my working hours would:
- Enable me to keep an eye on our family home up North therby reducing risks from burglars and the elements
- Put me in a lower tax bracket meaning the take-home pay will be not that much different
- Mean that we won't need the two-bedroom townhouse we are renting and can make do with our one-bedroom apartment.
- Won't need to pay for a cleaner at the two-bedroom townhouse.
- Won't need to pay so much for the little girl up the road who feeds the cat each day up North.
- Won't ned to pay the weekly housekeeper up North because I can do all the vaccuuming, dusting and cleaning ..........................................................................................................................
To be fair though she is right.
I have established that the combination of lower weekly outgoings and lower tax bracket will only mean that we have $26 less per week coming in but I must admit that a big contributor has been the feeling that I don't want to work 5 days a week.
For those thinking that I am being unfair to my employer let me say that by reducing my hours by 40% will enable the company to employ an additional person 5 days a week with no extra outlay. This will be beneficial to them and take a lot of administrative load off me enabling me to concentrate on the major issues which I am good at.
My Old Girl. with whom I have spent the most delightfullast 24 years said ... "OK".
So here we go to our next adventure.
16 comments:
Well done.
Expertly manipulated.
*jealous*
Were you really serious about the dusting??
My hat is off too in admiration. Did you save your presentation until after two big glasses of wine? (for her, I mean)
I bet the line about saving money on cat feeding clinched the deal!
You have two cleaners? How much do you pay them out of interest?
$40 an hour.
Just kidding Second.
We do pay them $40 at each place but they do 2 hours.
Lucky lucky lucky!
That's interesting. Our rate is the same. I hope you give them a damn big hamper at Christmas!
As one businessman to another do you think that makes financial sense for those poor cleaners..
Take of tax plus ACC 22% that means they earn $16 dollars an hour. Then take of travelling cost say $5 they get $13.50 per hour.
Can you sleep at night? Just kidding.
What tax?
They live a few houses away.
We tell them to help themselves to lunch from the fridge and cupboard.
I give them wine at Christmas
I can sleep at night.
Everbody says help yourselves... They work hard no doubt to vacuum, high dust , clean the toilets and showers do you provide the products? No cleaner in their right mind touches the clients commodities. So you are happy to underpay them? I recommend you immediately raise their pay to $25 an hour!
Fuck off Third Fiddle.
By the way Robert, your business model is all wrong if you are charging yourself out at $20 per hour. That is a wage not a contracted price. You will need to add up all those material costs, travel, taxable overheads etc and profit margin and add them to the hourly wage rate. That becomes your charge-out cost per hour as a cleaning company. Just a thought.
But what if we charge $30 an hour and nobody wants us?
Then work for someone else at $20 per hour and let them have all the hassle and overheads.
Sorry for being flippant Robert.
In business a correct pricing strategy is essential. You should read up on this. Of course you can't compete with people charging $20 an hour for their services. They are most likely doing this tax free as cash jobs. You need to do some research as to the going rate from reputable cleaning companies. Just get a few to come to your place and give quotes. You then have to price yourself accordingly and when pitching for jobs sell the benefits not the features. The features are that you clean houses. Big deal. So do the others. The benefits are that you are a legitimate family company. If one of you is off sick the other will be total back-up. You have a good reputation ( get endorsements and references).Build a website (you can do a free one through Google. Sell the things you can do well etc.etc. \If you cannot do this then you have to ask yourself why you are in business for yourself and should you not just work for someone else on wages. Let them carry the cost of all the overheads and have the tax/GST hassles.
Interesting post. My BIL (Bro-in-law) works in IT for Westpac in Sydney. He and wife built a lovely new home in the Hunter Valley a few years ago. For the last eighteen months they have worked 4 days full-time in the city and then drive up to Hunter Valley every Thursday evening. On Friday they both "Tele-Commute", i.e. work from home. They have a room set up as home office and jsut both plug in their laptops and they are in business. Work can call them on their mobiles if needed and they can organsie video-conferencing through Skype. They have a 1 bedroom apartment in Sydney and go back to the city on Sunday evenings. Works well for them and they hope to extned the telecommutting to 2 days in the near future. Why not consider telecommutting part of the week yourself?
Thanks VG.
I won't be able to do that myself but The Old Girl can and does. If I am up North on Mondays and Fridays she will no doubt work from home on at least one of those days. She says it is to enjoy my company. I see it as her keeping an eye on me and ensuring that I do the dusting.
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