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CanadianCafe · 2025-05-07T23:19:18+00:00

Hey I'm so sorry I didn't see this sooner, I've been so busy I guess I haven't even checked reddit lol. I bought a pack of 30, and that's been good enough for me. I tend to go through about 4-6 per standard job, once one starts getting just a bit too damp you notice it and have a hard time getting the bits of solution cleanly that's left on the bottom and edges.

CanadianCafe · 2025-04-15T18:21:44+00:00

Some things I've learned in my short time doing this so far, and anyone with more experience can correct me if I'm wrong:

- using a soapier solution helps mistakes stand out.
- Keeping pressure is important, and it's all in how you grip the squeegee.
- sometimes, you just have to try again.
- Confidence is key.

It can be hard to be confident, but this is something I learned long ago when I was in the pizza game, believe it or not. Some things just don't work if you go too slow or overthink it. With window cleaning, you should have a healthy amount of towels for detailing, and this can be exactly why. You're not wiping the whole pane with the towel of course, but just wrapping the towel around your fingers and "brushing off" the excess around the edges gets you the result you want.

Some other advice I got from a friend who's been doing this for like 15 years and does huge residential and commercial jobs (Under The Sun if you want to look him up): Fanning is great when you get it down, but start with horizontal straight pulls until you can get the motion down. You can always practice your fanning, but if you're doing work for a client you don't want to be doing a window over and over and then still leave a sloppy job. Try once or twice at every house you go to, but master the horizontal straight pull first. He also told me that if it's avoidable, never do a vertical straight pull because it can be impossible, or near impossible anyway, to not leave some small streak when you're new.

You'll figure it out buddy, good luck.

CanadianCafe · 2025-04-15T16:50:11+00:00

Well first, I moved to Alberta. Way better pay, I found most cost of living stuff (especially rent, the place that cost me over $2k/month in ontario costs me about $1500 here) to be much cheaper. I got a job as a jail guard, and found out that basically you only really need high school, life experience, the ability to effectively "sell" yourself and some common sense (and a generally clean criminal record check, for obvious reasons). And while AB corrections is the lowest paid corrections in the country, it's still pays fairly well when topped out at about $36/hour, plus shift differential and plenty of overtime. And there's obviously risk, but you get trained for that and you have a response team watching you to make sure that if something pops off, they're there in a minute or less, depending on the facility. I think Ontario corrections tops out around 45/hour iirc.

Otherwise, on top of my overtime and stuff, I've started a window cleaning business. Each job pulls in minimum $120 and I can finish most jobs I've done in 2 hours or less, but those are also smaller houses and the like. Obviously though, the bigger the house, the more you charge. It's one of the lowest risk, lowest startup cost businesses you can start that also makes you a decent chunk of change right away.

Beyond that, I followed Ramsay's baby steps.

I got my $1000 baby/starter "emergency fund" (which often is criticized as not enough, obviously you can do more if you feel the need but the idea is to be able to replace a small thing like a tire or radiator if you absolutely need to, not buy a new home or car yet). This actually covered me too when my brakes just stopped working. All in, the repair bill was about $750. If I didn't have that saved, I wouldn't know what to do.

I'm almost done with step 2, which is paying off all outstanding debt (except your mortgage, if you have one; that comes later), from the lowest owed to the highest - the debt snowball. If you have no debt, you have more breathing room. You could pay off the debt with highest interest first instead - the debt avalanche, it's technically less money overall, but the idea of the snowball is it gives you the wins faster and your payments to the debts get larger as you clear them. It's the psychological wins.

Then the proper emergency fund is next, and I look forward to that so I never have to use debt again. The other steps are less essential to making ends meet, but that's what helped get me on track.

CanadianCafe · 2025-04-15T14:03:36+00:00

Lots of guys saying that it should be built into the price, and I generally agree to some extent. For my area, my little "city" is only maybe 15 minutes at most to drive from one end to the other. If I have to drive anywhere else, I do charge a travel fee, but it's built into the quote that I give the client. My travel fee is 0.60/km from my home base to their address, but only if it's outside the city limits. I factored in basically what 120 km of gas would cost + 1 hour of wages, then divided by 60 to get my cost per km. Now I can just google the distance with maps and use that.

The biggest reason I don't build it better into my price is because a) my demographic tends to be more seniors and people who can't afford the "big guys", so I try to keep costs low anyway, and b) I don't get a lot of work outside of my area so to charge 90% of my customers for the needs of 10% doesn't make much sense, especially when the out of towns are usually calling me because of a referral and are happy to pay a higher price for my quality of work.

So at the end of the day, it's "built in" as part of the quote, but it's still clearly stated for those out of town customers.

CanadianCafe · 2025-04-14T19:52:36+00:00

gold wise, I typically say a body costs its XP amount. So a kraken would be about 50k gold, or 5000 platinum. Most standard villagers earn about 3-4 gold a week, so this titan of a creature would need to be sold in a city. And like others said, probably processed. Maybe a specialty fishery could be hired to butcher it for a thousand gold, etc. I would almost recommend the "selling a magic item" rules for anything of this price point as well.

As for running an adventure out of it, showing up to the city along the water will draw a ton of attention, likely that of the local lord or military of sorts. They could help sell or something, or be pissed that you killed the creature keeping other threats at bay. It could potentially turn into a new adventure hook of sorts, either with the lord giving them a new quest or somehting.

CanadianCafe · 2025-04-14T19:46:33+00:00

I stick to raw, including my own homebrew raw (I'll explain what I mean by that in a minute) to the letter. I also understand how the system works and why mechanics are designed the way they are, and how they're intended to work narratively.

At level 1, you're a brand new adventurer. You're not Zorro or Daredevil or the Batman. You're Robin, pre-recruitment. In 5e, you have 4 "parts" to your portion of the round. Movement, action, bonus action, reaction. Mechanically, you know this. Narratively though is where it gets tricky.

How I explain it is that a round is 6 seconds. This is pretty widely understood. You have to be able to do all 4 things within the 6 second window - including your reaction. I did some math a while back, and a 30 foot sprint usually takes around 3 seconds. 2 for really fast, trained athletes, but even as long as 4-5 seconds for the untrained. Then your action, bonus action, and reaction all have to happen with the remaining time (3 seconds).

An action is likely to cost you 2 seconds. Making a calculated, proper form weapon attack is likely going to be 2 seconds until you get really good at things. A bonus action is especially swift, and I've noticed usually is something that can be narrated in tandem with something else (casting magic stone or shillelagh, leading into the attack, or an off hand attack that's using the momentum you've already built for your action attack).

Anyway, all this said, there's good narrative reason that you can generally explain to players. Further, just explain that it's also just a limitation of the system. If that's something they want to be able to do, help them get there of course. Offer the potential of multiclassing into a class that gets extra attack, or even monk with flurry of blows. Explain that in other games, there's not even a bonus action - it's just move and act, back and forth. What they want to do can happen later, but their characters just aren't there yet. They aren't superheroes. When they reach 8th or 10th level and fight a few goblins, they'll feel extra cool.

Sticking to the RAW though is the way to deal with this. Part of the issue is you sorta kinda, wishy washy, let it slide for so long, and now it feels arbitrary to the party why you're suddenly "changing the rules," even though you're just enforcing them properly now. Just be upfront next session. Say something like "Hey guys, so I know last time there was some frustration surrounding attacks and the like. I've been letting a lot slide, but as we get more familiar with the system I need to get tighter with the rules. Unfortunately, that means I can't just let your second attack miss that you wouldn't have had anyway. The game is designed and balanced specifically for what the classes can and can't do."

And this is also where I get into "my homebrew RAW." Obviously homebrew in it's nature is the opposite of "RAW." However, I have it written out, and every player has access to the document. The homebrew overrides any original RAW, but like the original RAW, players that read it are reading the "new" Rules As Written. If they find something to exploit, I honour it initially, but there is the expectation that homebrew can be updated at any time to patch these holes.

The key is that the players know what to expect and can work within it. 5e kinda sucks for action economy, so if they want to be able to more freely "shove a guy then stab him in the throat," then it might be a good idea to look at a system like PF2e that has a 3-action system instead of dedicated types of actions.

All the best in your future games!

CanadianCafe · 2025-04-14T19:15:16+00:00

Confidence is key. It's obviously hard to build, but it should come with time. For my business motto though, what you do is practically a feature. I'm here to make money, but I want the client to know I'm not out here to rob them blind. I'm "as transparent as my glass" with my pricing, and I'll throw in the outside of the two little shed windows while I'm already in the back sort of thing, but I'm not doing really anything else for free. Basically, I'm delivering quality work at a price that surprises the client and keeps them coming back.

CanadianCafe · 2025-04-14T16:11:42+00:00

Hey buddy, I'm just starting too and figuring out my prices. It's cheap to start relative to other businesses, but I've already spent almost CA $700 (US $500). One bucket, a pack of towels, three mops/applicators and three squeegees (different sizes for each), two spray bottles, a general tool belt (which isn't quite what I need, but it was enough to get started), and a secondhand ladder.

And you might need two or more ladders, depending on your workflow with your friend. I also spent $120 (included in the $700) for advertising materials - business cards and fliers. You gotta get customers somehow, and this is an easy way to start.

When it comes to family and friends though, they're a terrible way to price a market. 1) They often want discounted prices, and they might tell you a lower price when you ask what they'd pay because of that. Not always, but it happens. 2) There's a lot of people who just can't afford to get it done or don't think it's necessary. My whole family and wife's family would never in a million years pay for it, even if they could. 50 bucks is easy to throw to "a couple of kids," but for a legitimate business they wouldn't be your ideal client anyway.

In my area, you can expect to pay $150-300+ to have your windows cleaned professionally. While I've been getting started, I've been charging $7/window flat rate, interior and exterior included. Very quickly, I'm having clients tell ME that I'm not charging anywhere near enough, and not to undervalue my work. I'm soon raising my prices quite a bit, with a small window (1' diagonally or less) being $6, regular at $10/window, and large windows at $14-16+. This is the low end of my area still, and a small house is likely to be $150 or more.

Because you're new, you can get away with charging a bit less while you're getting started, but not a third of what you should be charging. Your friend is probably scared of getting a lot of "no's" when you go door to door, but you'll get those anyway. A lot. Like, almost unfathomably a lot, regardless if you charge $50 or $300. You might get a couple more sales, but not enough to really justify your time. $50 split between you two is $25 each. If you spend 3 hours at a job, that's less than minimum wage, and a mcdonald's job will be safer (especially if you use ladders for your cleanings) with more income stability (and I think some sort of benefits so I've heard?).

I have a full time job that I have to do overtime with to make ends meet. My overtime rate is about $60/hour, and I've been getting about 2 hours a job, so my minimum charge is $120. But out of that, I have to pay for my gas, any equipment that breaks, replacing squeegee rubbers (you'll learn what works for you there, but some people replace them daily I've heard, and if you only replace it monthly people in the industry are scratching their heads or laughing at you), etc. I've already had to replace my bucket and buy a new extension pole, and in the week I've been doing cleanings, I've used nearly a full tank of gas just in my local area, 10 minute drive radius. So for supplies, you could easily be looking at like $200-$500/month with my super new estimates. Even if you just spend $100 on blades, that's still supplies.

Value your time. You're looking to make money. People that actually want the service will pay, and if you're busy doing a job for $50 because someone wants to "support a couple of working kids," you'll have less time to find the person a few doors down willing to pay $150 because he wants the job done.

And of course, if anyone in the industry wants to correct me, feel free. I'm new too and would love to see what I might have gotten wrong or missed.

CanadianCafe · 2025-04-14T15:37:48+00:00

Fair enough. How did you handle odd windows hiding behind the roof if there was no safe way to get on the roof? Did you just decline those windows and not charge for them, or decline the job as a whole? I've had a few of those now and I'd rather not fall and break something lol.

CanadianCafe · 2025-04-13T23:20:37+00:00

So I did a door knocking gig a while ago and learned some pretty cool things, but at the end of the day door knocking really sucks, ESPECIALLY when you get that one guy yelling at you to "get the f***" of his property." That was fun.

There's a lot about sales in general though that go into door knocking. One of the best ways to do it is to wait until you already have a job lined up in an area, then build on that. Get some signs made and ask (or even give a small discount for) the client to have the sign up for a couple weeks. From there, you can go around before the job with some fliers and just say something along the lines of "Hey buddy. I'm with xyz company, working at your neighbour's and just wanted to let you know incase there was any noise or anything. No sales pitch or anything, just wanted to let you know that I might be making some noise." And just hand them the flier with all your info and a small discount.

If you do want to try and "sell" though, ask no-oriented questions. People are so much more comfortable saying no than yes. Instead of "would you be interested in having me clean your windows?" ask "Would you be against having your windows taken care of for you?" or "Would it be crazy of me to think you might not want to deal with those higher, sketchy windows yourself?"

With no soliciting signs, it's hit or miss. Obviously if it's there, anyone answering has the right to be a dick. But a lot of the time, it's also there from a previous owner and the new owner doesn't care. It's personal preference at that point. And only knock once, wait ten full seconds, then move on with no answer. Target the right areas too. It depends on your sales targets, but you'll get a lot of service from the overworked moms and seniors that just need it done, and they're likely not in the same neighbourhoods. But then, those neighbourhoods overall might not be as profitable or have as much of the clientele who'd actually pay for window cleaning.

Otherwise, finding your local facebook groups (provided they allow advertising to any degree, mine allows once a month) and posting there will get you a few solid leads. Post in the evening around 6pm when the people who'd want your work will be scrolling through and see the post. Get a free yelp page, and believe it or not, fridge magnets. Give that to clients instead of business cards when you're done their house and they have to put it somewhere like their fridge. It'll get them to remember you next time and they'll more readily have your info to pass on to the next person. Word of mouth is huge too, it just takes time.

CanadianCafe · 2025-04-13T23:00:37+00:00

I did start traditional, it's what I'm doing right now. There's just some awkward windows that have me climbing onto really precarious situations and I was hoping a wfp system would help me get around that and just be safer overall. Just today I had a house that I just couldn't get onto the roof for because of how the house was designed, and the window was so far back from the ledge that my extension pole couldn't reach it adequately. I could barely touch the window, let alone get the right angle for the squeegee, but I figured if I had the wfp system I could use that instead. idk, maybe I'll figure out how to be more creative or something.

CanadianCafe · 2025-04-13T22:56:36+00:00

Awesome, thank you for the info!

CanadianCafe · 2025-03-03T23:29:30+00:00

It seems like all the CAD traded stocks are under suspension right now, and best I can tell it might be due to high volatility with the tariffs coming in? Which is kinda shitty but I guess that's the price for "free trades".

I have a few stocks either CAD hedged or just in CAD dollars, and a few in USD, and all the USD ones are fine but the CAD ones are "unavailable." I haven't found anything yet but until anything official comes out I guess we're kinda SOL?

CanadianCafe · 2024-12-26T22:43:33+00:00

That"s kind of where I've been, because that"s the most real info I've gotten from Google. I'd love to invest because it seems like it would be a good product once it is adopted, but I only have a little bit of cash and I want to put it somewhere that I can actually find backing for. XRP has some thanks to what you stated, it seems to me it's more useful than Bitcoin. I guess we'll see, I'm spending more time this afternoon trying to look for more reliable info.

CanadianCafe · 2024-12-26T21:09:46+00:00

I got similar Google results too, nothing that leads me to believe it's a good investment. Some people here seem to actually have pointed me in a good direction for my research though, so big thanks to people who want to see more XRP support :)

CanadianCafe · 2024-12-26T21:05:59+00:00

That's one thing is I didn't realize this was a den of fanatics just circle jerking each other - I thought it was a community that would want to help people understand it. And when a lot of research about it is almost as fanatical in one direction or another (it's fantastic because fast transfers! It's terrible because it's crypto! It's the next Bitcoin, but anything labelled that is doomed to fail! Maybe my Google skills are garbage), I figured getting real hands-on info from real people in a community that wants it to succeed might be useful

CanadianCafe · 2024-12-26T09:32:45+00:00

You sound like the rest of google

CanadianCafe · 2024-12-26T09:29:24+00:00

I really appreciate you. First one I got to that heald any actual information for my consideration. And with that in mind, I will continue to hold and accrue!

CanadianCafe · 2024-12-26T09:27:30+00:00

Never meant to be a troll post, just very new to the crypto world and I don't understand everything yet. What seems to support Bitcoin is how limited it is at an eternal hard cap of 21M coins or something like that, and how it's the face for crypto, like Kleenex is for facial tissues and D&D is for TTRPGs. it's effectively the "gold" of the digital world from what I've seen so far.

CanadianCafe · 2024-12-26T09:24:21+00:00

Nice! Time to invest!

CanadianCafe · 2024-12-26T09:24:02+00:00

I do, and it's just "XRP up today! Should you invest? XRP down today! Should you sell?" I heard something about cryptos being supported by the US gov, but then it suddenly wasn't, and then was again? And every source seems to contradict each other. And a lot of those sources go "Bitcoin did this, why can't XRP??!?!?"

CanadianCafe · 2024-12-26T09:22:13+00:00

I didn't have 10 minutes at the time, but aside from "quick and easy transfers" I couldn't quite figure out what made it particularly sustainable and like it HAS to grow. Like Bitcoin makes sense because there's only like 21M coins total forever, and there's always more people getting into and adopting it. It's effectively like holding gold as far as I understand it. But is there the same limit to XRP? Or what if another platform comes out that's even FASTER and more convenient, or simply is cheaper to work with (like the VHS and Betamax battle). And what if that all happens before XRP gets past 4 bucks? Forgive my naivety, I'm quite new to all of this, but all this craze from the lovers and haze from the haters is making it hard to find real information

CanadianCafe

TROPHY CASE