How to make $65.00 an hour

[Pianotoone@AOL.COM]

In a message dated 11/25/98 6:46:53 PM EST, Wimblees@AOL.COM writes:

<< I charge $75.00 per hour for all the work I do. I take 1 hour to tune a
piano.
 When I do extra work in a customer's house, I base it on $75.00 per hour. If
I
 take 1.5 hours to tune and repair, the bill will come to $115.  When I do
shop
 work, I base it on $75.00 per hour. For instance, I take 4 hours to hang a
set
 of hammers. I charge $300 for the labor, plus the retail cost of the hammers,
 (2 x wholesale). This doesn't count shaping or voicing the hammers, and it
 doesn't count regulating the action. 
 
 For those of you who are charging $75 for a tuning, but are taking 2 hours to
 tune a piano, you are only making $37.50 per hour. Have you ever thought
about
 the expenses involved in your work and your home? Have you figured out how
 much money you need to earn to make a living?  Try it once, and see if you
are
 charging enough to make ends meet. 
 
 Willem Blees.
  >>
Absolutely - - around this part of the country, southern Michigan, tuner/techs
get around $60/hr.  I used Newton Hunt's guide (available thru PTG for about
$5) on reasonable times to do various jobs when I first started.  If you keep
track of the time you are working (from the time you walk out of the house in
the morning until the time you walk back into the house in the evening) you
will find you are actually making a lot less than 6 dollars an hour.  i.e.
repairs and tunings for a day total $240. but you spent an 8 hour day doing
it.  That amortizes to about $30/hr.  Not bad but certainly not gointg to give
Bill Gates a run.

Happy Thanksgiving

Dick Day