Makin Money with a SAWMILL | First year actual profits LT50 | Sawmill Business

all right so I just wanted to do a quick video on record-keeping and keeping your books and keeping track of everything and what my numbers are so ever since Savannah since the lc50 I've kept a record of everything I've sold so this is all lumber this is all all of our lumber sales from in Savannah and some other notes I don't remember what the totals where I remember thinking it was like eight or ten thousand dollars somewhere in there I I didn't keep track of board foot cut or hours then I just took her how to correct how much how much money we made sales there was also quite a bit inventory we took with us that we haven't sold and but the other thing is that was a different market I was selling live at a lot of live in slabs and two dollars a board foot was on the low and most things were three to four sometimes five six dollars a board foot so up here is not at all the case I've been doing pretty much portable work I've sold a couple things but nothing nothing to be worried about and the reason I'm doing this now is I've had the mill for about a year we bought it in September of last year and again I said before is about forty thousand dollars and you know you can look that up that ain't that ain't secret that we got a loan through Farm Bureau the insurance company and it was a $4,000 down payment we paid six hundred eighty-five dollars a month I think it's around there six eighty five a month so I've had it for 12 months so in payments towards the middle it's been eight thousand two hundred twenty-four dollars I've had what was it another 19 1942 so about two thousand dollars in expenses and that's blade sharpening bearing stuff like that I think about the lewd miser with that so that sort of stuff and you know that's that's kind of where we're at so in one year one the first I'll say in the first the first year I've got two hundred seventy-one eight hours on the meter I've cut ninety thousand six hundred board feet and I've made eighteen thousand eight hundred and forty-five dollars at least in sales so that works out to be about right at seventy dollars an hour which is my rate so there's some give or take because some of these hours our stuff that I cut that I wasn't wasn't charging but then also I charged customers you know for downtime or stacking or or if there's other stuff I'm waiting on them so I generally charge the customers more time than what actually gets registered on the clock but then you know like I said so that just happens to work out about the same so that's two hundred seventy hours the eighteen thousand dollars 1885 divided by 90,000 board feet that works out to twenty point eight cents so on average the amount of volume I've cut versus how much money I've taken in is 20 cents aboard twenty point eight cents of work foot I think it's pretty good I'm because anybody like to make more money but I'm certainly I'm I'm happy making seventy dollars an hour for the amount of time I put into it you know and for me to be able to provide that kind of rate twenty cents an hour on average twenty less than 21 cents a board foot I think is pretty good I'm pretty I'm pretty pleased with being able to provide that and that just makes it that much more comfortable you know for the few customers that kind of scoff and gonna say seventy an hour this is why because I'm productive and could I be more productive certainly could I be less productive certainly but these are my numbers these are my averages so and I've been telling people I average 300 board feet an hour but I haven't actually done that math so so there you go I average over the life of the middle 334 board feet an hour I think that's pretty good and that's again that works out less than 21 cents a board foot now my rate that's me in the mill that doesn't include any any helpers there's a lot of times much times customers will do the help themselves sometimes I'll you know bring bring a helper guy with me but I don't include those numbers with this so just me running the mill those those are my numbers now with my expenses obviously the the payments and you know the down payments the monthly payments and the stuff I bought eight thousand two or twenty four dollars take that off the 18,000 in sales that's eight thousand six hundred seven EMA not $79 in I guess profit that's essentially my income after that now that's not very much over a year I guess the hindsight is the first I didn't get my first job until January 1st you know I had it in September that's what three four months away and we probably out my first job and even then it didn't really pick up until March so that's six months six months of actual working that I made $8,000 and of course that's the expenses is for the whole year and then includes my down payment so that's probably so over the last six months I've had four thousand forty one hundred dollars in payments plus some expenses let's say let's just say five thousand dollars that's about thirteen thousand dollars in profit over the last six months so the eight thousand dollars that just includes the losses from the first six months just because I was obviously paying for the mail and I wasn't really getting the work so the last six months I've made thirteen thousand dollars which still isn't that and that's still $2,000 a month but you gotta also remember this is just my sawmill in business now I also do contract renovation and I've been doing a lot of that as well and been doing pretty well with that and basically I've been using that to keep busy and then just take whatever jobs I can so I'm not doing I'm not sawmill and like every day this I'm a sawmill a couple of two three days a week I mean sometimes it's six days a week sometimes it's none so it just really depends on the week whatever comes and goes but that's the average you know over the course of essentially the first the first year and I mean I think I think the numbers are pretty good and I did want to share that with you you know hopefully that's helpful to you and give you some point of reference on on our situation and what we're able to do and again this is with an ld50 wide diesel certainly could be more productive if I had like a 70 or probably less productive if I had a cheaper mill you know 40 or 35 but then again the expenses would go up and down accordingly so I don't know maybe some of the other guys with the 70s and the 35s and the 40s maybe some of those guys can chime in on what their actual portable sawmill numbers are because because I don't know I'd be curious to see what the actual expenses and sales are you know how those compared to see if it to see how they how they work out so this is me in my situation and what we've what I've been able to do and certainly I'd be able to get more sales all right I expect to get more more work sawmilling work in the coming years and yeah so it should only get better again I also feel like I'm on the low end of hourly rates I feel like 70 an hour is kind of is kind of operating costs you know between making my payments fuel blade charges it's you know truck wear-and-tear all that stuff I feel like that's not really leaving a whole lot for me and profit but I mean I'm doing all right I'm just we're just you know trying to get the business going so it's hard not many small businesses make it after a couple of years and it takes a while to actually start turning profit so you know I I I'm certainly feeling good about it how everything's going and any right wanted to share the numbers and hopefully that was helpful and thanks for watching and we'll catch you later

Channel: charley + sarah

Views: 60,591

Keywords: sawmill, woodmizer, profit/loss, small business

Id: dvz6aG6buds

Length: 9min 12sec (552 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 16 2018