[Moderator David@stives]

Its not that bad really, people are not being made poor by the credit crunch, just not having as much spare money in there pocket as they used to do, maybe !

Its true car fuel has risenn but in real terms motoring is still cheaper than it was 10 years ago , even taking in the cost of diesel.

Food has gone up, but it did go down every year for about 10 years.

Gas and electricity has gone up, but there are savings to be made by turning off unneccessery appliances and lights, fit low energy lightbulbs and get an high energy boiler fitted.

If you compare these rises against white goods you will see it helps to balance things out, my first washing machine cost me £500 20 years ago a video recorder roughly the same, also paid about £450 for a condensing tumble dryer only 3 years ago, now you can get the lot for less than £400 combined, well a dvd instead of a video.

In my opinion  we've never had it so good

[Londoner]

The fuel costs are worldwide and are not going to go away ever. Its just adjusting to the fact that as fuel gets scarcer instead of cutting back the world is using more and more.
If you go around the posh estates see how many houses have got not one but several air conditioning units mounted on the side. And how many days of the year do they get switched on?

I have travelled quite a lot in America and the electricity consumed to run all those massive air conditioning units over there must be incredible.
Every house, every office and shop has them running 24/7. Before they invented air conditioning it must have been unbearable but thats why America uses so much energy.

People are going to have to adjust to the fact that they are going to be getting bigger bills from now on.

[tonylee]

Its not that bad really, people are not being made poor by the credit crunch, just not having as much spare money in there pocket as they used to do, maybe !

Its true car fuel has risenn but in real terms motoring is still cheaper than it was 10 years ago , even taking in the cost of diesel.

Food has gone up, but it did go down every year for about 10 years.

Gas and electricity has gone up, but there are savings to be made by turning off unneccessery appliances and lights, fit low energy lightbulbs and get an high energy boiler fitted.

If you compare these rises against white goods you will see it helps to balance things out, my first washing machine cost me £500 20 years ago a video recorder roughly the same, also paid about £450 for a condensing tumble dryer only 3 years ago, now you can get the lot for less than £400 combined, well a dvd instead of a video.

In my opinion  we've never had it so good

Hi Dave
Good post and a fair point.
I think its the feel good factor that we are missing and although in real terms things such as white good are cheaper, I think with people living in the here and now and hving less disposeable income they forget this fact.
The doom and gloom is compacted by their weekly shop and each time their cars are filled.
That said I'm still very busy with just a few going from 4 weekly to 8
Tony

[Wayne Thomas]

Its not that bad really, people are not being made poor by the credit crunch, just not having as much spare money in there pocket as they used to do, maybe !

Its true car fuel has risenn but in real terms motoring is still cheaper than it was 10 years ago , even taking in the cost of diesel.

Food has gone up, but it did go down every year for about 10 years.

Gas and electricity has gone up, but there are savings to be made by turning off unneccessery appliances and lights, fit low energy lightbulbs and get an high energy boiler fitted.

If you compare these rises against white goods you will see it helps to balance things out, my first washing machine cost me £500 20 years ago a video recorder roughly the same, also paid about £450 for a condensing tumble dryer only 3 years ago, now you can get the lot for less than £400 combined, well a dvd instead of a video.

In my opinion  we've never had it so good

How come electrical retailers are doing so bad if all the above is so true?

[David Slater]

Its not that bad really, people are not being made poor by the credit crunch, just not having as much spare money in there pocket as they used to do, maybe !

Its true car fuel has risenn but in real terms motoring is still cheaper than it was 10 years ago , even taking in the cost of diesel.

Food has gone up, but it did go down every year for about 10 years.

Gas and electricity has gone up, but there are savings to be made by turning off unneccessery appliances and lights, fit low energy lightbulbs and get an high energy boiler fitted.

If you compare these rises against white goods you will see it helps to balance things out, my first washing machine cost me £500 20 years ago a video recorder roughly the same, also paid about £450 for a condensing tumble dryer only 3 years ago, now you can get the lot for less than £400 combined, well a dvd instead of a video.

In my opinion  we've never had it so good

Dave,

I've heard this argument put forward before by shall we say 'those with a motive'...a certain political party maybe?

In fact the 'middle classes' of today are POORER than their parents of the 50's. We work longer hours for less money.... Hard to believe I know, but true.

I shall add a link to a very good lecture by a professor of economics discussing just this subject if you wish. Its a bit of a hard slog for the first ten minutes but after that, its quite good (its approx 1 hour long)...let me know if you'd like to watch it?

The absolute fact is we are POORER today (by disposable income) than our parents.

We 'feel' richer because we think our property is worth more. This is a myth.

Because we need to pay MORE to buy that asset.

The cost of housing outstrips any benefits we get from China with their cheap goods. It has the opposite effect. For every pound that we saved by buying goods from overseas we pumped more than that pound into property though debt acquisition.

China is cash rich.

Great Britain is saddled with debt.

[Pj]

I won't bore you with the details but I earned a great deal more (pro rata) back in 1978 than I do now, and at 54 with CHD & Diabetes I'm working harder!

[Londoner]

There is still a big population round here of quite wealthy retired people who are sitting pretty in a house thats worth fifty times what they paid for it and a good company pension coming in.

However, once that generation has died off they will not be replaced by a generation thats had it so good.
People of my age (mid 50s) have a history of divorce, redundancy,often multiple career changes and not through choice, plundered pension funds etc and virtually all the people I know have had sudden life changing events of this sort.

Many of us will have to work well past our expected retirement age and there won't be the easy cash around in years to come.

Neither will there be the job opportunities for our kids, so many more of them will be financially unable to cut the apron strings.

[ftp]

Spot on there. Also some of the older people managed to get mega redundancy payments - something that seems to have fallen away somehow. 

[Moderator David@stives]

Maybe there kids will inherit there houses also making them rich.

I just look from my prospective, maybe rose coloured spectacles, I am nothing special, dont think i am overlly successful, but i have never been better off in my life.

Maybe this government has given me the tools to be able to build a business, i dont know.

One thing for sure is, just like thousands of other window cleaners is that family credit eased the burdan whilst i was building my business, without that hand out i would have struggled and would have to go and get an employed job.

Nobody is poor in this country, if there is it is nearly always the ones who have over borrowed beyond there means and lived the good life for the last few years.

One of my friends spent like there was no tommorrow, flashing his cash and larging it up, all on credit cards and remortgages now he is skint, most other people we know arent struggling at all.

[Clive McDonald]

It's been nicked.

Fifteen years ago there were almost no private cars in China, now there are twenty million all driving round  with petrol that should be in an amercan or british tank. They've pinched our petrol and a good deal of our money.

All this lead of house and church roof's where do you think that goes? All the copper cable nicked from railway lines straight to china. Did they ever pay for computers or software? Did they even ask permission before they reinvented a technology and did it cheaper?

The constuction industy in spain has collapsed, one in ten spaniards is out of work- this is mirrored in much of europe. Here it is not just builders, but suppliers, plant hire people and anyone connected with the building industry who is in trouble.

Ewan, the media didn't invent this.

[Clive McDonald]

America, but it will be overhauled by China in the year 2050.

[Wayne Thomas]

According to London stock people, we're a year behind our American people and we're in a worse situation then them as we have less manufacturing businesses and export less. There's no hope for us, let's all find a long length of rope Stay positive

[Londoner]

The point is we are in a business where we rely on our customers having surplus cash. Having your windows cleaned is not a life or death necessity and can easily be stopped when times get hard.
We have had four customers change from six weeks to eight weeks and another has gone to twelve weeks. Coincidence? I don't think so.

When the choice is eat, heat the house or have your windows cleaned the answer is obvious.

We don't know what is going on behind all those front doors. One customer told me she has had her hours cut and I bet a lot of people feel insecure about their jobs.

[Conflagration2000]

I had two hotels cancel last week as I was getting my stuff off the vehicle. They both said bookings were down etc. I went to do another just down the road and he told me that these two had been visited by a "new" window cleaner (trad) and had undercut my price. He said he was thinking of swapping to him as well but when he saw this bloke leaning dangerously from an old rickety ladder three floors up in filthy jeans and trainers smoking a fAg he changed his mind and is sticking with me. I was more annoyed and being lied to than losing the jobs

[Pj]

I cleaned a house just up the road the other day, I'm grumbling away to myself because it's only £12 and takes me 35 minutes and I'm thinking all those blokes on the forum will laugh at this, then the customer came out to give me my £12 for 35 mins work and told me that he had to take a drop in wages and now gets £9 an hour!
I walked off thinking...things could be worse.

I'll probably lose that one soon!

[Paul Coleman]

The point is how many as a percentage of your window cleaning round, have actually cancelled or adjusted like you mentioned because of the current talk/news of the day or economic climate.

That’s what you should be looking at as this directly affects your business all the rest is just rubbish, scare mongering nonsense.

So let’s see the percentage posted on here to give everyone a true picture of the current times. I expect it to be in single figures for the majority.

Mine is zero % and have been recently getting some big jobs.

 

Possibly 2 or 3% .  Not always easy to tell as people don't always tell you why or they don't always give the true reason.  However, even if it is 3%, the gains during that time have been greater than those losses.

[Moderator David@stives]

Why do you think it is called the dredit crunch ?

Big borrowers or would be borrowers are in trouble , the rest of us seem fine at the moment

[avesovum]

Hi All,

I have not had time to read all the posts. So if this has been mentioned then please forgive.

I have prepared for the credit crunch with customers.

I haven’t had any customers cancelling or moaning yet but if I do, this is what I’m going to do!!

If the customer wants to cancel due to financial reasons, I will say to them "I will drop my charge slightly or decrease your cleaning frequency temporarily to keep your business until the economic outlook levels off."

IMO it's better to keep the customers until you have found a new one to replace them because if things do get worse with the credit crunch and for example lose 40%-50% of your customers through cancelling then you can kiss goodbye to your business.

SO KEEP YOUR CUSTOMERS AND TAKE A TEMPORARY KNOCK ON THE CHIN!

[Moderator David@stives]

Yeah Right !!!!!!!

If my customers dont want to pay i will find some others who will.

Cut prices NEVER !!!!!!!!

[avesovum]

OK DAVE!!

I suspect I hit a nerve with you and probably many other Window Cleaners but:

If reducing your price is not an option, then why not decrease the frequency and find another custy, Everybody’s, happy (Customer keeps window cleaner, Customer pays less and window cleaner doubles his money.)

This also has another positive outcome: Customer sees how fair you are hence more recommendations.

It's not a scientific formula you have to work out its common business sense.

Why do you think the most successful big telecoms companies etc.... will reduce your bill temporarily to keep your custom?