Doing it wrong….

[steve garwood]

These things have helped me drastically over the last few years....

Decent sign written van with diesel hot water system,electric reel and xtreme poles

Cleaner planner for organising work effectively

Price rises across the whole round...

Your in a very fortunate position in that you have a large,well established round. All you need to do is go fully WFP and put all your prices up....

You should be able to earn more than you earn now(working 6 days a week)in 4 short days per week after 6 months of fully WFP.

Less work,more money,better work/life balance

What's not to like?

You also won't get too fed up with window cleaning when you have a 3 day weekend to look forward too EVERY weekend!

Did this last year after selling some of my round off. Should of done it sooner

 

[dazmond]

That's the thing though, he's grossing £200, not making it, and as you point out after other benefits of being employed he's not actually earning much more than a shelf stacker.when you also deduct his operating costs.

It's laughable to think that a window cleaner earning £200 a day is not much better off than a shelf stacker in Tescos! Its absolute nonsense!

The self employed window cleaner (even after
all expenses,income tax and NI) should be at least £10k- £15k a year better off than a shelf stacker and that's only working around 20-25 hours per week for 46 weeks of the year.

 

[dazmond]

Seems to have spiralled a bit from what the thread was started about. Everyone's work and work rate will probably differ quite wildly. I couldn't do 20 houses a day because I'd be too knackered, but I do know someone that does around 18 (I think) a couple of days of his week and seems be ok. Compact and well organised. For the supermarkets I think it's because they don't really offer full time contracts any more, so you end up with a 5 hour shift, so £60 would be right in that instance. 5 hours is great if you only want 5 hours a day, but also messes you up if you wanted longer hours, or worse if you have a second job to juggle with it just makes the day really long winded just to make a full time wage (have done that before). I'd take 9-3 or whatever hours you do on windows over that any day.

I clean 20-25 houses in 5 or 6 hour days on some parts of my round because they are all virtually next door to each other and I've been cleaning them for many years. I'm 53 years of age too.some have awkward conservatories/extensions and skylights....

I am a splasher and dasher though....I don't care anymore! As long as it's an adequate job I'm happy(and so are my customers)

 

[Part Timer]

It's laughable to think that a window cleaner earning £200 a day is not much better off than a shelf stacker in Tescos! Its absolute nonsense!

The self employed window cleaner (even after
all expenses,income tax and NI) should be at least £10k- £15k a year better off than a shelf stacker and that's only working around 20-25 hours per week for 46 weeks of the year.

What about holiday pay, sick pay, pension contributions and benefits. Does a self employed person get these for free as well.
The guy I was relying to was talking about all day so your 5 or 6 hours doesn't apply to my quote

 

[dazmond]

Hi Everyone,

Thank you so much for all the responses. Really helpful advice and different perspectives. It is time I take the plunge and switch to wfp even just for all the tops on all my work.its just not worth it and I need to make the business work for me. Not me work for it which is what its become. I’m gonna take a red pen to my customer base this weekend. Slash all the customers off which are more hassle than they are worth and come up with a more manageable, structured weekly routine which benefits me on a four weekly and then compare it to running my current workload on a six weekly. Compare the current figures and what will work best with my life.

I’m worn out all the time and this isn’t how should be.

I will let you know how I get on.

Much appreciated

How old are you mate?

Remember there is a way out of your current predicament...

Go fully WFP with a new van and van mount,electric reel and at least a 500L tank...

Every window cleaner I've ever known always say they'll just clean the tops with WFP but then eventually just clean the lot because it's faster,easier and allows you to make more money in less time....

Do you use round software like Cleaner Planner or Squeegee,Aworka, etc?It's an absolute game changer(at least it was for me) for organising work,debt lists and general book keeping...

The great situation you find yourself in is you have a well established large,underpriced round that you struggle to keep up with so I would implement price rises across the whole round,dump any ladder jobs and slap at least a fiver on any jobs your happy to lose. This will cut some work and make your current work more profitable.

Let us all know how you get on

BTW I've been window cleaning for 31 years(17 years trad,14 years WFP)