im doing a little for the plant hire mobs in my little 1.5t excavator but its getting scary, i didnt work at all last week. previous to the black saturday fires here i was working everyday, all my gear was lost in the fires(uninsured) then i managed to get this little machine 6 months ago and thought i was going to be busy 24/7. iv sent hundreds of emails, registered with all the bloody hire mobs, im a darn good operator:beatsme i plan on gettin a bigger machine end of the year but i need some more work to save. anyone else struggling out there? brad
It's tough times out there. I sold my machine last year, moved and took a job working for someone else. Hopefully this will all blow over soon, but the outlook is grim. Mini excavators are a dime a dozen in these parts. I see ads for owner operators who are looking for work all the time. There are probably 3 or 4 new ads every day. Some of these guys are basicly working for wages and fuel with little to nothing left over for payments on the machine. I've also seen the price of used mini -excavators fall 5-6,000 euros in the last year. If it weren't so cheap to rent, (200 euros for a one week rental on a 2.5 ton machine) buying might look attractive. There's no point in trying to beat the competitions' prices. There's always a yahoo who thinks he's rich if he gets 100 dollars in his hand. Develop a service that requires the use of your machine and market that. Good luck.
gee i hope i dont have to sell up my gear i think id just give up altogether, iv had a pretty rough 12months
Hang on to it if you can. Take a job working for someone else if you have to and do your own jobs on nights and weekends as they come in. Whatever it takes to keep the household in the black.
take a part time job and make the payments on the machine while still looking for work.
my main aim is to save money for a 5ton machine but with this economy im better selling this 1.5 and working for 2yrs then buying a 5t once iv saved enough money. trouble is its hard to save working for someone else. il push on and do what i can hopefully it will pick up, once word gets out that im about.
Sh#t doesn't just happen, A'holes cause it I know what your going through. I just finished paying for the scraper recently, the graders income has made the payments for the 101 for the last 12months Damn cut throaters out under cutting your rates & reputation don't make things any easier either I like your avitar, XB ute with GT front a plus blower :cool2