Thinking about diving in to O/O

Well you are talking $20k for a truck, but then you want at least $10k for emergencies/maintenance, Plus enough To be able to cover expenses for at least a month. Starting cold is expensive. By summer with my tax return, and some saving I will have a couple thousand saved. I did think of that.

BTW 13 years was what I spent in my last business working my way to being an owner. Feels like time wasted. Dont get me wrong I can run a cemetery blindfolded and make some pretty impressive headstones. I did one stone for a lady, her husband was an o/o and passed, she always rode with him. She wanted a truck on his stone like the one he had. I asked her for a picture then put that truck on the stone. She saw it and her first words were "that's HIS truck", it had all his personal details (was a longnose pete). I was good at my job, but hated it.

Now I'm doing something I like but impatience is setting in. I will keep you informed what else I find out.

 

Yep, gonna go off topic here a bit but hey it's my thread and I'll do what I want!

The death business, you live, you die, you get put in the ground (usually). Running a cemetery isn't all that glamorous. Sure some cemeteries have it made, but most small cemeteries, say 17 acres and under, can have a hard time. Cemetery maintenance is paid for through a perpetual care fund. Every person that purchases a gravespace pays into the fund when they buy the space. A lot of this countries cemeteries date back to the turn of the century (1900 not 2000) and earlier. Back then people would buy huge family plots ranging from 4 to 20+ gravespaces. In 1910 their contribution to the perpetual care fund was $7 per space. Now the cemetery cannot access the perpetual care fund itself, the bank handles the fund and the cemetery gets the interest minus a fee the bank takes for managing the fund. Think about this, how much interest does $7 generate?

Now the one cemetery I managed was 17 acres, thousands og gravespaces with thousands of headstones, each headstone needs trimmed around with a string trimmer as well as the cemetery grass mown. Add in road maintenance, equipment maintenance, employee wages. Now our perpetual care fund for this cemetery has about $110k in it. We get checks every month ranging from $350 to, don't laugh, $75...yes one month we got $75. In summer our fuel bill alone can run $400.

So where's the maney made you may ask? Grave openings. We used to get 25-30 grave openings a year at $1,000 per. That was what kept the cemetery running. Over the last 5 years we have seen that number drop, last year we had 8. People in this economy can't afford to be buried. They don't buy a gravespace, get cremated, and get buried on a relatives space since you can put up to 4 cremations on a space that already has a burial. These people also do not buy the $1,500+ headstones like in the past, Opting instead for the cheaper $400 markers which net about $150 profit after expenses.

Is a lease purchase agreement as bad as that?

Anyway I have been strongly recommended to check out PGT and I think I may like it there. Sign on as a company driver and if it works out stay and save for that truck.

 

In 10 years I plan on having a fleet