Your welcome. Glad to be an enabler! They got some nice firewood for sure. Based on my last figuration, between bundles, BL and general cordage I do 30-35 cord per year. With this newfound wealth will a 500i be landing in your fleet soon??? We are enablers after all, right?
I’m thinking bigger and on the hunt for a 1 ton dump truck. It will enable me to get and deliver more plus expand my repertoire of services. Eventually I’ll also need a way to dispose of waste wood. That hole will eventually get full. I’m down to one scheduled delivery. A woman called while I was out on a delivery and when I said not today she declined to wait until tomorrow. I’m starting to have that late February feeling in January.
A 1 ton dump truck will be quite a game changer. I use mine for all manner of stuff. Stepson has it right now. Remodeling a house hauling out the old lathe and plaster. Mine is pretty ratty and rusty, would like to upgrade.
I’m looking for a 4x4, but there doesn’t appear to be many in the used market, so I may have to settle if I find one to my liking. First place I’ll go is to the quarry.
A good many of the ones I see when I’m “window shopping” are 4x4 and that’s what I would like to have next time. But my budget can’t swing most of them. ( next one is gonna have to be pretty well used also)
My 13 year old talked me into firewood business with him. Since Oct 1st we have delivered 86 2/3 cords. His little side hustle is taking up all my free time. We just recently started selling 1/3 cord loads. And we have our first gas station for bundled wood, the grocery store is also interested. Oh boys- need more gear. Looking forward to the ported 661's arrival. We are slowly upgrading our equipment chasing the productivity/efficiency.
Last Saturday, Sunday, Monday (3 day weekend for me) was mostly filled with firewood deliveries, snow plowing, 2 surprise parties - one retirement and one birthday, and watching a little bit of football before falling asleep. I ended up making 13 deliveries and plowing 17 driveways (paid) and a few for free. Watched my Eagles move on to the conference finals and was able to catch up on some sleep Monday night. Currently have 9 more deliveries to make and am hoping to get to most of them in the next 3 afternoons once I get out of work. It would be nice to not have to go back to work next week looking for a break in the action. Can't complain though because I am at a record for amount of wood out the door and that feels nice.
My caught up didn’t last long. The upcoming weekend is lost to deliveries and I’m leaving work early today. Ignoring the most recent text.
I know sometimes it get over whelming but don’t ignore text just answer and schedule for when you can Think about it even if you end up with 3/4 of the customers being repeat for next year you will be golden Remember word of mouth is the best advertisement you can have
I would take really good care of the customers I wanted to keep, and do what you can within reason for the others. Nothing for Karens.
I responded after figuring out where I could fit him in. He said he still had some dry wood, so he could wait for me. At least it will be back to t shirt delivery temps this weekend. Hopefully everyone can take a deep breath and chill out on pillaging my supply. My god I feel practically naked with only 60 cord left in my yard.
Yes my friendly and helpful repeats get preferential scheduling. I left work early today for an elderly female return customer that doesn’t mind jumping into the back of the truck to help unload. She also brings a broom out to get the sweepings out of the bed. Nothings wasted.
No that’s what I have for the next 2 years, so I can’t continue on at the current pace. Last winter I was seriously thinking I will never sell all this wood and wondering what I was doing. If I had not gone wild hoarding everything 3 years ago I’d be out. I was fortunate to get a few customers who wanted big and ugly, because I had around 6 cords of big and ugly white oak. It looked pretty sad compared to Eric Wanderweg perfect cubes.
Well, its great it sold and mother nature cooperated. Id be glad to rid myself of big and ugly (no exGF comment's yooperdave ) Got a couple cords of nuggets ready to go. A couple more for next year. A few tire kickers so far on FBM. If they don't go in 2-3 weeks I'll drop the price. I have a couple regulars for them but they've been taken care of already. Suppose I could keep them another year. Not really in the way, just hate accumulating them.
I started to add them to loads and telling customers they are freebie stove stuffers. Mine are in the way everywhere. In the early years I put them on top and bottom of stacks with some mixed in with the good splits to make sure they are always in the way and taking up space. Trying to give a load to a coworker, but I don’t think he can stay sober long enough to make the drive.
Made 3 deliveries after work today and within an hour of being out of work, took 3 more orders…also had 2 others reach out for pricing and said they will get back to me. I know that almost always means they think I’m Too expensive which is good because if nobody felt that way, I’d be too cheap…the frenzy continues.
