taking in ironing

heather38

hi i am thinking about taking in ironing to earn some extra cash. i want to charge £15 per basket and £1 per sheet/duvet cover/tablecloth/curtain.
do you think this is about right in terms of prices and how would you word the advert?
i am going to put one up in the local newsagent and laundrette and poss in the local tesco ad board. do you think that it will be enough adverts or should i run up some flyers on my laptop and do a door to door?

Pink_butterfly_3

The lady that used to do our ironing charged £10 for a bin bag full of clothes. I always thought that was really cheap though as you can stuff alot of clothes in a bin bag!!

Alot of large companies have websites with pricing information on them so you can get a rough idea of how much they are charging and then adjust your prices accordingly. Heres the link to a website that has all their pricing info listed.

http://www.ironeasy.freeuk.com/ironing.htm

The lady that did ours posted a flyer through our door which is a good way to advertise. I would also put ads up in post office, local shop etc. Why not put an ad in your local newspaper too, i'm pretty sure that small 10 word adverts are free to place.

Hope this helps xx

whatatwit

I think you may be better charging a set, basic price per item. It's amazing how much some people can squeeze into a bag or basket.

Have you spoken with your launderette owner/staff, is there much demand.

Have you got one of those steam generator irons?, they do make ironing a doddle.

chika

The company that do ours charge £5 a basket. Bargain of the year

IWannabedebtfree

My ironing lady(in more affluent times) charges by the hour, regardless of the nature of the items. This way she didn't get ripped off by people giving her millions of small hard -to- iron items in a bin bag and got paid for the actual amount of time that she worked. She charged £5 per hour(last year) and was excellent.

heather38

haven't spoken to anyone yet i'm just bouncing ideas round.
i'm on mat leave at the mo and i'm only going back part time in april, i seem to spend all day ironing anyway so i might as well get paid to do it!! i don't want to make a business of it just to earn a few extra quid to pay for christmas and birthdays
has anyone had any success doing this?

MrsTinks

Well if you'd lived a bit closer to me I'd have been more than interested sadly here everyone charged HUGE fees meaning it's just not affordable. Where I used to live my friends (across the road hehe) daughter used to iron for me. One of my washing thingies filled up (back when I was single this was 2 weeks worth of clothes and bed linnen etc) and I used to pay her £5 for a full to the brim one and £2.50 if it was half full She got pocket money her mum couldn't afford to get her and did it whilst watching telly and I got my ironing done

lil_me

Per kilo in most places near me now, works out expensive, £5 a basket is very very cheap! One used to do £15 a bag, but their bags, and they were small.

Easy adverts that appeal like HATE IRONING, LET ME DO IT! I always notice first as it's me they are talking to

Gingham_Ribbon

Hi, Heather.

This is a good small business idea. It's an ideal thread for the small business board where you should get lots of help with setting up. I've moved it there for you.

Good luck.

Contains_Mild_Peril

whatatwit wrote:

I think you may be better charging a set, basic price per item. It's amazing how much some people can squeeze into a bag or basket.

From my experience of jumble sales where they say "fill a bag for 50p" to get rid of clothes at the end, I can confirm that it is quite possible to fit 47 garments into one large carrier bag!
Charging per kilo seems reasonable. Per hour is good if your customers know and trust you, but if you're just starting and customers have no idea of your workrate, they won't know whether or not that's a good deal.

Sarahsaver

I do a job which includes ironing. I charge £10 per hour. It's the big things that are my bugbear - egyptian cotton double duvet covers! :eek: