[ftp]

What's the minimum wage you reckon you need for an average week for your buisiness to stay healthy? I'm talking sole traders here and wfp.
I reckon i need a minimum of £500 per week.
Most newbies won't understand this.
The reasons are: running costs, holidays (although I haven't had one since starting up)
van costs, insurances and re-investment.

What's prompted me to ask was is the Ionics brochure that came through the post. Unfortunately I've binned it now but I'm sure there was a lease on there for around £1000 a month. I'm stacked with work but even with my reasonable outgoings I would need to earn some whack to cover the leasing options.

[MJH]

Yeah with running costs i would say between 500-750 minimum, lets not forget how much the tax man takes!!! then you have diesel, insurance etc etc!!

[♠Winp®oClean♠]

I would agree with £500 but it depends how good you are at business. If you haven't invested wisely you could be laden with debts/overheads that were not nessessary.

Ionics systems are IMO aimed towards the big contractors who's vans might earn them 10k per month each.

[pingu]

614 quid 52 weeks a year.

[ftp]

Obviously the figure will vary from individual to individual depending on their situation and mortgage payments.

[MJH]

Going on average i reckon you need minimum of 2k a month to make it evenworthwhile, no holiday pay, sick pay etc etc the list goes on, to make a decent living you need a good monthly turnover unless you clean residential only with minimum outlay!!

[leapstallbuildings]

I'm not going to say the number but my turnover requirement is pretty high due to making mistakes earlier in my life for which I'm still paying the debts.
However, if my only debt was my mortgage, £1,900 a month turnover would be OK.  Nothing fancy but I could manage on it so long as I wasn't silly.  Mind you, I don't drink or smoke and I'm OK with one modest week away each year so long as I take the odd day or weekend away for leisure pursuits.
I do actually turn over a fair bit more than that (not saying how much more as that's between me, my accountant, and the IR) but much of it is for servicing debt.  It's coming down though.

[Gleaming windows]

Leaps thats some 'past' youre still dealing with there, mine took 10 years mate just about to clear, fair play for continuing 'trudging the road' in that particular respect!




To pay my monthly bills and service my car, have an adequate standard of living, give my missus some spends and to go on 2 foreign hols a year I need about £450 a week after tax etc.  My mortgage is paid off btw.

Matt

[[GQC] Tim]

Leaps thats some 'past' youre still dealing with there, mine took 10 years mate just about to clear, fair play for continuing 'trudging the road' in that particular respect!




To pay my monthly bills and service my car, have an adequate standard of living, give my missus some spends and to go on 2 foreign hols a year I need about £450 a week after tax etc.  My mortgage is paid off btw.

Matt

£650 a month for a small 1 bedroom house. Band C council tax, £1266.32 pa! Private rent in Guildford area. I wish I had my own house with no mortgage to pay. 

£500 a week gets me through, but could use some more.

[leapstallbuildings]

Leaps thats some 'past' youre still dealing with there, mine took 10 years mate just about to clear, fair play for continuing 'trudging the road' in that particular respect!




To pay my monthly bills and service my car, have an adequate standard of living, give my missus some spends and to go on 2 foreign hols a year I need about £450 a week after tax etc.  My mortgage is paid off btw.

Matt

The "past" I refer to is nothing to do with the debauchery I engaged in many years back.  I came out of that with no debts.  Ironically, much of my debt was caused by trying to do what I thought was the right thing and be a respectable citizen.  It turned out that the "right thing" in the end was to leave her.  Before I was able to pay that lot off, I found that I had a nasty illness and the treatment caused me a lot of time off work.  Even on the days that I could work, I didn't have the energy to do too much.  After getting better, it was clear that I needed to do something drastic because I had lost a fair chunk of my business and my outgoings were exceeding my income month on month.  That was when I first started noticing WFP and realised that here was my way out of debt.  However, I had to take on more debt to fund it before I could start earning the higher money.  It was a gamble but a calculated one.  Some people may sometimes slag off WFP but without it, I believe that I would have needed bankruptcy a few years ago.  That's why I felt so stressed when the water companies were threatening drought orders during my first year with the magic wand.
I have paid a decent amount off my debts this year.  Next year I should do even better.

[Gleaming windows]

Oh right!

    

When she left me she left me a house.  : :

[TonyD]

I think this varies hugely with the business outgoings.  

You could have a well maintained paid for van with cheap system, or just trad using your old car with only the odd rubber or bottle of detergent as regular outgoings.
 
Or you could have a van on payments, with a leased or loan bought top of the range wfp system, advertising like Yell.com, be a slow worker etc.

So the amount for a business to stay healthy should vary quite a bit.  As well as outgoings like the area of the UK you live in -  5 year old 3 bed semi's with decent size gardens/drive etc are going for sale in my street here in the north west  for £85k, and before the price boom 5 years ago those houses where £52k, brand  new.  

For my business to stay healthy I'd say £400 per week would see me fine for the size of my current running costs.  That's to just stay healthy and not in business debt though.