Cyber Steve wrote:I would not think a mileage charge would work well unless you are really traveling specifically to see a customer outside of your normal area. Then it would be fair to up charge for the additional time taken to get to them. They need to understand this before you come of course. For others, your cost of gas/tires/tool replacements/etc. should be in your overhead rate already. You should know about how much your expenses are a year and how many horses you expect to shoe, divide expenses by number of horses and that is your overhead per horse you will need to cover. Add your shoe cost (all in, shipping and everything). Then figure out how much take home profit you need to make a year, divide by number of expected horses. Now add what you need to make (profit) to your variable costs per horse (shoes and such that get consumed) and your fixed/overhead costs (insurance, tires, truck depreciation, yearly fuel usage, etc) and presto, that is what you better be charging. If the market will bear more then bonus, charge more. If market won't bear what you need to charge you need to decide if you want to find a new way to make a living or lower your living standard or try to market your way to higher rates and/or more customers (if the problem is you don't have enough customers/horses). If you already have as many horses as you can do and the market won't let you charge what you need and you can't live with what you are making it's time to find another occupation.
Steve I must agree with you & thats really the way I've been doing things more or less . I always just give the 1st 30-35 miles but I have a guy in Texas & it's 60 miles one way so I bill him about $30.00 for the drive & untill the economy tanked bad he always had about 12 to trim .
So I rarely travel outside a 50 mile radius . Last summer after absorbing the huge cost of fuel @ $4;50-$4;75 a gallon & pulling my trailer & getting 11 to 12 mpg ( brand new Chevy crew cab ) just sold it by the way bought an older Dodge Cummins with a 5.9 pulls my trailer getting 16 + mpg & 20 running w/o trailer for my trim days. I also raised my shoeing prices by $10 & my trims by $5 which brings my trims to $40;00 & this in an area where the norm is around $20 to $25 for trims & lots of shoers shoeing for $45 to $50 & at least one of them is actually a pretty good shoer , Well somebody has to be the highest guy around & I guess it's me . I know there are a few that drive in from other area's that charge decent prices & maybe one who get's a bit more than me, ( not certain because he quit for awhile & he is a CJF ).
So I guess really if fuel cost go up more or again I'll just have to raise my prices again but I'm considering a $5.00 fuel surcharge per stop , because then when fuel goes back down, it will be easier to drop the fuel charge because I hate to drop my shoeing prices .. P.S . I am normally turning at least some calls down or sending them to another shoer friend who's just getting started so having enough isn't the problem , last year with soaring fuel costs plus more injury's than I've ever had. Combined with the worst drought in our history in sw Ok, all in one season did make it the worst yr I've had in over 12 yrs of shoeing