We’re moving to just outside the city limits so there is no garbage service.
So, it’s off to the landfill every three or four days, hoping the can doesn’t tip over in the back of your car on the way. This is the fate of everyone in our subdivision. That is, unless someone does something about it.
That someone is me. I have a couple of ideas.
First, instead of standing around and complaining, we are going to start a garbage pickup company. There are about 50 homes in our subdivision and I’m sure we could get all of them to be on our route.
I priced a truck on Trucks.com. The cheapest truck I could find is a 20-yard capacity 2002 Kenworth Rear Loader for $49,000 (we are buying used…why would I want a shiny NEW garbage truck?).
I will have to go to Tampa, Florida to pick it up. It is 809 miles away. At $4 a gallon (the mpg of my truck is listed at 2.8), it will cost us $1156 to drive it back.
Add that to the plane ticket to go to Tampa and at least one night in a motel, some beef jerky and soda, and I’m up to $50,689.
A new pair of gloves will run about $10. Overalls: $35.
I’m sure there is a license or something to purchase. Let’s guess $100.
The Landfill is about 14 miles round trip from the subdivision. We’ll need to make three trips on garbage day (once a week)…add $60 per week for gas.
Second pair of gloves (just in case the first pair gets soiled): $10.
Frequent oil changes, a sturdy pressure washer, insurance for the truck, and a part-time employee to operate the truck and collect the trash ($12 an hour, one day a week) will run us another 10-15 thousand a year. Just to be safe, let’s make it $15,000.
Twenty-five more pairs of gloves: $250.
There must be something else I’m forgetting. Let’s put $100 more down for that. (If I haven’t forgotten anything, we’ll just buy 10 more pairs of gloves.)
Ok, let’s see…we are up to $69,314 for the first year. Two-year operating costs (with a 4% inflation adjustment on everything for year two) comes to $88,684.
So we’ll need to charge the 49 other houses $75.41 per month to break even after two years.
The reason I say two years is because I think that is about the amount of time it will take the IRS to catch up with us due to the fact that I forgot to include paying taxes in my business plan. At that point, the truck will be seized along with the sturdy pressure washer and any unused pairs of gloves.
My second idea is to drive over to the landfill a couple of days a week with our garbage. I’ll buy some bungee cords to keep the can in place in the back of my car.
That and a pair of gloves: $17.
