Underquoted a Job and Lost Money? The Tiles on Thursday Morning
2026-10-13
The tile adhesive is still in your hair when you finally sit down in the van.
It's Thursday, a quarter past ten. Rain ticks on the roof. The bathroom job was meant to be done yesterday. You're on day four, and the quote you gave Mrs. Albrecht is open on your phone. One line. One number. Three weeks ago, on her doorstep, you looked at the room, nodded and said it out loud before you had time to doubt it.
Now you're adding things up in your head. Two extra trips to the builders' merchant. The waterproofing you hadn't counted. The wall that wasn't straight. The tiles she chose, which cost more per square metre than the ones you had pictured.
You stop adding. You already know the answer, and you don't like it.
The number you said too fast
Nobody tells you this part when you start out on your own. Quoting feels like a skill you either have or don't. You look at a job, you feel a price, you say it. Often the feeling is right. Sometimes it isn't.
And the quiet cost of the times it isn't is hard to talk about. You can't really complain to the customer. She did nothing wrong. She trusted your number. You can't really complain to your partner either, because it sounds like you're bad at your job, and you aren't.
So you carry it. You work the extra Saturday. You skip the line on the invoice for the second trip because asking for more feels like going back on your word. You tell yourself it evens out over the year.
Does it? You honestly couldn't say. The receipts are in the glove box, a few in the door pocket, one in your jacket that has already been through the wash.
What the glove box knows
You open it now, because you're sitting there and your hands want something to do.
A crumpled slip from the merchant. Another one, faded. A fuel receipt that could belong to this job or the last one. A note in your own handwriting that says "grout?" with no date.
This is the part that stings more than the tiles. It isn't only that you underquoted. It's that you can't even say by how much. The money left, and the paper trail is a pile of maybes.
So next time you'll do what you did this time. Stand on a doorstep, feel a price, say it.
The pause in the kitchen
That evening, Mrs. Albrecht messages. Friendly. She loves the tiles. She asks when you can finish the last bit by the window.
You read it twice. You're glad she's happy. You also feel a small, tired flatness, because her happiness is paid for by your Saturdays.
Your sister, who runs a small bakery, is at your kitchen table with a coffee when you mention it. She doesn't offer advice. She just asks, "When you bake a batch, do you know what it cost you?"
You know what you'd say about a batch of anything. Of course you'd know. You'd weigh it out.
"Then why don't you weigh the jobs?" she says, and goes back to her coffee.
It isn't a clever sentence. But it lands somewhere and stays there.
It doesn't have to be a feeling
The turning point is small. No big decision. Just the thought that a quote could be something you build rather than something you feel. That materials, hours and your margin could sit in front of you, in one place, before you say a number out loud.
Not a complicated system. Nothing that makes you feel like an accountant. Just a calm sheet where the job goes in, the costs go in, and the price comes out with a margin you chose on purpose. Afterwards, the receipts go in too, and you see what the job really did.
You think about how that would have changed the doorstep. Not by much. You'd still look at the room and nod. But you'd say, "I'll send you the quote this afternoon," and you'd mean it, and nobody would think less of you.
A different Thursday
Picture the same week, a few months on.
It's Monday morning, a quarter to eight. Coffee in the van. You open the sheet and see three jobs: one running, one quoted, one finished. The finished one shows what you earned after materials, not what you hoped. The running one has its receipts already logged from Friday, because it took thirty seconds, not an evening.
A new enquiry came in over the weekend, a kitchen splashback. You don't quote it from your head. You note the measurements, put in the tiles, the adhesive, the time, a little buffer for the wall that might not be straight. The number appears. You send it with a calm sentence. If she says it's too much, you can say no, or adjust, knowing what you're adjusting.
And you can see, in one glance, who still owes you for last month's job. You don't have to guess or rummage.
The knot you didn't realise you carried is a bit looser. Not gone. You're still a tradesperson, and walls will still surprise you. But the surprise lands on a buffer instead of on your weekend.
If this was your Thursday
If you recognised the van, the rain and the glove box, you're not bad at pricing. You've just been doing it with nothing to lean on.
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An illustrative story, written with AI assistance.