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Too cheap?
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Author:  roythebus [ Sat Oct 20, 2012 8:52 am ]
Post subject:  Too cheap?
Had a call from one of the local hacks yesterday evening, he needed 2 cars to go from our town to the night club in Ashford, 15 miles away, return at 0300, £55 a car including our 6 seater.

So, a 60 mile round trip per car plus being buggered for any Saturday morning work, for the sake of less than £1 a mile? Needless to say we were "fully booked" that evening, especially when Ashford cabs charge around £48 for a night rate single journey to my part of the world!

4 years ago, we used to get £95 for a night club return. Why do it for £40 less these days? My costs haven't gone down. Turnover has, but profit is up for the amount of miles I do. With the cost of running a car being between 45p and 60 p per mile according to HMRC, why do people still run about working for nothing or making a loss? Like a newbie started up round here, Gatwick £75, any time. It's 85 miles each way from here; Heathrow £95, 102 miles each way...running cost of car @45p/mile=£91.80, so 5 hours driving for £3.20. Why bother??
Author:  bloodnock [ Sat Oct 20, 2012 10:35 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Too cheap?
Thers always the Idiot who does not understand about Profit and loss...thinks they are raking in a fortune, which they may well be doing..but they fail to realise that it will just all flow back out in the form of vehicle expenses etc.

But the bigger problem is that they feck it up for the rest of us who, because we charge a fair price look like we are expensive in comparison to the plonker who runs at a loss..
Author:  wannabeeahack [ Sat Oct 20, 2012 1:20 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Too cheap?
roythebus wrote:
Had a call from one of the local hacks yesterday evening, he needed 2 cars to go from our town to the night club in Ashford, 15 miles away, return at 0300, £55 a car including our 6 seater.



i get more than that for a school run...PMSL
Author:  roythebus [ Sat Oct 20, 2012 5:51 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Too cheap?
So do I!

2 x 18 miles, twice a day, and it fits on another school run @ £32 a day for 12 mile round trip, why worry about night clubs?

The same plonker does New Romney to Battle for a school run, and stays there all day because it's cheaper than coming back. He can't work in Battle, out of area. He used to do our £32 school run for £12 a day....obviously never heard of profit and loss or cashflow.
Author:  wannabeeahack [ Sat Oct 20, 2012 6:09 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Too cheap?
roythebus wrote:
So do I!

2 x 18 miles, twice a day, and it fits on another school run @ £32 a day for 12 mile round trip, why worry about night clubs?

The same plonker does New Romney to Battle for a school run, and stays there all day because it's cheaper than coming back. He can't work in Battle, out of area. He used to do our £32 school run for £12 a day....obviously never heard of profit and loss or cashflow.


2 x 11 miles a day £74+vat (6 days a week)....lol
Author:  Skiman [ Sat Oct 20, 2012 6:32 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Too cheap?
roythebus wrote:
Had a call from one of the local hacks yesterday evening, he needed 2 cars to go from our town to the night club in Ashford, 15 miles away, return at 0300, £55 a car including our 6 seater.

So, a 60 mile round trip per car plus being buggered for any Saturday morning work, for the sake of less than £1 a mile? Needless to say we were "fully booked" that evening, especially when Ashford cabs charge around £48 for a night rate single journey to my part of the world!

4 years ago, we used to get £95 for a night club return. Why do it for £40 less these days? My costs haven't gone down. Turnover has, but profit is up for the amount of miles I do. With the cost of running a car being between 45p and 60 p per mile according to HMRC, why do people still run about working for nothing or making a loss? Like a newbie started up round here, Gatwick £75, any time. It's 85 miles each way from here; Heathrow £95, 102 miles each way...running cost of car @45p/mile=£91.80, so 5 hours driving for £3.20. Why bother??


Lucky if it only takes 5hrs, yesterday I did a Heathrow pickup from Brighton, cost £100, 136 mile round trip, took me nearly7hrs thanks to the M25 being gridlocked all the way round it!(I didn't go on it) But that was not that bad as it works out at 73ppm and £14.28 per hour so not to bad considering.
Author:  Sussex [ Sat Oct 20, 2012 7:16 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Too cheap?
There will always be people who do work for next to nothing.

It's happened since the year dot, so I wonder why we get the hump with it.

It will never change, just let the sh** go with the sh**.
Author:  roythebus [ Sat Oct 20, 2012 8:07 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Too cheap?
Skiman wrote:
roythebus wrote:
Had a call from one of the local hacks yesterday evening, he needed 2 cars to go from our town to the night club in Ashford, 15 miles away, return at 0300, £55 a car including our 6 seater.

So, a 60 mile round trip per car plus being buggered for any Saturday morning work, for the sake of less than £1 a mile? Needless to say we were "fully booked" that evening, especially when Ashford cabs charge around £48 for a night rate single journey to my part of the world!

4 years ago, we used to get £95 for a night club return. Why do it for £40 less these days? My costs haven't gone down. Turnover has, but profit is up for the amount of miles I do. With the cost of running a car being between 45p and 60 p per mile according to HMRC, why do people still run about working for nothing or making a loss? Like a newbie started up round here, Gatwick £75, any time. It's 85 miles each way from here; Heathrow £95, 102 miles each way...running cost of car @45p/mile=£91.80, so 5 hours driving for £3.20. Why bother??


Lucky if it only takes 5hrs, yesterday I did a Heathrow pickup from Brighton, cost £100, 136 mile round trip, took me nearly7hrs thanks to the M25 being gridlocked all the way round it!(I didn't go on it) But that was not that bad as it works out at 73ppm and £14.28 per hour so not to bad considering.[/quote


Sorry, £5.54 per hour. Your running costs are assumed @ 45p/mile, x 136miles=£61.20, you are left with £38.80 for 7 hours work; so 7 hours work is £5.54 per hour. You too fell into the trap of forgetting to deduct your running costs from what you get per hour.
Author:  wannabeeahack [ Sat Oct 20, 2012 8:25 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Too cheap?
Is that everything

depreciation
road tax
servicing
tyres
fuel
insurance
finance/HP fees
tolls

and so on
Author:  Sussex [ Sat Oct 20, 2012 8:40 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Too cheap?
roythebus wrote:
Sorry, £5.54 per hour. Your running costs are assumed @ 45p/mile, x 136miles=£61.20, you are left with £38.80 for 7 hours work; so 7 hours work is £5.54 per hour. You too fell into the trap of forgetting to deduct your running costs from what you get per hour.

I suspect he wont be doing many more Heathrows that take 7 hours, yesterday the roads were f***ed big time.

From B&H to T5 can take as little as 2.5 hours, so £100 isn't a bad price IMO.
Author:  roythebus [ Sat Oct 20, 2012 9:06 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Too cheap?
wannabeeahack wrote:
Is that everything

depreciation
road tax
servicing
tyres
fuel
insurance
finance/HP fees
tolls

and so on
Possibly. 45p/mile is the figure HMRC allow you for private car use (60p/mile for the first umpteen thousand miles IIRC). My own figures are about 62p/mile for the Chrysler Voyager and about 40p/mile for the Toyota Hybrid. Of course, the more miles you do a year the less your standing costs per mile are! I'm currently working on a graph to try to find out the "best" annual mileage whilst keeping just below the "pay tax" bracket!!

What prompted this was my local hack who complained about paying too much tax; I told him not to work so much for peanuts, then told him how much he was earning a year, and how much per mile he was getting. He said my guesstimate was about right. :) If he worked less and got more per mile, he wouldn't have to do night club runs at silly prices.
Author:  edders23 [ Sun Oct 21, 2012 4:29 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Too cheap?
wannabeeahack wrote:
roythebus wrote:
Had a call from one of the local hacks yesterday evening, he needed 2 cars to go from our town to the night club in Ashford, 15 miles away, return at 0300, £55 a car including our 6 seater.



i get more than that for a school run...PMSL


You are lucky then round here successful bidders for school contracts are bidding at 70 to 80p per mile(round trip mileage)

Round here Stamford to Peterborough which is just under 30 miles there and back is now £17 or £25 for an 8 seater it used to be £25 car and £35 8 seater at night
Author:  Skiman [ Sun Oct 21, 2012 5:17 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Too cheap?
Sussex wrote:
roythebus wrote:
Sorry, £5.54 per hour. Your running costs are assumed @ 45p/mile, x 136miles=£61.20, you are left with £38.80 for 7 hours work; so 7 hours work is £5.54 per hour. You too fell into the trap of forgetting to deduct your running costs from what you get per hour.

I suspect he wont be doing many more Heathrows that take 7 hours, yesterday the roads were f***ed big time.

From B&H to T5 can take as little as 2.5 hours, so £100 isn't a bad price IMO.


Yes Sussex, did a T5 this morning ,there and back 2hs 10 mins, £100 thanks very much!
And as for Roythebus's figures do they relate to 50k a year on a car thats paid for, costs me only parts to maintain,averages
41mpg and has NO depreciation as Sussex will confirm is worth f**k all anyway with 387k on the clock!
Author:  roythebus [ Sun Oct 21, 2012 6:40 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Too cheap?
Skiman wrote:
Sussex wrote:
roythebus wrote:
Sorry, £5.54 per hour. Your running costs are assumed @ 45p/mile, x 136miles=£61.20, you are left with £38.80 for 7 hours work; so 7 hours work is £5.54 per hour. You too fell into the trap of forgetting to deduct your running costs from what you get per hour.

I suspect he wont be doing many more Heathrows that take 7 hours, yesterday the roads were f***ed big time.

From B&H to T5 can take as little as 2.5 hours, so £100 isn't a bad price IMO.


Yes Sussex, did a T5 this morning ,there and back 2hs 10 mins, £100 thanks very much!
And as for Roythebus's figures do they relate to 50k a year on a car thats paid for, costs me only parts to maintain,averages
41mpg and has NO depreciation as Sussex will confirm is worth f**k all anyway with 387k on the clock!
My figures are based on what HMRC quote, and from my own personal figures. Even if your car is worth f all with 387k on the clock, there will still be (or should have been) some depreciation over the years. After all, you had to pay for it somehow in the first place.

As for Brighton to T5 in 2hr 10, quite possible with light traffic. I suppose on airport runs it's swings and roundabouts, somedays you get totally stuffed and it takes 7 hours! I've done Romney Marsh to Gatwick and back in 2 hr 30 leaving at 0500!

Price in Peterborough area i know are rather low. i know someone who used to lodge in my place who went cabbing in that area; she done a school run at 505 of contract price and found it was costing her money every day! but then she was new to driving; she's now back in air traffic control at Great Yarmouth.

From my p.o.v. unless I'm getting £1 a mile for the live and dead mileage, the job isn't worth doing. A bit like the potential job from Rugby to Romney Marsh; I was told that a rugby cab would do it for £200. It's a 386 mile round trip and would probably take about 6 hours on a Sunday. The Rugby firm is welcome to it at that price.
Author:  wannabeeahack [ Sun Oct 21, 2012 9:36 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Too cheap?
edders23 wrote:
wannabeeahack wrote:
roythebus wrote:
Had a call from one of the local hacks yesterday evening, he needed 2 cars to go from our town to the night club in Ashford, 15 miles away, return at 0300, £55 a car including our 6 seater.



i get more than that for a school run...PMSL


You are lucky then round here successful bidders for school contracts are bidding at 70 to 80p per mile(round trip mileage)




if thats whole trip mileage (home-pickup-drop-home) then thats not bad, i know a lot who quote £1 per loaded mile which cant be 50p/mile "RTM" if dead miles are included in calculations
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