I
made a pretty serious mistake in estimating a job a while ago. As in, back in July. That job turned out to be significantly delayed, and only started rolling in early November. In the intervening five months, I learned a lot about contracts, estimating, budgeting, and markup; and as the job was kicking off I realized that I had underbid it by literally thousands of dollars. I paid my brother as a subcontractor to do the job, while I occupied myself keeping busy with other work, in order to make up for the inevitable losses I was going to incur.
At this exact moment, I have 3,500 fewer dollars in my bank account than I would if I had never taken this job on. When the final payment comes in, this will drop to $1,500, but considering that I was planning on making $1,000 to cover my overhead and salary, and an additional $500 in profit, I will at the end of the day be down right around $3,000 from where the job should have landed me.
This fact has been a serious source of financial stress for the past month or two. I had to take out a "loan" on myself, from my personal bank account, to pay out to my business to make sure I could pay for the work being done. So, my business is essentially in debt to me, which will have to get paid off over the next year.
So all that was bad. But I spent a long time running the numbers today, and I'm actually in the clear, financially speaking. I didn't run out of money, and I can start paying myself again for the work I'm doing. November and December (somewhat unexpectedly) have been good months for business, and it seems like we're on track to be making a reasonable living.
It's always a lovely surprise when you've been avoiding looking at something for a long time, and when you finally get up close and personal, it's not as bad as you were imagining. For sure, I wish I had that $3,000 right about now; but we'll make it through. They always tell you you're gonna make mistakes when you try something new. I'm glad my mistakes haven't ruined me quite yet.