Been running year end expenses and receipts.  It’s amazing how much one spends on new cutting tools, sharpening, and general tool maintenance!

When estimating costs or jobs, don’t forget to add enough for those little items!  They can eat your lunch!

I keep all expenses in a data base and flag materials, various tool expenses, and tool maintenance costs separately.  They way I can run totals for the different flags.  Once I’ve done that, then I can do a ‘stacked’ bar chart to see what they contribute to the total costs.  Kind of an eye opener! 

For 2002, new cutting and auxiliary tools, sharpening, and tool maintenance have been running 20% of raw materials (wood) cost.  And, I sharpen a lot of my own tools.  I suspect that next year general tool maintenance expense will go up as what I have now is starting to wear out.

I consider drill bits, band saw blades, table saw blades, sand paper, lathe chisels, router bits, diamond laps, grinding wheels, planer blades, steel wool, etc, to be ‘cutting’ tools. 

I use Microsoft Access for the data base and Excel for the charting (both of which are tax deductible when used for your buisness).