Suck it up

I know price's are down.

Businesses have trends.

One thing I have admired about all scrappers, they know the harder you work the better you get paid.

Iam a simple man. I love working hard. The f**message thing about getting old is I can't go like I want to.



So what do I do?

I hire an eager hard working individual, who doesn't back away.

I had to go thru alot of people to find someone, but I did.

There's an enormous amount of free money out there, even for us old dudes.

Sorry I stole your old handle Mike.

So suck it up and get busy.

Can't wait to hear for all you negative folks, giving me all the crying $hit about China.

Go to work!

Plenty of money to be made. We are having record profits with the prices being down.
First thing first- quit calling yourself scrappers. We are recyclers

Originally Posted by matador

Shred is paying nothing out here. You can't profit at $0/Ton in a farming area. But, you can do other types of recycling or other recycling-based services. I work in more than scrap value computer parts.

There are opportunities out there. Those who can do alright in these times will really prosper when the cycle improves....

That sucks, but you adjusted and still moving forward.
Having someone handle the grunt work for me is allowing me to focus more on better than scrap resell.

I posted this thread, not to point a finger at anyone, except myself.
I should have made this move a long time ago. Would have saved me alot of pain and down time with my back. Iam very stubborn. Lol

Taking your advice and many other members, has moved me into a completely different direction.

Thanks SMF members!

I'm in solid waste management. when the Sopranos was huge that scared the bejesus out of some people :-)

Shame on me ... but i just call it a hobby. (It's not my prime gig.)

To me: It really doesn't matter what you're doing. A business is a business. It's all honorable as long as a person conducts themselves accordingly.

At the end of the day it's about the bottom line. That's just a column of numbers. If you can find a way to hold the line during the hard times you've done well. Figure out a way prosper during the down times and you've done really well for yourself. It's quite an accomplishment !

junkfreak- I admire your grit especially knowing you've had your body busted up a few times. Good people are great assets but like you said, a guy may have to go through a lot to find the right one or two.

I have the luxury of doing "metal recycling" as a hobby so if I'm going to be sitting watching the boob tube as the only one in the family that likes a particular show, I might as well do it standing up breaking something down. I'm willing to discount my labor, to a point. If we got to the situation like Matador's and others where they were giving nothing for steel, then, yeah, I don't really have a place to stockpile much and wouldn't seek it out. But like that magnetic SS grill I found the other day, it was worth the adventure of wrestling into the wifey's van. I had fun breaking it down, got a few parts off of it that I might be able to sell for more than scrap price, got a few nuggets of brass, and now its on the way to the yard less than 3 miles from my house.

And now I have more room for my trapping adventures that start next week! Anyway, done with lunch break, time to get back to the 9 to 5 work

Originally Posted by ResourcefulRecycling

Plenty of money to be made. We are having record profits with the prices being down.
First thing first- quit calling yourself scrappers. We are recyclers

I like the title "scrapper".

I got friends in low places.......

I'm left to ponder:

Years ago, i read a book called " No Excuses Management ". The short version is that it's ALWAYS the boss's fault if things aren't going well. It's the same if you're running a business. Take an honest look in the mirror from to time to see what you're doing right and what you could be doing better.

On the other hand: In so many ways you're like the proverbial "sparrow in a hurricane". You're subject to large moving forces that are far beyond your control. About the best anyone could ever do is have the good sense to get out of the way if they can foresee a storm headed their way.

~ Not sure if there are any bad guys.~

It's hard to refute the logic that people always do the best that they're capable of. ( If they could have done something any different at that moment in time ..... then they would have. )

There's another aspect to it though .....

Last summer i was talking with on of my new clients. (I love to gather people's stories so that i might learn something new.)

As it turned out, he was a retired executive that owned his own company. He was a man of few words but did say that more than anything he owed his success simply to good luck.

Sometimes it's just a turn of the card that will set a whole series of events in motion. Perhaps you're in the right place at the right time where that golden opportunity presents itself.

Conversely .... sometimes bad things happen to good people. Maybe they were just sitting on the beach on a beautiful day when a tsunami came and washed them away.

We are just repeating in history. Like the depression. The ones who work hard made it through why cant we make it today? There is a few differences from then to now yes but we are taking steps back there again! Only due time that it will get harder. Unless something goes right and we get our bums slightly toasted but not burnt. lol

And then reality set in.

I took a car trunk of steel in, mostly that magnetic SS grill I found on Monday and some other stuff. What was last time a penny a pound is now half a cent a pound. So, that grill, unless I sell some pieces off of it on ebay, was less than a buck scrap value.

To top it off, I had about 10 pounds of brass breakage (plumbing fixtures) that I took in just to pad the cash a bit. Well, not with the new sister steel yard down the road, got a measly 3 cents a pound whereas my old non-ferrous place such stuff is usually half of what brass is going for (I called them when I got back and they would have given me 40 cents a pound for such brass). My fault because I didn't ask until payout (very, very quiet in the massive new non-ferrous barn these guys have built, 3 guys wandering around trying to find something to do) but I wouldn't expect to get stiffed that bad!! Its only about $4 but those $4 will cost those guys any non-ferrous from me unless I absolutely know they are considerably higher than my old stand by.

So, I will continue to bin steel coming off of electronics and other small household items but will not pick up anything bulky that takes up room in the garage. At least through the winter. As Dirty Harry said in Magnum Force, "A man has to know his limitations"...

Originally Posted by scrapbabe97

We are just repeating in history. Like the depression. The ones who work hard made it through why cant we make it today? There is a few differences from then to now yes but we are taking steps back there again! Only due time that it will get harder. Unless something goes right and we get our bums slightly toasted but not burnt. lol

We kinda are going through a rough spell. It started over the winter of 2007 -2008 and things haven't improved much since then. We're at a point where money is getting harder to come by. If we can take some lessons from history it might help us get through.

This is all pretty confusing for us old timers. The situation changed. We're pretty set in our ways. We don't adapt well to change. Our answer will be " Do more of the same ..... harder ". We will say buck up and dig your heels in !

This really doesn't make sense because if it's unprofitable then doing "even more" will only put you deeper in the hole.

Work smart ....not hard !

If it's come to a point where it's not working for you anymore then have the inner strength to set it aside and move on to something that does work. Adapt or die.

Sorry for the double post but it seemed better to break it up into two parts.

Where we can take a lesson from history: We're in a time where money is getting harder to come by.It's probably going to get worse before it gets better. Most of us depend entirely on money to bring us everything we need.

I was talking with an old timer in his late 80's a few years ago. This was a man who lived through the Great Depression and had first hand knowledge of how to deal with it. He explained that life was different back then. He said that we were more like a farming and fishing community and that people did more for themselves. There was a government work program but it was only intended to provide part time work so that a family would have some money coming in. He always liked the four hour afternoon shift because he could get up early in the morning to tend the livestock. He would have his "work at home" done by noon and go off to the job where he made money.

If you're living in the city it's hard to do for yourself. If you're living in the country there are a lot more options. You can cut firewood, raise chickens & livestock, have a garden. There's plenty of work to be done where you're not working for money.