profitable?

dont know where to post this so ill post here, me and three friends. four people. were thinking of scrapping together. one has 53 acres so we were planning on putting another trailer on his property me and my fiancee and my friend josh live in the one trailer, my friend and the other one live in the other trailer. got enough property for sheds and to store metal and even work on cars on the side (friend josh is a mechanic) so that said, could four people, two per truck, make enough to survive off just that? each truck hitting up diff towns on a route? minus gas and insurance would that be profitable?

depends on how much stuff gets put out

Probably not for a while, not until you get some consistent clients/pickups set up. Very few people do this full time, and it is rough enough for one person to make a living, much less 4. Your best bet to make a go at it full time with that many people is to look at scrapping cars, but then you are looking at a different type of hardware too.

I would suggest you do a search on partnerships on this forum. It looks like most of them have been disappointing. I personally have no experience but would suggest you should at least put something on paper so everyone in your group knows the setup, their responsibilities, and how the money is divided.

It seems to me that a lot of the problems come when someone starts to not pull their weight.

Jon.

You might be the first scrapping commune in history. To put it in perspective, it is hard for a single individual to make a living scrapping full time. Add a working wife in the business may or may not make life easier. Now you add three kids (okay buddies) and how does everyone pull their own weight. Dream big and you might be very successful, many of us believe in the American Dream. Honestly, there is no way my wife and three best friends will ever meet each other, much less go into business together. That is like gas and fire. It was a tough decision at the wedding. We are still married and I see my friends often so it must have been the right decision.

That's an awesome post Cory, and a great success story, along with some very interesting, cold, hard, facts, which touch on the flip side of your success ( I almost believe you'd be successful at most anything Cory, with your present frame of mind. So, the flip side might go something like this,

Originally Posted by Germanwolf

me and three friends. four people......me and my fiancee and my friend josh live in the one trailer, my friend and the other one live in the other trailer

To me that adds up to 5? Which one owns the property? He'll likely want(and probably get) the biggest say in anything happening there. You don't need something in writing there, you need it chiseled in stone.

Originally Posted by Germanwolf

we were planning on putting another trailer on his property

Who's supplying the trailer, who's bringing it in and setting it up, who's footing the bill?

Originally Posted by Germanwolf

could four people, two per truck, make enough to survive off just that? each truck hitting up diff towns on a route?

It's getting fairly rugged out there man, not wanting to burst your bubble, but just today I noticed on a quick trip to town, I took the dirt route, usually a clean air, totally "green"(except maybe in winter ; ) drive.
1. Saw on side the road a huge pile of trash (never seen this before, and I've known these dirt routes since I was born), but not just any trash, a huge big screen tv totally stripped of any innards and boards, two tires with the rims missing, and a golve box spare they didn't bother to remove the "tin" rim from, all just tossed on the side of the road.
2. In town noticed a guy walking down an old trashy drainage, his gf/fiance/wife , although reluctantly, not far behind. As I passed by his pickup noticed some rusted stuff in the bed, maybe a hundred pounds at best (worth about $6 here)
3. When leaving a care facility saw, for the second time, an old wheelchair and folded tin roof gutter from yesterday, behind the maintenence, with a new addition, some galvanized vents, adding maybe another dime to the mix.

some people get "lucky", but the odds are dwindling, and the competition is getting severe.
From 1. I deduced one thing, word gets around
From 2. I could only pity the couple, doing all they could find to do
From 3. I could only figure new accounts are few, far between, hard to find, and very slim

We really don't need more scrap, we need more jobs, I think you'd do well hoping for one too, where you could have a steady check, and your own (even if steadily rented) place


If you're planning to attempt this venture, I wish you well, although what I really wish is we had more jobs here, but it seems they've mostly been shipped to other countries, same as the majority of our scrap has been

Originally Posted by Germanwolf

minus gas and insurance would that be profitable?

No further comment : \