ewlsey
Diamond
- Joined
- Jul 14, 2009
- Location
- Peoria, IL
I've been working on some end of the year tax filings and looking over my sales for 2018.
This was the worst year I've had since going full time in my shop. My sales were actually lower than my first year, though I spent much less on materials, so I have a bit more to show for it. It was a bad year by every metric: sales, profits, number of customers, number of invoices, expenses, etc.
Normally mid December to Mid February are very slow. So far it's dead here. I've written one invoice since Thanksgiving. Luckily, it was pretty big one. I've been selling some of my equipment to make up the difference, but that has been pretty unsuccessful as well.
I'm not entirely sure what the cause is, but mostly it's me I think. When I started, I was warned about the "5 year curve". I think I have hit it hard, I'm headed into year 6 of self employment. I bought some expensive equipment that I really had no work for (rollback truck, some manual machine tools, etc) with the expectation that I could pull my business in a slightly different direction. So far those effort have been entirely unsuccessful.
Also, my son is now 2 years old, and quite a lot of fun. I was also warned when I had a kid that "things are going to change". I knew they would, but it was impossible for me to understand exactly how, or to really do anything about it even if I did understand it. The biggest thing is just time. If you are self employed, you know that the only way you can really make any money is to work a lot of hours. That's tough to do with a growing family. I should have expected that.
Additionally, I'm not, nor have I ever been, really sold on this "recovery". It seems to me that it's been a recovery for big guys in big cities and the little guys out in the sticks have been pretty well left out. Other small business I talk to are generally struggling.
Anyway, that's probably enough whining. What are others seeing?
This was the worst year I've had since going full time in my shop. My sales were actually lower than my first year, though I spent much less on materials, so I have a bit more to show for it. It was a bad year by every metric: sales, profits, number of customers, number of invoices, expenses, etc.
Normally mid December to Mid February are very slow. So far it's dead here. I've written one invoice since Thanksgiving. Luckily, it was pretty big one. I've been selling some of my equipment to make up the difference, but that has been pretty unsuccessful as well.
I'm not entirely sure what the cause is, but mostly it's me I think. When I started, I was warned about the "5 year curve". I think I have hit it hard, I'm headed into year 6 of self employment. I bought some expensive equipment that I really had no work for (rollback truck, some manual machine tools, etc) with the expectation that I could pull my business in a slightly different direction. So far those effort have been entirely unsuccessful.
Also, my son is now 2 years old, and quite a lot of fun. I was also warned when I had a kid that "things are going to change". I knew they would, but it was impossible for me to understand exactly how, or to really do anything about it even if I did understand it. The biggest thing is just time. If you are self employed, you know that the only way you can really make any money is to work a lot of hours. That's tough to do with a growing family. I should have expected that.
Additionally, I'm not, nor have I ever been, really sold on this "recovery". It seems to me that it's been a recovery for big guys in big cities and the little guys out in the sticks have been pretty well left out. Other small business I talk to are generally struggling.
Anyway, that's probably enough whining. What are others seeing?