Mabe I charge too much

A 341ml bottle of low cost beer costs $1.00CAN which is about half a pound.
In a pub it costs 5 times as much.

It is a big world.
Some areas of the world have people working for nearly nothing. Their standard of living is very low.
Other "civilized?" areas have people being paid well but their cost of living is high.
Some areas have both.

Ok now to clear up some questions.
No I do not have a tax license but I DO report what little income I get from doing this to the IRS hence the contract/recipt.

All the contract is is a piece of paper that describes the condition of the item when I receive it and states that I am not an authorized repair person for any one . This is just a formality to help keep me in the clear if anything legal should arise. but seeing as how 99% of my customers are your stereotypical homies that want nothing more than volume, they rarely want their copy of the contract or receipt, and 90% of them usually give me twice what I ask because I was able to save a $900 amplifier for them.

Guess it's just the one odd ball customer on a bad day that got me down?

Customers charges.
$25.00 Diag/repair
$0.25 capasitor (sold at cost. I do not markup components)
Total should have been $25.25

What I was going to charge (out the door) $25

I have no store front I do this just as a hobby and a means to fund restoration of my MR2. The 9-5 job is money for the family.

I use to work in a TV/Audio repairshop and i can remember that some faults cost me 2 full days of time to get them fixed
you have to charge the customer all that time ???
so the next time the same fault come in and you repair it in 20 min you charge the customer 20 min
doesn't make sense

$25 for a look and also a repair is normal

I am now in the plumbing buisness and we charge a 3 hour wage if we have to go out to a problem inmediatly and they have to pay up front(wages are lower here in cambodia) that includes max 3 hours otherwise we will charge more
Robert-Jan

rjvh said:

I use to work in a TV/Audio repairshop and i can remember that some faults cost me 2 full days of time to get them fixed
you have to charge the customer all that time ???
so the next time the same fault come in and you repair it in 20 min you charge the customer 20 min
doesn't make sense

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I think an hour's charge for a diagnostic report is more than reasonable. Obviously, some items can take you much longer than that but hopefully it's balanced out by the ones you fix more quickly. An hour isn't very much time to spend diagnosing a complex piece of kit.

The going rate for an Engineer is about £40 an hour. The trouble is, nobody wants to pay for it anymore. The skills required to repair have grown but the public's willingness to pay for them has fallen. That's why I got out of the repair trade.

Brian

I'm surprised people actually still bother to get ther electroinc items repaired these days it's generally easier to buy new rahter than have old stuff repaired.

Hero999 said:

I'm surprised people actually still bother to get ther electroinc items repaired these days it's generally easier to buy new rahter than have old stuff repaired.

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And that's the reason it's so difficult to make money in Electronics. You need to be very skilled to work in the trade, but the trade doesn't pay.

Brian

Unless you're a design engineer.

Or work on very expensive commercial/military/test gear and systems.