Rog,
If you are declaring just about everything you earn, less a cup of tea here and paper there (for the sake of arguement) then roughly 15k a year, working a 6 hour day works out at a tenner an hour (near enough)
Doesn't matter that you have a Friday afternoon off, take bank holidays off, get rained off, hacked off or whatever.
Your job is worth a tenner an hour.
All of those reasons that any of us lose time over (hols, rain whatever) have to be taken into consideration.
I have a day tomorrow for instance, where by the time you have been to Mike's and bought your paper I'll have knocked out £206 (6am start and you get your paper at about 8am)
Whatever you may think to the contrary, the prices I'm charging are not rip off prices, were you doing them off a ladder (by that I mean you personally) you would almost certainly want a similar amount for the jobs.
so I could turn around and brag that I'm earning over a £100 an hour.
I'm not, at the end of my tax year I will be turning over somewhere in the region of 25k.
So my average is a paltry 14 quid or so an hour for me (approx a 35 hour working week)
Yet I feel like I am consistantly turning over above a £100 a day...but of course time is lost through hols, rain....
You get the picture?
to get a decent income it is no use thinking, I'll charge this semi £7.00, I can knock out 3 or 4 of these an our easily...I'm on £21 an hour! Over 32k a year!!!!
But of course you are doing no such thing, to achieve a decent income, £7.00 a semi just isn't enough (rog, this isn't a dig at you personally by the way, I'm really just using you as an example).
So many seem to think that because they can bang out well over a ton a day they are earning really good money, but once you have worked out what you have actually turned over in 12 months, whether you work just 5 hours a week or 50...
Your tax return tells you what you are really earning...