Clean It Up
UK Window Cleaning Forum => Window Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: Feen on March 01, 2008, 07:35:09 pm
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I am seriously considering putting up my prices due to the recent/continuing increase in the price of diesel. In my town there are two filling stations. On Wed one had diesel at 111.9p/lit. On Thurs 112.9 and on Fri 113.9. The other is 114.9. What are you all thinking about this? or doing about this?
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The budget is looming.
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And.....?? Am I being slow or missing something ??? ???
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Just get a chippy or restraunt on your books and do free window clean for used chip oil and use that in your diesel engine.....
;)
Or buy corn oil for 55p per litre........
Regards
Mr H
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And.....?? Am I being slow or missing something ??? ???
Price may increase :-[ Some are using cooking oil , but you have to add something to it . Petrol station near me is selling it at 10p a litre cheaper than normal .
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Mr H, Thanks for that. Not quite the advice I had in mind ;D
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Just get a chippy or restraunt on your books and do free window clean for used chip oil and use that in your diesel engine.....
;)
Or buy corn oil for 55p per litre........
Regards
Mr H
" Its the future "
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Thanks guys >:( If I wanted to use red or chip oil I would. I asked about putting wc charges up ??? ???
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i am drafting a price increase letter ready for april and will probably refer to rising price of diesel,electric,gas etc..i think its fair enough really...
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I increase my prices every year 1/2 of the round this year & the other next year & so on ;D
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How much extra are you paying per week? I'm putting in around five to ten pounds per week more than a year ago.
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How much extra are you paying per week? I'm putting in around five to ten pounds per week more than a year ago.
bout the same as that
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Thanks guys >:( If I wanted to use red or chip oil I would. I asked about putting wc charges up ??? ???
And alternatives were proposed. Seems you wanna raise your prices whether diesel goes up or not. don't blame ya though.
Personally, I would use chip oil and keep my prices low (the extra would be made up from the saving on diesel.)
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I've not put my prices up for 2 years now, i was earning good money then and i'm still earning good money now. Your customers have to pay price increses on all other things aswell, don't forget we are a non essential commodity and if things get tight for our customers we could be one of the first to go on their cost cutting mission. 8)
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A freind of mine has been buying cheap vegatable oil for about 6 months now for his Escort van and he mixes it with his diesel.
He reckons its made no differance to the way it runs but i said give it a while and you may find your engine knackered.
Paul
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A freind of mine has been buying cheap vegatable oil for about 6 months now for his Escort van and he mixes it with his diesel.
He reckons its made no differance to the way it runs but i said give it a while and you may find your engine knackered.
Paul
;D ;D ;D ;D a friend of mine has been doing it for about a year and a half,and,guess what......
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;D Thought as much...
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if you put it against your tax bill then it doesn't make any difference what the cost of diesel is as it is 100% tax deductable.
£1 a litre or £2 a litre really doesn't change anything.
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if you put it against your tax bill then it doesn't make any difference what the cost of diesel is as it is 100% tax deductable.
£1 a litre or £2 a litre really doesn't change anything.
Tax deductible only means that you don't pay tax on the money you spend on diesel, it is still costing you money. When you spend a pound on diesel no one gives you the pound back, it just means that you don't pay tax on that pound.
Peter
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I can buy diesel for 105.9p a litre near me but the queues are enormous. There are a number of web sites telling you where the cheapest petrol and diesel can be found and it looks like a lot of people are using them.
On the subject of cooking oil, its sunflower oil that they run on. All the taxis are running on it, its legal now but you have to register with Customs and you are allowed to use 2500 litre a year before you pay duty.
You mix it with 5% white spirit, give it a good stir,and leave it to stand for 2 weeks.
Start by running on about 10% veg oil to 90% ordinary diesel and then just keep increasing the percentage over time till you reach 50-50.
The taxis do hundreds if thousands of miles a year on the stuff and the general view is that its better for the engine.
The only time you can't use it is in really cold weather because it goes too thick.
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Feen, if putting ya prices up will help then do it, every custie you have will know how expencive fuel is and 90% will understand. But, what if you loose custie's as a result of you price increase, will you still have gained? What you could try is stream lining your round so that there is a little distance between jobs as poss, if you tell a custie that there will be a three week interval between their next clean because your adjusting your round and then they will be back to four weeks, they probably won't mind this. I did it so that I work in the same area as much as poss, I recon I save between £7 and £10 per week on fuel, probably more when you take wear and tear into account, and on top of that, less travel time means more work time.
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Stopping any collecting would save me the most fuel.
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Go for it feen
I started 2 weeks ago for the same reason, haven't had any cancel & the majority are sympathetic to the need. I told most custy's it was mainley rising fuel prices that led to the price increase. coldstream & duns filling stations must be the dearest in the uk :o
Tony
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a place here sells bio diesel for 86p litre, thats what i fill my van up with,
i'm gonna get a petrol/lpg van hopefully end of this year looking forward to 50p ltr of fuel :-)
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a place here sells bio diesel for 86p litre, thats what i fill my van up with,
i'm gonna get a petrol/lpg van hopefully end of this year looking forward to 50p ltr of fuel :-)
Would that really be a saving though? I thought the MPG for LPG was pretty low. Good idea if doing a fair bit of work in Central London though as it avoids the congestion (pollution?) charge.
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if you put it against your tax bill then it doesn't make any difference what the cost of diesel is as it is 100% tax deductable.
£1 a litre or £2 a litre really doesn't change anything.
Alan, it does matter. Take this very simple example. Assume you earned £10000 and paid £1000 in fuel. You are taxed on (10000-1000) 9000. At 25% that is 2250 Add the 1000 spent on fuel =£3250. Now suppose fuel spend goes up to £1100. You are taxed on (10000-1100) 8900. At 25% that is 2225 + 1100 spent on fuel = 3325. £75 more :( Still think it doesn't matter if it's £1/litre or £2 ??? ???
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Feen, if putting ya prices up will help then do it, every custie you have will know how expencive fuel is and 90% will understand. But, what if you loose custie's as a result of you price increase, will you still have gained? What you could try is stream lining your round so that there is a little distance between jobs as poss, if you tell a custie that there will be a three week interval between their next clean because your adjusting your round and then they will be back to four weeks, they probably won't mind this. I did it so that I work in the same area as much as poss, I recon I save between £7 and £10 per week on fuel, probably more when you take wear and tear into account, and on top of that, less travel time means more work time.
Philboy, I have thought about streamlining and try to do it where possible. Regards, losing custies. I dream about losing some of them ;D Maybe I should try to smoke 'em out with big increases ;) ;)
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get rid of your diesel vans and get a dual fuel van,51.9 pence per litre.
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get rid of your diesel vans and get a dual fuel van,51.9 pence per litre.
Supposing I could buy it here, which I can't, mpg???
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My prices go up every year on differant parts of round never have any complaints when i do it
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work out what the mpg is for petrol and lg work out about 2/3. That is unless you got lots of hills
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feen - thats not how it works.
10000 @22% = 2200
say you spend 1000 on diesel then 2200 - 1000 = 1200 in tax.
very simple, calculate your tax bill, then minus the fuel costs along with your other costs.
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feen - thats not how it works.
10000 @22% = 2200
say you spend 1000 on diesel then 2200 - 1000 = 1200 in tax.
very simple, calculate your tax bill, then minus the fuel costs along with your other costs.
Allow for NI too. Once your business is above a certain profit level (about £6,000+) you start paying a percentage of NI as well on top of the £2+ a week.
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very true but I'm only covering the tax issue here.
what most guys on here don't see is that you aren't really paying for the fuel.
honestly, if your tax bill is £8000 for the year, and you spend £2500 on diesel (and lets assume you don't claim anything else) then your tax bill is 8000 - 2500 = 5500
so to repeat my point - you don't pay for your fuel.
thats if you are indeed paying tax
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very true but I'm only covering the tax issue here.
what most guys on here don't see is that you aren't really paying for the fuel.
honestly, if your tax bill is £8000 for the year, and you spend £2500 on diesel (and lets assume you don't claim anything else) then your tax bill is 8000 - 2500 = 5500
so to repeat my point - you don't pay for your fuel.
thats if you are indeed paying tax
You're wrong alan & if you've been doing this then you could be in trouble.
You take your fuel cost off your gross earnings & NOT your tax liability!!
If you spend 1k on fuel then all it means is that you don't pay tax (22%) on that 1k. i.e. you take the 1k off your year end gross, so you'll not pay 220 quid in tax! ;)
Tony
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well I sat down with my tax inspector (nice lady) at the start of the new year and thats what she did (my old accountant died in December).
I'll double check it now.
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yeah just checked and that definitely what she did.
all fuel claimed directly against total tax bill not gross income.
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well I sat down with my tax inspector (nice lady) at the start of the new year and thats what she did (my old accountant died in December).
I'll double check it now.
I would cos' if that's what you've been doing then you will have to re-think ;)
Think about it, if what you say is correct then why would the transport industry be up in arms with such high fuel costs? they wouldn't, neither would we or any business that used fuel if we could all subtract the cost from our tax liability ;D
Be nice if it were true mind :D
Tony
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as above - thats exactly what the tax inspector has done, its in her handwriting, she filled out the form (as explained my acc passed away)
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yeah just checked and that definitely what she did.
all fuel claimed directly against total tax bill not gross income.
She's either bent or not qualified for such tasks then. either way you will pay for her mistakes if you are inspected. ;)
Tony
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as above - thats exactly what the tax inspector has done, its in her handwriting, she filled out the form (as explained my acc passed away)
thats not right :o :o you say "tax inspector"...does she work at tax office ??? cos if so it dont always follow that they know what they are talking about ::)
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hmmm, well she is the tax inspector so if it does get inspected then it'll be her doing the inspecting.
think i'll get in touch with the tax office this week just to clarify it with her, I have her office number anyway so at least they know I'm not hiding anything, but honestly she did the calcs etc and filled out the form for me anyway.
Maybe I'll do it myself from now on.
But I still don't see why people are bothered about fuel prices.
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??? ??? ::)
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But I still don't see why people are bothered about fuel prices.
well maybe because of the running costs of a van/car have risen by 19% on the last 3/4 months :o :o
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But I still don't see why people are bothered about fuel prices.
If you spend 1k on fuel per year you won't pay tax (22%) on 1k of you earnings.
So that's 220 quid in tax you won't have to pay BUT you have paid out 1000 pounds. Your fuel has now effectively cost you 780 quid!!
Again, to save 440 quid in tax you would have to spend 2k on fuel so it's still a cost of 1560 quid in fuel.
If i only spent 100 quid on fuel instead of 1k i would only save 22 quid in tax BUT 900 on fuel.
Guess which one i'd prefere?
Tony
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But I still don't see why people are bothered about fuel prices.
If you spend 1k on fuel per year you won't pay tax (22%) on 1k of you earnings.
So that's 220 quid in tax you won't have to pay BUT you have paid out 1000 pounds. Your fuel has now effectively cost you 780 quid!!
Again, to save 440 quid in tax you would have to spend 2k on fuel so it's still a cost of 1560 quid in fuel.
If i only spent 100 quid on fuel instead of 1k i would only save 22 quid in tax BUT 900 on fuel.
Guess which one i'd prefere?
Tony
Don't forget that for most people there is an 8% NI contribution to take into account between profit levels of about 6 grand and 35 grand so effectively there is tax relief of 30% - just that some of it has another name.
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I havent read all the post but I dont put prices up every year and on jobs that should really go up this year I am not going to do. Simple reason is that price increases are hitting everyone and I make the point of letting the custy know that it will be next year they go up just so that things settle down. I know a lot wont agree with this but thats the way I'm doing it.
When I do put pricing up I dont do 50pence but over £2.00
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It may be easier just to think of your fuel bill as another overhead.
So included with ALL the other costs that you have to pay to run your business, it comes off your gross income and then the tax is calculated ;D
For those who are wary of increasing their prices or don't wish to.... the longer days are coming up, 1 more decently priced property per day will more than cover your fuel bill. As long as you have scheduled correctly that is :)
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Alan wilson, you will be soooooo in trouble if you ever get investigated.
Who ever told you that's how to do your tax is having a laugh!
They'll be rolling around laughing at the IR too!
Man, If I took all my expenses off the tax rather than turnover, I wouldn't pay tax!!!
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on milage i thought its 40 pence per mile for the 1st 10.000 miles then 25 pence per mile after that. thyats what my accountant told me and what i do.
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ok ok I got it checked out today - she was wrong - making me wrong, they're still not going to bother changing it (i've notified them and thats all I can do :D )
as for me not caring about fuel prices its simple. assuming fuel costs have risen by 20% this last year and you cover 10,000miles a year for business costing you 20p per mile for fuel = £2000 a year for diesel.
Tax relief @ 22% = £440 = 1560
less 20% = £1600 (a year ago)
tax relief @ 22% = 352 = £1248
grand difference of £312 in the year or £6 a week!
Hardly life changing is it?
or go get my tax inspector to sort it out for you ;D ;D