In article , "SteveB" wrote:

Funny thing, though. This guy lives two doors down from me. I notice that
during the time I'm doing this job, his truck and work trailer are sitting
at his house. If he had given me a reasonable price, I'd have had him do
the work. I consider over $300 a day for very simple work to be
unreasonable. I guess he considers working for less than $300 a day to be
unreasonable, so he sits at home and makes zero.

$300 / 8 hours = $37.50/hour. If the guy is self-employed (and thus paying
both sides of the FICA tax), then taxes alone eat about 1/3 of that. Down to
$25 an hour already. Now subtract whatever he has to pay for insurance
(liability, health, disability). Just a guess here, but that probably leaves
him below $20 an hour.

Still think it's unreasonable?

But I get the last laugh when he asks if I'm ready to have that work done
and I get to say I did it myself.

Who laughs in the end may depend on how good a job you did... g

--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)

It's time to throw all their damned tea in the harbor again.