What items are actually worth the time scrapping for money?

Originally Posted by mikeinreco

with the current scrap pricing just about everything is worth scrapping if you are physically able.........highest price in years but the trend is downward from here

I dunno Mike. You have to think about the value of your time plus operating expenses. I doubt i'm making more than two or three dollars an hour with stripping the wire.

It would be one thing if you were an old guy living on Social Security. It would a little extra coming in to help make ends meet.

Could you actually make a living at scrapping ? That's your prime gig that pays all the bills with no other income sources ? That's no easy thing to do.

Just cause you're making money ... doesn't mean you're making profit.

How do you define " Worth It ". ?

Originally Posted by hills

I dunno Mike. You have to think about the value of your time plus operating expenses. I doubt i'm making more than two or three dollars an hour with stripping the wire.

It would be one thing if you were an old guy living on Social Security. It would a little extra coming in to help make ends meet.

Could you actually make a living at scrapping ? That's your prime gig that pays all the bills with no other income sources ? That's no easy thing to do.

Just cause you're making money ... doesn't mean you're making profit.

How do you define " Worth It ". ?

I 100% agree!! The number of people who do scrapping that don't take into consideration that making money does not mean making a profit is huge. It's all fun and games on making money ignoring wear on vehicles. As soon as major repairs show up, things get serious very quickly. I cannot tell you how many scrappers I've seen lose significant business/no call, no show for their customers simply because their vehicle wasn't reliable enough to make it to the pickup location.

Full time scrapping is an interesting allure. I'm not full time, but I have seen a bunch of people who are. When prices are high they can make money. As soon as it drops though, times get financially slim very quickly. Especially if you're one of the "churn and burn" scrappers. I'm not saying churn and burn is the wrong way to do recycling, but you're at the mercy of the scrap prices. I just have a hard time wrapping my head around spending all the time collecting/taking trailer loads of metal to the yard when a single refrigerator will pay the same amount of money. For me, the scrap metal (especially steel) is just the last pile of material that can't be fixed/resold.

All that being said, I would honestly say the biggest thing that people don't do is define what they want to/set goals for their scrapping.