Clean It Up
UK Window Cleaning Forum => Window Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: mr D on May 01, 2008, 11:05:26 pm
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my local hardware store doode says he is feeling it a little because the public are holding on to there pennys more in fear of a Recession like we had in the early ninetys.
now in the early ninetys i was pre concerned with chasing girls, listening to pants hardcore music, fighting and genuraly being a typical teenager so i have no idea as to what it was like for any one let along window cleaners!
are there any, lets say vetrans that can remember working as a w/c at those times and can tell us whipper snappers if it affected trade much??
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Didnt affect me and back then I was only doing houses
And the more joe public talk about a recession, the more its going to happen!
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I was window cleaning in the 80's recession and did not affect me.
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tell me about it! drives me nuts. the gov have been banging on for ages that were spending to much so they have been raising intrest rates then all of a sudden evey one starts panicing and talking of recession. northen rock, Npower and the fuel companys are the real ones to blame. they got all the muppets in london talking about it and got the ball rolling. IMO it will be fine a a year or so. its all pre planned to slow spending down but in the mean time my morgage has had to go up £130 per month.
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Boom or Bust there's always dust ;)
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my local hardware store doode says he is feeling it a little because the public are holding on to there pennys more in fear of a Recession like we had in the early ninetys.
now in the early ninetys i was pre concerned with chasing girls, listening to pants hardcore music, fighting and genuraly being a typical teenager so i have no idea as to what it was like for any one let along window cleaners!
are there any, lets say vetrans that can remember working as a w/c at those times and can tell us whipper snappers if it affected trade much??
I actually started my business on the back of the early 90s recession. Two spells of unemployment lasting a few weeks each got me thinking about what else I might be able to do.
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MrD
Can.t say if it will affect us, but in addition to your mortgage going up your house will dip in value by 20% over the next year.
Biulders have stopped building because they don't sell which puts an entire industry sector out of work. The financial sector (city of london) that used to pull money in has stopped because of the world situation. Manufacturing has long since gone.
The economy is now based on public sector, some IT,us selling imported chinese goods to each other(retail), and service which is things like us plumbers and sanwhich shops.
No analyst that i've heard of sees any way out of this because it's a global problem and britain is particularly (because of city of london) vulnerable.
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Because your business is spread over several hundred customers you are about as recession proof as you are going to get. Thats not to say you won't notice it, you will, but it won't put you out of business.
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Not just your mortgage Mr D have a look at your food bills, your fuel bills, the value of your house then have a look in the jobs section in your paper then you will understand why people are worried and struggling. Ever tried negative equity?
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We got a call from one of out commercial clients last week asking could we come in for a chat and "review" the cleaning costs, as things were getting tight.
Thankfully we've a good mix of domestic work too,.. it won't affect us much at all.
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It may or may not affect. People will stop moving houses and will try to make the best of what they have got and maybe that means clean windows?!?!
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i lost 2 customers last wk.they said it was due 2 watching there cash cause of the credit crunch.think people just listern and beleive every thing they hear on the news or wat they read in the sun.
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What recession ????
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What recession ????
Indeed, there isn't one, if it ever happens make sure you have lots of small jobs, that way it wont have that bigger impact, I will be expanding to cover any losses
There will always be a need for a window cleaner - that fact will always remain
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I've had more new domestic customers asking for their windows to be cleaned than ever since March ...
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I was a bit disappointed recently as I lost my longest standing customer (£31), and over the past few months I lost two others @ £15 and £17. But when I think of the work I've gained over that 3 - 4 month time period, it is almost insignificant. Even in the last week I have picked up four new jobs without looking for them - and one of them is a real plum. Of course window cleaning is not recession proof but it is probably as near to it as you will get if you spread wour work types across the board. Even if I don't lose any work, a recession can make me more hesitant about price increases. Also, it probably slows down new enquiries as there are always more window cleaners about in a recession.
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Got 6 new customers just today. Recession? what recession :)
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I'm not 100% sure it will afect me much at all as i live/work in a very welthy part of the contry plus 90% of my customas are very welthy retired people who it shouldn't affect at all. but as a few of you said people go in to pannic mode and cut back on any unessacery out goings. i think w/c on a 3 bed bungalow is something they could do them selfs if they needed to.
as for comercial customes cutting back!! :o there goes that band wagon i wonder if theres room for me. barstools!!
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I lost a job in january cos of 'watching the pennies,' and i have had around half a dozen customers commenting about how quick i do the job with one asking for a discount. I suspect speed will lose me more custom than a recession.
I reckon anyone who has lived in a house for more than 5 years will be on top of their finances. It's the people who are new to the housing market who will feel the brunt of any suposed recession.
As vince said, our customer base is too spread out, which makes us better off than the many millions who depend on just the one job.
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The one thing that never changes is that the rich get richer, and the rich are always devising means of increasing their wealth.
Take this sub prime mortgage crises that we imported from the states. The banks are supposed to have lost billions. If you believe what they tell us you would think that every payment defaulter had had their house burned down.
If someone can't pay their mortgage the house is repossessed and sold, houses that were purchased years ago can't all be in negative equity, the only possible actual loss is when the property is sold for less than the outstanding debt, and even then they don't let the debtors off the hook, unless they actually go bankrupt the debt will still have to be paid.
The problem that is inherent in the system, is that the banks borrow money to lend, this money is borrowed from the multi national rich, when these call in the loans the banks have to sell off assets at knock down prices, these assets are of course bought up by the rich.
It's easy guys, you sell a van to Joe the window cleaner for 2 grand, you then make sure he breaks a leg and can't work, you buy the van back for a grand, and sell it on for £1.500.
Only the rich work on a far bigger scale, but one thing is certain, they will become richer. Dai
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it,s always good to cover yourself....i am canvassing each week to make sure that i have more than enough work.....even if it means it takes me a week longer to get around everyone.
that way if things get bad and i were to lose say 20% i wont be losing out :)
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The one thing that never changes is that the rich get richer, and the rich are always devising means of increasing their wealth.
Take this sub prime mortgage crises that we imported from the states. The banks are supposed to have lost billions. If you believe what they tell us you would think that every payment defaulter had had their house burned down.
If someone can't pay their mortgage the house is repossessed and sold, houses that were purchased years ago can't all be in negative equity, the only possible actual loss is when the property is sold for less than the outstanding debt, and even then they don't let the debtors off the hook, unless they actually go bankrupt the debt will still have to be paid.
The problem that is inherent in the system, is that the banks borrow money to lend, this money is borrowed from the multi national rich, when these call in the loans the banks have to sell off assets at knock down prices, these assets are of course bought up by the rich.
It's easy guys, you sell a van to Joe the window cleaner for 2 grand, you then make sure he breaks a leg and can't work, you buy the van back for a grand, and sell it on for £1.500.
Only the rich work on a far bigger scale, but one thing is certain, they will become richer. Dai
You can buy houses in the states for £10,000 because the banks can't sell them. Nobody wants to buy them and you can't get a mortgage even if you did.
If you have got some read cash you want to invest look at
www.westernnewyorkpropertyinvestment.co.uk
As an investment you won't see better than this.
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The one thing that never changes is that the rich get richer, and the rich are always devising means of increasing their wealth.
Take this sub prime mortgage crises that we imported from the states. The banks are supposed to have lost billions. If you believe what they tell us you would think that every payment defaulter had had their house burned down.
If someone can't pay their mortgage the house is repossessed and sold, houses that were purchased years ago can't all be in negative equity, the only possible actual loss is when the property is sold for less than the outstanding debt, and even then they don't let the debtors off the hook, unless they actually go bankrupt the debt will still have to be paid.
The problem that is inherent in the system, is that the banks borrow money to lend, this money is borrowed from the multi national rich, when these call in the loans the banks have to sell off assets at knock down prices, these assets are of course bought up by the rich.
It's easy guys, you sell a van to Joe the window cleaner for 2 grand, you then make sure he breaks a leg and can't work, you buy the van back for a grand, and sell it on for £1.500.
Only the rich work on a far bigger scale, but one thing is certain, they will become richer. Dai
So you mean that when we sell our vans, we should only sell them to ladder users as there would be more chance of getting a bargain? :)
Enter Mr Tennetclean.
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The one thing that never changes is that the rich get richer, and the rich are always devising means of increasing their wealth.
Take this sub prime mortgage crises that we imported from the states. The banks are supposed to have lost billions. If you believe what they tell us you would think that every payment defaulter had had their house burned down.
If someone can't pay their mortgage the house is repossessed and sold, houses that were purchased years ago can't all be in negative equity, the only possible actual loss is when the property is sold for less than the outstanding debt, and even then they don't let the debtors off the hook, unless they actually go bankrupt the debt will still have to be paid.
The problem that is inherent in the system, is that the banks borrow money to lend, this money is borrowed from the multi national rich, when these call in the loans the banks have to sell off assets at knock down prices, these assets are of course bought up by the rich.
It's easy guys, you sell a van to Joe the window cleaner for 2 grand, you then make sure he breaks a leg and can't work, you buy the van back for a grand, and sell it on for £1.500.
Only the rich work on a far bigger scale, but one thing is certain, they will become richer. Dai
You can buy houses in the states for £10,000 because the banks can't sell them. Nobody wants to buy them and you can't get a mortgage even if you did.
If you have got some read cash you want to invest look at
www.westernnewyorkpropertyinvestment.co.uk
As an investment you won't see better than this.
For that sort of money, you could buy a place on a credit card and let it out and still be quids in - provided you have a reliable agent and reasonably reliable tenants.
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I've had more new domestic customers asking for their windows to be cleaned than ever since March ...
So have i,i`ve known nothing like it before.
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Dai,
It doesn't work like you think it does. They have reserves of cash or gold, these are real. Then they lend or invest.
The unreality of the situation comes in when some of the naughty ones, leant thirty three pounds for every one real pound in reserves that they had. This is similar to someone say owning one house but then using that via buy to let mortgages to buy another thirty houses with the rental income paying the mortgage fees.
A couple of tenants move out and the whole thing collapses. The house's have a smaller value and from owning his own house the man becomes a negative millioniare with the bank losing most of it's money.
When property was going up this method made some people with ordinary jobs millioniares. On a larger scale this is what the banks have been doing, and while the going was good they made a lot of money.
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The houses were an analogy you could understant ewan. Some irresponsible banks have invested 33 times the reserves they have. I appreciate this is a difficult concept, look on a money website for fuller info dimwit.
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Stricty speaking the Sub Prime Crisis in America was because the banks were borrowing money to lend on morgages that they knew people couldn't afford to repay.
Now that doesn't sound like smart business sense to me. But in the twisted logic of the money markets they thought that they could manage the problem by constantly lending more and more.
Trouble is they ran out of mugs, THEN the housing market collapsed because of all the repossessions.
Not as clever as they thought are they?
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So you mean that when we sell our vans, we should only sell them to ladder users as there would be more chance of getting a bargain? :)
Enter Mr Tennetclean.
True old Joe could sell his van to anyone, but banks can only sell assets to those that can afford them.
The U.S is the worlds richest economy, we are about the fifth, and what do we do when things get tight? We borrow. Now if we are doing the borrowing, who the hell is doing the lending? There must be a greater source of wealth than the worlds no1 and no5 economy. That wealth is continually being increased by hefty interest rates.
What is happening now is only History repeating itself, The Rockefellows and Rothchilds brought about the same thing in the 1920's.
If you get a chance, watch Zeltgeist, that film will really get you thinking. Dai
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I haven't seen that film dai I'll look out for it.
Henry ford pulled the us out of the slump by hireing and paying what were thought astounding dwages. His theory was that if his workers could afford to buy his cars then he could sell more and hire more. He was a great man. Only later did he get a rep as as a union bully.
The present situation is not a media invention. We have had record low interest rates (world wide) for over a decade. Inflation has also been similarly low, and masked by the fact that worldwide we have sucked in cheaper and cheaper imports from china.
Meanwhile assets (houses) and shares have gone up probably more than they should have. Mostly everyone has been happy with this. Now that the lending crisis has hit there is to be a massive correction in the value of assets. Now that nearly all of the manufacturing jobs have gone from the uk we have very little means of fighting back. Construction is dead because of the lending, our big earning city of london instituions will be on there knees for years.
Most jobscreated in the last ten years are in service industries and public sector. Neither of these create wealth.
We've had problems before, the seventies was strikes, the nineties was a housing slump with negative equity. This time it's global and we are to be amongst the first affected
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These are hardly my orignal thoughts but the thinking of brilliant men simplified and probably stated very badly by me. By disagreeing without any knowledge whatsoever you are showing yourself to be profoundly ignorant.
You will look back on your stupid remarks and be embarrased.
The present situation hasdrivers and reasons and I have given them (briefly), and tried to put them in perpestive (badly). If you want a deeper knowledge of economics read up on it. There is no big debate going on, for once all of the experts agree on the causes.
If you want to argue do it on a subject you know something about or at least bone up a bit more. This is mainly a factual subject where causes are as clear and obvious as they are at present economicaly.
What is less clear is what the knock on effects will be. I admitt I don't know the answer to this.
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These are hardly my orignal thoughts but the thinking of brilliant men simplified and probably stated very badly by me. By disagreeing without any knowledge whatsoever you are showing yourself to be profoundly ignorant.
You will look back on your stupid remarks and be embarrased.
The present situation hasdrivers and reasons and I have given them (briefly), and tried to put them in perpestive (badly). If you want a deeper knowledge of economics read up on it. There is no big debate going on, for once all of the experts agree on the causes.
If you want to argue do it on a subject you know something about or at least bone up a bit more. This is mainly a factual subject where causes are as clear and obvious as they are at present economicaly.
What is less clear is what the knock on effects will be. I admitt I don't know the answer to this.
Charming! Don't beat about the bush, if you disagree why don't you say so?
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Arguing for the sake of it, trying to prove which of us knows the most about economics on a window cleaners forum is a bit pointless. And it's not something like say creationism where there can be different opinions. The causes of this so called 'credit crunch' are understood, some of them pointed out by you and Dai.
I can assure ewan it's not something I made up.
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Some things, like manufacturing, create wealth. Service industrys of themselves do not. This does not mean that someone such as a window cleaner can't become wealthy. Again you don't understand the concepts of what you are talking about so it's a very one sided conversation.
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Wrong time of the month?
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Anyone reading your above post who has average inteligence will grasp what i mean. You put it far subtler than I ever could.
I now see that your views are quite genuine (though misguided) and I apologise for stirring you up. Forget it, no offence taken.
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That's the trouble, it's an intelligence thing I'm far too stupid too apparently. ;D Ewan, you are a dimwitt and as for wce well............ ;D Brilliant what a superior being.
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I always thought things like exports and manufacturing created wealth. Exports because of taking the money from an external pot (another country) and manufacturing because there is a chain from sourcing raw materials etc of which the final product gives added value.
;D
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That's the trouble, it's an intelligence thing I'm far too stupid too apparently. ;D Ewan, you are a dimwitt and as for wce well............ ;D Brilliant what a superior being.
Whats that supposed to mean? How did I get dragged into this thread as well? It seems us dummies are in agreement with one thing. Us mortals couldn't know about economics or magazines or window cleaning we too thick!
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at the risk of getting in the way of the crossfire, ;D buying rubber and turning it into tyres adds value to the base product. Thereby creating wealth. I thought cleaning windows or other service industries don't create wealth because they don't add value to a base product.
I'm away now. ;D ;D
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;D Ewan i'm not having a go at you or wce i just don't like the way Discount tends to treat people as having less intelligence than himself it's the most degrading thing to say to someone bar swearing in their face. I'm all for a good debate as long as it's sensible. It's healthy and produces results just because someone doesn't agree with you doesn't mean they are negative or stupid mr Sol, Clive,Discount or whatever you are called this week.
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Putting anyone down to make yourself feel or look better about your self is very sad IMO also it makes you look bad
the comment is made in general and is not aimed at anyone.
Ian
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;D Ewan i'm not having a go at you or wce i just don't like the way Discount tends to treat people as having less intelligence than himself it's the most degrading thing to say to someone bar swearing in their face. I'm all for a good debate as long as it's sensible. It's healthy and produces results just because someone doesn't agree with you doesn't mean they are negative or stupid mr Sol, Clive,Discount or whatever you are called this week.
I got what you were saying! No offence taken.
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I hate the subject of this thread, put it to bed, talking are way into this fuels the fire that makes it.
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Back to the original thread i would say that a recession affects every business in some way or another . Be it higher costs(fuel especially in our case) , higher unemployment can affect businesses ( in a positive way sometimes) or customers with less disposable income. Some may be in a better position to negate the effects than others but to ignore the effects of a recession on your business and make no plans is slightly foolhardy IMO. Bear in mind that the uk economy is not actually in recession at the moment as the economy is still growing.
Also i see another post has deteriorated into a slanging match .
Gordon
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I'm not absolving myself from blame in this but you will notice and it has been commented on that the same names appear in these 'slanging matches' over and over. I have a sort of fan club, usually the same ones, who follow me about. I tolerate it mostly but every now again it's tiresome enought for me to become snappy.
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its NOT a fan club ;D
most of us just think you are up yourself ;)
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I'm not absolving myself from blame in this but you will notice and it has been commented on that the same names appear in these 'slanging matches' over and over. I have a sort of fan club, usually the same ones, who follow me about. I tolerate it mostly but every now again it's tiresome enought for me to become snappy.
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I'm not absolving myself from blame in this but you will notice and it has been commented on that the same names appear in these 'slanging matches' over and over. I have a sort of fan club, usually the same ones, who follow me about. I tolerate it mostly but every now again it's tiresome enought for me to become snappy.
Its not snappy, its rude and opinionated. Look back over this thread and see the way you have spoken to people. What does it achieve?
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Your the guy who thinks i'm the prince of darkness sent here to promote my fracnshise business. You have said so over and over. you're a nut job.
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Your the guy who thinks i'm the prince of darkness sent here to promote my fracnshise business. You have said so over and over. you're a nut job.
personally i think that mostly vince makes sense
i also think that most people on here can relate to him and his views
some of your past posts express the view that
anyone working out of a car/using barrells is to thick to know how to make pure water
your doctor has a nicer house than you but you work hard so this is unjust
using a makita to wind in your reel means you can make more money
and you think vince is a "nut job" ???
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My apologies to Discount Window Cleaning and DJW for the unnecessary (personal) comments in my previous posts.
Also to all forum members who waste time reading them. When they could be reading something useful, helpful or informative.
Cheers Ewan :)
Good on you for saying that Ewan, ;)
Ian
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Well done Ewan,i can see your worried about getting banned lol. ;D ;D ;D
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Ewan, no need to apologise to me you just read it differently to how i intended. ;)