Too expensive?

Izzwall

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Hi guys,
I work as a freelance groom and since last year I've taken over the yard services at a medium sized livery yard. It is mostly assisted diy with one or two needing full livery a few days a week. There are 4 stables free and to make my time worth while (some days I earn £6 a day there which is pretty rubbish) I'm advertising for full livery. I've had a lot of interest and could of easily filled up 10 stables with diys but the moment I say how much my prices are I don't hear back from them again! I'm desperate to fill the boxes as I recently gave up a yard in order to focus more of my time on the livery yard as potentially it is a good earner, plus I won't be running around like a headless chicken trying to fit in 5/6 yards like I've been doing the last few years! I've researched livery prices and I'm bang in the middle of not the cheapest but not the most dearest. Its £50 a week just stable, field, facilities of Floodlit school, hay/haylage and straw which goes to the yard owner and then my services on top for full livery of £10 a day for all care except riding. Part livery is £8 a day and includes mucking out and either turnout or bring in. I'm offering 5 days or the full week and also flexible lively packages. The yard has a very good reputation as friendly and laid back. It really is a lovely yard with fab people. So is £120 for full livery mon to sun and £100 Mon to fri too expensive? Though at the same time anything less would mean I'd be below minimum wage especially once I take out my insurances etc. Ahhhhhhhh should of got a proper job 9 years ago when I was 20 and not start working with horses ?
 

Wishfilly

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Hi guys,
I work as a freelance groom and since last year I've taken over the yard services at a medium sized livery yard. It is mostly assisted diy with one or two needing full livery a few days a week. There are 4 stables free and to make my time worth while (some days I earn £6 a day there which is pretty rubbish) I'm advertising for full livery. I've had a lot of interest and could of easily filled up 10 stables with diys but the moment I say how much my prices are I don't hear back from them again! I'm desperate to fill the boxes as I recently gave up a yard in order to focus more of my time on the livery yard as potentially it is a good earner, plus I won't be running around like a headless chicken trying to fit in 5/6 yards like I've been doing the last few years! I've researched livery prices and I'm bang in the middle of not the cheapest but not the most dearest. Its £50 a week just stable, field, facilities of Floodlit school, hay/haylage and straw which goes to the yard owner and then my services on top for full livery of £10 a day for all care except riding. Part livery is £8 a day and includes mucking out and either turnout or bring in. I'm offering 5 days or the full week and also flexible lively packages. The yard has a very good reputation as friendly and laid back. It really is a lovely yard with fab people. So is £120 for full livery mon to sun and £100 Mon to fri too expensive? Though at the same time anything less would mean I'd be below minimum wage especially once I take out my insurances etc. Ahhhhhhhh should of got a proper job 9 years ago when I was 20 and not start working with horses ?

I guess it probably depends where you are in the country, but I don't think it sounds unreasonable?

Would it be worth looking for some assisted DIY clients? I pay someone to turn out a couple of days a week, but I can easily see that creeping up to being 5 days a week as the mornings get darker.

Right now though, it seems like a lot of people are trying to reduce costs, so it may be tricky for you to fill boxes? The yard I've just moved onto has 2 empty still, which is apparently really unusual, but a few people have moved off to rented fields because they are trying to get their costs right down due to reduced hours at work/job losses etc.
 

Sussexbythesea

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I don’t think it’s expensive for certain areas of the country but people will only pay what they can afford and you can’t force them to pay more than the local rate. From your location I’d imagine local wages are fairly low.

I pay about £12 a day per horse to another livery who does freelance care when I need it on an ad-hoc basis. I couldn’t afford it regularly esp. for 2. I used to have them Mo -fri regularly a couple of years ago when I had one horse. That’s on top of my livery £175 pcm and forage, feed and bedding which probably brought my basic livery costs to around £350 plus £200 care. However at the time I could have got a full livery package for less than that at a yard where the owners provided everything.
 

Not_so_brave_anymore

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If the price they want to pay ends up working out less than minimum wage for you, then it's just not viable.

What do you wish you'd done 10 years ago? What's stopping you doing that now? If you don't have kids yet, then now is absolutely the time to do whatever qualifications you wish you'd done earlier (really really hard to do alongside full time work, but near on impossible alongside work AND kids!)

Sorry, that sounds really bossy and heartless--I didn't mean it to! But rather than looking back and thinking what you *should* have done kne, try looking forward. In 10 years' time, what would you be really grateful for having done now?
 

millikins

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If the price they want to pay ends up working out less than minimum wage for you, then it's just not viable.

What do you wish you'd done 10 years ago? What's stopping you doing that now? If you don't have kids yet, then now is absolutely the time to do whatever qualifications you wish you'd done earlier (really really hard to do alongside full time work, but near on impossible alongside work AND kids!)

Sorry, that sounds really bossy and heartless--I didn't mean it to! But rather than looking back and thinking what you *should* have done kne, try looking forward. In 10 years' time, what would you be really grateful for having done now?

Agree with this. My daughter is a bit younger than you (26) but has just started her 3rd year of teacher training. She did up to BHS 3 and still does some freelance work to cut her living costs but doesn't regret giving up working with horses.
 

Izzwall

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I do think it could be the case that people just don't have the money too. I've lost a lot of work due to covid as well as summer is my holiday cover period and normally I'm fully booked up until Christmas but this year I've only had the one! I'm applying the covid government business loan to tie me over just in case it doesn't pick up. I only need 2 full liveries for me to relax a bit financially but it's just getting them in. But at the same time I can't work under minimum wage so stuck between a rock and hard place currently.

I've just got an industrial sewing machine and I have a horsey product in mind that doesn't quite exist and may be a market for so will create some prototypes and see what happens. Being my own boss for so long and having god awful employers in the past has put me off working for someone else. Plus I have no idea which sector to go in especially as the great outdoors has been my workplace for so long and even with it peeing it down I still love it, don't think I could cope in an office! I do eventually want to leave horses as (like my OH reminds me) I don't want to be mucking out horses for a living in my 40s/50s
 

thefarsideofthefield

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When I was freelancing I always had another job on the go because the income from horses was just so unreliable and , however hard you work , it's damn near impossible to make a decent wage solely from horses . One of the most lucrative side lines was cleaning offices . I approached a few local businesses and got a couple of clients to start with and it worked in brilliantly the horses as it was fairly flexible hours . They wanted the offices done when they were empty - so I could do early morning or evening as it suited me . It was great - offices don't get ' dirty ' in a gross way so the cleaning wasn't difficult , and there was no one hanging around to get in your way , you could just get on with it ! I started off working on my own but eventually ended up with enough work to take on two assistants . I reckon I could've made a full time business out of it if I'd wanted to but I passed it over to one of my helpers when my life changed direction . It paid WAY more than the horses ever did !
 
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paddy555

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i'm in your area and whilst on paper £500 per month for full livery is not excessive when broken down this is an area of relatively low wages so if someone hears £500 then that sounds a lot to them and is probably not doable, especially now. .
I think it depends on your clientele but that will be governed by the owners the yard attracts.
 

criso

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Are you offering it as so much per day? I saw from another yard I was on that people don't always like prices being presented that way as they are not sure how much they will pay each month.
The 5 day option works out at 433 pcm so I'd be inclined to call it 430 and that's the monthly rate. There's alot to be said for knowing how much it will be each month. Work out a monthly price for 7 day, assisted and maybe 4 day as you say you need 2 at full to make things easier, so that could be 4 at a slightly less comprehensive package.

What's the situation with the current liveries, some yards insisted on at least one service a day which means at least the income from the diy's stays steady.

Also worth pointing out that your basic livery costs are not particularly cheap if someone has a small pony/good doer and don't get your money's worth from the inclusive rate but that's out of your control. People might pay it but then look to cut back in other areas e.g. services.
 

WelshD

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I'd try wording it differently, if you need to make it pay then don't mention a per day price - I'd just hear it as an 'extra' £70 a week where if you presented it as full livery at £130 a week it doesnt sound anywhere near as bad somehow and also more professional and committed.

If you price it per day then you run the risk of people picking and choosing and that may mean that when they are on holiday from work they'll try and save some pennies by doing their own chores and that will dip in to your earnings
 

Izzwall

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I presented it as per week when replying to enquiries, so £100 a week Mon-Fri and £120 for the full week for full. Or £90 and £106 for part. I think the current climate doesn't help and I understand a lot of us are in the same boat money pinching or people are working from home more now so can fit in their horse better? I could offer a flexible livery package instead of just offering full or part?
 

PurBee

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As someone who has always had horses at home, livery prices seem to me to be very cheap!

When i factor in the time, money, equipment costs for keeping a horse and maintaining land, fences, cost of bringing in bedding/feed, needing adequate facilities/housing to store horses, feed and bedding aswell as deeper health care issues, farriery etc....its practically a full time job and id happily lay out 100+ quid per horse per week for someone to take all that stress off me!!!
Just a very minimal set up of land maintenance equipment has cost @ 20k. Drainage alone has cost 15k plus to get the most out of the grassland. That’s not inclusive of annual running costs or weeks of labour to maintain equipment and land.

Im amazed at how cheap livery yards are to be honest!

Perhaps many horse owners who’ve always had their horses at yards instead of having to set-up a horse facility and fully pay and run the yard just cannot appreciate The enormity of the economics and time involved. I certainly had no idea of the full costs when i was more involved with yards as a youngster and helping out.
If there was a yard 5 mins from me, id relocate my horses and free up thousands of pounds and hours per year!
 

C24

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I think the issue right now isn't necessarily that your prices are too high for what you're offering, but rather that they're too high for people in the current climate. My yard owner does packages from grass livery up to full livery. That being said, there's 4 liveries on the yard including myself and all but one are entirely DIY apart from the odd occasion where we might ask for the yard owner to turn out. The other one is a mother/daughter share and on part/assisted livery to fit in with work and school - the mum is a teacher at a state-funded school so knows that her job is secure.

This is the price list for the yard I'm on. We get a 12 x 12 stable with matting, tack room, our own feed/bedding store, trailer parking. Individual turnout with mains electric and automatic water drinkers. Riding includes an arena and off road hacking. We're in Northumberland.
Livery per week:
Full 4x ridden £120 (not including hard feed)
Full - all in, including bedding, hay, etc £140
DIY £25
Grass livery £15

Extra per day:
Ridden £10
Turn out £1.50
Bring in £1.50
Skip off £2.50
Poo picking £4.00
Full muck out £5.00
Farrier/vet £10
Day cover / Holiday cover £10 a day

I think people are trying to cut costs wherever they can right now, luxuries are usually the first to go and unfortunately both owning a horse and having them on full livery is quite a big luxury. Many aren't in a position to pay for full livery and many who are in a decent position right now don't feel stable enough to enter a livery contract for full livery in case they lose their job next month. I wouldn't take it personally, it's just an all round bad time to be in business. My yard owner still has to work several jobs house sitting, cleaning and as a freelance groom/rider in order to pay her bills, the liveries pay for her own horses. She's reached the point where a filled stable is better than an empty one, even if it's only filled with a DIY livery who only plans to stay for a few months
 

Izzwall

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The good and bad thing about the yard is it is a fantastic livery yard and people don't tend to leave once they come hence why if I filled them up with DIY, those spare boxes will be filled for a while. Great for the yard owner, not so good for me as I wouldn't benefit at all. I could just about hold on till Christmas but after that it may be touch and go financially! Not helped by the youngster needing a new saddle this week too ?
Facilities wise we have a floodlit rubber/sand arena, all year turnout including winter and also turnout pens if you still want to turnout but save your field, a grass free track, free trailer parking, awesome hacking, wash area etc
It's such a relaxed yard with no bitching, everyone is supportive whether someone competes to a high level or just enjoys hacking. Yard owner is one of the nicest people I've met in life and is well known for that too. I'll keep advertising and crack on with my sewing too, I can always try and sell some horsey face masks ? literally anything to keep some pennies coming in until covid does one. Though it's at the back of mind covid isn't done yet for a long time!
 

canteron

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Hi, maybe you need to try a different business model!

You could try asking more for the DIY livery (supply and demand), then offer your services at a reasonable costs to encourage take up - but choose your DIY liveries carefully (ie nice people with good jobs who will need extras), could keep one stable and do a bit of schooling/holiday livery/rehab livery with the extra time?

And/or you are going to have to up your marketing! Do your vets have a fb page, a recommend from them is always excellent, let the local farriers know, talk to your local feed merchants and put up posters, maybe let the local pony club etc, etc, etc know.

I suspect at the moment lots of people are WFH, so can manage DIY but in the future will need more.
 
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