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Home > I can't afford your husband!!

I can't afford your husband!!

April 24th, 2008 at 01:24 pm

I hear that a lot, I would love to have your husband build me a house, but i can't afford him! Why?? They don't even know what my husband charges!!
He works by the hour, he does not ever give a contract price! He doesn't know what materials are going to cost 3 months from now.

I went to a picnic yesterday and a lady from Fla. was there. She had looked at a house my husband was building and said, "oh, the house is awesome, but I could never afford him to build me a house"

The last two people that he built a house for told him that he did not charge enough!! The one lady has built several spec houses and she paid the other builder twice what my husband was charging an hour.

Plus, he saves people money cause he can do so many things. He does the plumbing and electrical. He does all the tile work. He can do rock work. He puts down, sands and paints all the hardwood floors. He does the paint and trim. He builds all the cabinets in place. He can do all the cabinets in a big house (labor and materials) for under $10,000. Go to a cabinet place and get an estimate for cabinets in 2 kitchens and 3 or 4 bathrooms!! Try $40,000 and up!!

I asked my husband last night why he thinks people tell me that they cannot afford to hire my husband to build their houses.
He said it is because we live in a big nice house and drive nice cars!! Do you think that is the reason?
I guess they don't know that I save like crazy and don't buy anything that I really don't need.

Oh well, yesterday I got a check for $551 to add to my challenge money.
Prev. total $8243.00
today 551.00
new total $8794.00

9 Responses to “I can't afford your husband!!”

  1. miclason Says:
    1209048010

    I think it's because the houses look so beautiful! And there is this preconcibed notion that, to be beautiful, things have to be expensive!

    There's this paragraph in the Little Prince, where the pilot says that if you tell a grown up you saw a beautiful house, with colorful windowframes and flowers,and give them a full description of it, they won't be able to imagine it; but if you tell them you saw a house that cost X hundred Franks, then they'll say: Oh, I can imagine how beautiful it was!

  2. Joan.of.the.Arch Says:
    1209051225

    Interesting that your husband knowingly chooses to undercharge in comparison with the rest of the market. Does he ever build custom lower end houses? If he is charging by the hour it seems to me he would make the same amount of money on smaller lower end houses as he would on bigger, more deluxe houses.

  3. Sami Says:
    1209055459



    Isn't that a good problem to have?

    They must consider his work to be top-notch therefore it would generally stand to reason that he charges top-notch prices. The fact that their assumption is wrong, is well . . . . . . . wrong. ;-)

  4. boomeyers Says:
    1209059058

    So she thinks your rich, but the car dealer thought your DH was poor. Can't win for losing can you???

  5. Ima saver Says:
    1209072303

    Yes, he also builds low end custom homes. He just finished up a 1200 square foot house under budget for $145,000. They were so thrilled they asked him to finish up the 1200 sq. foot basement. He did that for about $25,000. So they have a 2400 sq. ft. house for $170,000. (not counting the land)

  6. all4money Says:
    1209131690

    Ima, I only wish that you guys were closer to me so that your husband could build me a house!

  7. luxlivingfrugalis Says:
    1209141189

    Okay, so we all pitch in to buy Ima & Hubby a tricked out RV and we send them around the country building us all inexpensive houses. See the world Ima, one community at a time!!!

  8. Ima saver Says:
    1209161727

    That sounds like fun!!

  9. boomeyers Says:
    1209268377

    I'm in!! I sure would'nt trust anyone else to build me a house!

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