Pay the equipment like an employee
what should you price your wood at if the price of gas goes over $5.00 a gallon? how much will you have in a cord price wise?
do you factor in the costs of new saws etc, wear and tare on equipment into cost per cord pricing? what about the delivery vehicle,
how much does it cost you to maintain it to make deliveries?
chains - bars - oil - gas -air filters - tires - tuneups etc... do you factor all this into your pricing? if not what would be your price per cord if you did then?...
seeing the cost of splitters at $5000.00 and saws anywhere from $500 - $900.00 disposable wedges $8.00 each etc. then the bar oil $10.00 a gallon, hydraulic oils going up too. just what is your costs? take a good look at it before you find out your losing money folks, thats what i am driving at..the bigger you are the more you need to watch your costs before it is too late..
how many of you have looked at this situation really hard lately?
Back when I was doing some work on the side, I always paid my equipment first, just like it was a hired on hand. Then anything left was "mine". All the costs, I paid the truck and the tools and the insurance etc FIRST.
As to price per cord with increased fuel costs, etc..I think it is gonna get cheaper, even if gas goes up, because there are *millions* of blue collar guys out of work now and more losing jobs every day, millions more "under" employed, and all you need to hang a shingle out for firewood is really a saw and a pickup and a maul. Pros might need to gross several hundred a day to cover all their expensive equipment and high end big trucks, etc, someone totally out of work might think 200 a week, no matter how long that took and even if it meant $50 in gas to make it, is better than zero.
People facing eviction, etc, or just higher everything prices with the same paycheck they have been getting with no raise in sight are gonna be all over "selling some firewood" this year and next year. Guys with big honking expensive 4x4s they bought and now can't tote the note might think they can use the truck to pay the note, etc.
And that could be me real soon.....no raise for a long time except raises in everything I have to buy, need to make some on the side now real soon..firewood looks good......heck, just selling one cord a *month* would be a tremendous raise for me....let alone just one a week, even if it cost me 50 bucks gas to do it. I have been looking at older big trucks lately, gas won't be that much of an issue because it will be driving short distances (under a mile) on the farm and "maybe" a single local delivery now and then, I don't need to commute or put thousands of miles a month on the thing. that's what my little no status non lifted no super nitto mudders datsun diesel truck is for, basic cheap transpo A to B. I don't need to run a thousand horsepower twin turbo diesel five ton truck around as some status toy. (well, couldn't afford the tires on one of those trucks either...)
so even at ten bucks a gallon I could still "compete". Wear and tear an odd cord now and then won't be much.
Now multiply that thinking by hundreds of thousands of guys who are thinking about it right now, especially after this last cold winter.
There's NYC and DC "economy" where the salaried and bribed off pols and wall street traders are making money still, they claim it is "getting better"... then everywhere else...everywhere else is sorta starting to go broke fast, so all sorts of competition will be springing up and guys going into business for themselves doing..anything at all they can think of..including selling wood.
People who have drivers and limos and never pump their own gas or just take taxis, etc got NO IDEA what five buck and up a gallon fuel really means to joe six pack. None.
I think they should put the kabosh on food and fuel "speculation" for those traders, no physical delivery, you can't "trade" it, should be the rule. That's where most of the higher costs are coming from anyway for food and fuel. "Speculators", almost completely un needed middle men.
