What do you think I can charge for buying Windows?

[techmanc]

I have a customer that I working formating his hard drives and installing Windows 8.

He wants me to purchase the software as well.

How much are people selling the software for if there buying it at full O.E.M. price.

If I cant make any money off the selling the software it dont make any sense to buy them myself .

Its easy when I am dealing with one install but I not had a job to install 10 before.

And what do you think is the going price to install Windows 8 in the first place?

 

[DaveSimmons]

You should be paying him if you're inflicting 8 on him instead of 10

Does the customer have a sane reason for installing an abandoned Vista 2.0 that isn't being updated and will never be good? 10 isn't perfect but it's better in every way I can think of and will be supported with real updates while 8 might or might not support new hardware properly. Microsoft also just said 10 loses less performance from Spectre / Meltdown fixes.

 

[techmanc]

You should be paying him if you're inflicting 8 on him instead of 10

Does the customer have a sane reason for installing an abandoned Vista 2.0 that isn't being updated and will never be good? 10 isn't perfect but it's better in every way I can think of and will be supported with real updates while 8 might or might not support new hardware properly. Microsoft also just said 10 loses less performance from Spectre / Meltdown fixes.

I thought about suggesting Windows 10 over Windows 8 but if I am buying the software and where there is no more free upgrades to Windows 10 I know I can buy Windows 8 a lot cheaper and this is a 10 laptop deal so I dont mind making more money that way but I still need info on how to price this job as my customer waiting for my answer.

 

[JackTheBear]

This is a business customer, so you probably want to sell them legitimate Windows licenses. Windows 8.1 is available at both Amazon and Walmart for $119. The cheaper ones readily available online for $10 to $69 are likely to be leaked/cracked keys that are not legitimate. They might work fine, they might not, but if you installed it, you have to deal with it, so I'd suggest using a legitimate copy from a legitimate source. The job will not be worth anything at all if you install a bunch of fake Windows licenses and then later have to replace them all out of your pocket.

What you charge to install them is up to you and what you think your time is worth. It wouldn't surprise me if it takes a really long time for each of the installs to apply windows updates - like it might take 24 hours for all the updates to download and install due to dependencies (can't update some items until .net 4.0 is installed, can't update other things until those first updates are installed, etc.). It's not a lot of work, but you do have to restart/log in to the fresh installs/start Windows Update again from time to time so they can get back to work installing more updates. If all the PCs are identical or at least very similar, you can probably install just one manually, let it update, and then clone it onto all the rest and go change the product keys.

Any way you look at it I think you're going to be doing at least 10 hours of work, if not more, + some supervising (watching windows install and update itself). What's your normal hourly rate? Maybe quote him $149 per license + 20 hours total, and if it takes less give him a discount. But if it takes longer than that I would NOT bill him more than I quoted him, because if it takes longer than that it's probably my fault.

If your question is what's a fair rate, then i would think between $40 to $75 per hour depending on your experience/qualifications.

 

[XavierMace]

If you tried to quote me 20 hours of work for a Windows install, I'd laugh my way right out your door.

 

[JackTheBear]

If you tried to quote me 20 hours of work for a Windows install, I'd laugh my way right out your door.

You could provide a better quote if you want to put a little thought into it, but a) I said give a discount if it takes less time, and b) It's not just the install, it's drivers and updates on an older operating system on 10 PCs which may or may not be identical. He didn't state if they were all the same. A portion of the time is going to be spent restarting, logging in and starting Windows update over and over again potentially on 10 different PCs if he can't do a master image. I know Windows 7 takes more than a day to fully update. I imagine Windows 8/8.1 take a similar amount of time. I'm not saying charge for all that time, but he will be working on this install for a full day.

 

[techmanc]

Well the person wanted Windows 8 not 10 and that at least until I saw how that progressed with missing drivers it could be a real pita doing first install anyways.

He wanting me to shop Windows 8 myself and give him the total price for the whole operation is another pita for me to do as I am certainly not buying anything of of my pocket first.

As it is I been disabled since 2014 and while this might have been great way to earn some needed money I will never do anything to lose my benefits which entails not being able to earn more than $2000 in any month which is part of the monthly entitlement I am already getting so I just email stating these facts to pass on the job and let him find someone else to do the job.

getting involved with do 20 laptops and providing Window 8 as well dont work

 

[BonzaiDuck]

It takes longer to install the OS on a single, one-time hardware configuration than it would for a set of systems of the same make, model and basic hardware. But not all of the install-time is attended. You'd probably spend more time hunting down drivers and installing them than the actual time installing the OS.

I wouldn't bother trying to make money from reselling the OS to the client, but I'd get a white-box "OEM" installation product. Just bill for the actual hours, inflated a bit for your effort in keeping track of it.

 

[techmanc]

Well I told the person that wanted job my situation being on SSI and he still trying to offer the job but when I called SSI just now its like I cant unstand if I will make any money all I know if they will deduct my earnings from my SSI payments so I end up working for nothing as far as I can tell. Anyone on SSI can tell me how the rule apply?

Also its 20 HP530 installing Windows 8 that need the install so worse one will be the first laptop until all the drivers are installed.

SSI keeps saying I getting a new job I cant seem to explain that I put a craigslist ad and I got this contract type of job not steady employment somewhere.

 

[techmanc]

check this out it's showing SSI wage program and all I could understand is can never have more than $2000 in my bank acct in one month.

Here is the SSI link https://choosework.ssa.gov/about/wage-reporting/index.html

so what this charts says I get $20 and $65 added to my monthly income and the rest is deducted from my monthly benefits I cant believe they cap me that badly.

Social Security doesn’t count all of your income when we
decide whether you qualify for SSI. For example, we do
not count:
• The first $20 a month of most income you receive;
• The first $65 a month you earn from working and half
the amount over $65;
• Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)
benefits, formerly known as food stamps;
• Shelter you get from private nonprofit organizations;
and
• Most home energy assistance.
If you’re married, we include part of

 

[BonzaiDuck]

check this out it's showing SSI wage program and all I could understand is can never have more than $2000 in my bank acct in one month.

Here is the SSI link https://choosework.ssa.gov/about/wage-reporting/index.html

so what this charts says I get $20 and $65 added to my monthly income and the rest is deducted from my monthly benefits I cant believe they cap me that badly.

Social Security doesn’t count all of your income when we
decide whether you qualify for SSI. For example, we do
not count:
• The first $20 a month of most income you receive;
• The first $65 a month you earn from working and half
the amount over $65;
• Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)
benefits, formerly known as food stamps;
• Shelter you get from private nonprofit organizations;
and
• Most home energy assistance.
If you’re married, we include part of

My brother gets SSDI and he's in the same boat. I think he keeps a lockbox under his bed, and a minimal balance in his bank account.

I have a gardener who only accepts cash, when I'd rather either write a check or transfer to his bank account. This doesn't prove anything conclusively, but you'd expect a greater chance you could predict or infer a bit of tax evasion.

He and other folks very well might receive so little from SS and earn so little in odd-job chump change that an honest accounting would show they are in the 47% who are not required to file.

But we were discussing what you do about the white-box OEM OS you might install on the client's hardware.

 

[techmanc]

My brother gets SSDI and he's in the same boat. I think he keeps a lockbox under his bed, and a minimal balance in his bank account.

I have a gardener who only accepts cash, when I'd rather either write a check or transfer to his bank account. This doesn't prove anything conclusively, but you'd expect a greater chance you could predict or infer a bit of tax evasion.

He and other folks very well might receive so little from SS and earn so little in odd-job chump change that an honest accounting would show they are in the 47% who are not required to file.

But we were discussing what you do about the white-box OEM OS you might install on the client's hardware.

Well I have Paypal and not got to use it yet I was hoping I could do some banking that way but thinking about it now I am guessing I need to file that as another back acct with SSDI.
But I read the pdf file form the sight and it say you can take $20 from your earning then you get a $65 which equals $85 then from there its a 50/50 split so that doable situation with me to be able get some jobs and know how much I will earn.
I havent had to worry about the 2k limit unless I get another 20 laptops that needed to be done and that person bailed the other day. They wanted me to purchase 20 Windows 8 pieces as well as give price for whole job which I would needed to break down small enough to not hit the $2k mark.

 

[whm1974]

Well I have Paypal and not got to use it yet I was hoping I could do some banking that way but thinking about it now I am guessing I need to file that as another back acct with SSDI.
But I read the pdf file form the sight and it say you can take $20 from your earning then you get a $65 which equals $85 then from there its a 50/50 split so that doable situation with me to be able get some jobs and know how much I will earn.
I havent had to worry about the 2k limit unless I get another 20 laptops that needed to be done and that person bailed the other day. They wanted me to purchase 20 Windows 8 pieces as well as give price for whole job which I would needed to break down small enough to not hit the $2k mark.

I'm on SSD, so I have a bit more leeway then you do, but it is my understanding that the they watch the people getting SSI more closely. So I would be careful about the way you go about this.

And unless those on SSI on making a fortune on the side, I have nothing against guys like you doing what they can to make ends meet.

 

[techmanc]

I'm on SSD, so I have a bit more leeway then you do, but it is my understanding that the they watch the people getting SSI more closely. So I would be careful about the way you go about this.

And unless those on SSI on making a fortune on the side, I have nothing against guys like you doing what they can to make ends meet.

Well I just had to verify and yes on ssi as its the one with the $2000 bank acct cap. I wont do any side work as I dont want to jeopardize my benefits while you could make some extra money its not worth the rish. When I 1st got on ssi they gave me and overpayment when I first signed up. I had no clue as this was the first checks I am getting and the gave me an overpayment of 1 check which even tho it was their fault of the overpayment, I was forced to pay $25 out of payments until bill is paid. That bill will be paid finally next month and they been taking the money since nov 2015. I am currently working to work on 20 laptops where I install Windows 8 do a quick burnin test and give it back to the customer so I am charging him $100 per laptop and space them out over 3-4 month to not have any problems will going over my ssi monthly allotment. I am still working out the details and when I first told the customer my ssi situation I thought he bail but so far its still a working job

 

[whm1974]

Well I just had to verify and yes on ssi as its the one with the $2000 bank acct cap. I wont do any side work as I dont want to jeopardize my benefits while you could make some extra money its not worth the rish. When I 1st got on ssi they gave me and overpayment when I first signed up. I had no clue as this was the first checks I am getting and the gave me an overpayment of 1 check which even tho it was their fault of the overpayment, I was forced to pay $25 out of payments until bill is paid. That bill will be paid finally next month and they been taking the money since nov 2015. I am currently working to work on 20 laptops where I install Windows 8 do a quick burnin test and give it back to the customer so I am charging him $100 per laptop and space them out over 3-4 month to not have any problems will going over my ssi monthly allotment. I am still working out the details and when I first told the customer my ssi situation I thought he bail but so far its still a working job

Just be careful, if you also get anything like HUD and/or Medicaid they also have income and bank acct caps as well.

 

[techmanc]

Just be careful, if you also get anything like HUD and/or Medicaid they also have income and bank acct caps as well.

I only have ssi do deal with now they want to start the job soon but I am not sure if english is there first language which is fine by me but they keep saying there paying me with quickbooks and I know he doing paperwork that way and I assume that will cut me his business check right?

 

[whm1974]

Well good luck to you.

 

[techmanc]

so now this thread is becoming how to make this deal and not violate my ssi conditions which says I cant have more than $2000 in my acct so how can that work as now will make $500-$600 a month until this job is finished so there's that to deal with.

I get my first $85 a month I make goes directly into my acct and after that its a 50/50 split so I know the longer I take spread the job over more months I thinking getting paid in 4 monthly payments will be my best scenario but the big question and problem will be as my earning will put me over my cap after my first payment or 2 how does that work?

Can I move my money to my PayPal acct that would be the easiest method?
I dont understand this whole ssi rules that cap me from try to make as much money as possible for my bills and new purchases.

If they are going to penalize me making any earnings or savings thats crazy.
I know that at one time they knew of some saving I had when they sell my car so there must be some other place to transfer my extra savings to just they dont want me to make more than more than $1100 a month over my cap .

If for some reason I cant move money to another acct to avoid cap only thing I can do pay off my 2 CC accts from Amazon and Newegg. I could pay these balances off.

So this is first time doing all this working while collecting my disability ssi payment so need some info on how this all will work Thank.

 

[mikeymikec]

I pretty much sell Windows licences at the price at the price I can get them at (maybe with a small amount of padding just in case I quote a price, then my source for it goes out of stock and I have to get it elsewhere).

As for Win8x versus 10, considering how Win10's big updates (ie. the once or twice a year feature updates) will tax a low-end machine, I can definitely see a benefit of choosing Win7 or 8.1 instead. I've seen low-end PCs take at least half an hour longer to complete a task because it was processing a feature update in the background, and of course the user has no choice over whether the OS does that at that exact moment. Another day as usual for Microsoft's arrogance. There's also the fact that a Win7 or 8x machine is a lot less likely to burp on a Windows update vs Win10's chance of borking a feature update and then the chance of it also screwing up the rollback. Win8x can be tamed into acting like a sane UI, my only quibble about its use is the full-screen apps plus the Photos app's half-arsed image import routine.

As for the amount of time spent on an install, I charge a flat-rate fee for all Windows installs simply because while most of them (especially if installing to an SSD from USB) are done pretty quickly (including all the usual checks, tweaks and driver updates), some can be a pain, such as the laptop I spent a bit more time on the other day because the best touchpad driver I could get for it was stopping the taskbar from working properly.

But I have to concur with other people here: If you think you might spend 20 hours of your time (ie. you can be doing other things while it is processing some task), you're in the wrong line of work. If I spent even 10 hours trying to get a fresh Windows install working, then it's almost guaranteed that the machine is faulty enough to go in the bin.

 

[techmanc]

At this moment the job is going forward.

I told my customer to buy the software himself and its more paperwork than I want to deal with where everything needs to be reported to ssi.

I will charge the customer $200 for the first laptop as that the one I need to see if there will be any compatibility or driver problems where the job cant be done.
If there are no problems I will get paid $100 for the other 19 laptops.

I also stated that I can only do 4-5 laptop at a time to due to my bank acct can never exceed $2000
and every month the first $85 is mine to keep then its a 50-50 split so the more months it takes to to complete the job the better my share will be and I he knows that I can only do a few at time.

 

[techmanc]

I pretty much sell Windows licences at the price at the price I can get them at (maybe with a small amount of padding just in case I quote a price, then my source for it goes out of stock and I have to get it elsewhere).

As for Win8x versus 10, considering how Win10's big updates (ie. the once or twice a year feature updates) will tax a low-end machine, I can definitely see a benefit of choosing Win7 or 8.1 instead. I've seen low-end PCs take at least half an hour longer to complete a task because it was processing a feature update in the background, and of course the user has no choice over whether the OS does that at that exact moment. Another day as usual for Microsoft's arrogance. There's also the fact that a Win7 or 8x machine is a lot less likely to burp on a Windows update vs Win10's chance of borking a feature update and then the chance of it also screwing up the rollback. Win8x can be tamed into acting like a sane UI, my only quibble about its use is the full-screen apps plus the Photos app's half-arsed image import routine.

As for the amount of time spent on an install, I charge a flat-rate fee for all Windows installs simply because while most of them (especially if installing to an SSD from USB) are done pretty quickly (including all the usual checks, tweaks and driver updates), some can be a pain, such as the laptop I spent a bit more time on the other day because the best touchpad driver I could get for it was stopping the taskbar from working properly.

But I have to concur with other people here: If you think you might spend 20 hours of your time (ie. you can be doing other things while it is processing some task), you're in the wrong line of work. If I spent even 10 hours trying to get a fresh Windows install working, then it's almost guaranteed that the machine is faulty enough to go in the bin.

For my job with 20 laptops customer stated Windows 8 he dont want Windows 10.
As far as buying any Windows I will be buying OEM versions as needed esp since no more free Windows 10 upgrades
In the past I had great success buying Windows 7 Pro OEM and upselling as Windows 10 Pro doing the upgrades on ebay.
That was a limited ebay purchases but never got a bad license and I always looked at feedback for customers that were satisfied with there purchases and that method works
Now that I am on ssi doing this first job I sure I get a lot of info on how to forward but I almost always doing 1 job at a time making $200-$300 on those jobs

 

[techmanc]

The big difference is how much I can earn as seeing I been on disability since late 2014 the cap rules have worked fine because I had no other income.

Now I am trying to do some limited PC work to get more income as I been living on the minimal income available to me from my ssi

This link seem to state my situation well https://www.fool.com/retirement/gen...rk-while-receiving-social-security-disab.aspx

So I know the caps I need to follow but where do I put my added income to keep my current cap the same as it is that the part of my ssi I dont understand?
Can I move the money legally to me PayPal to have as my saving and buy things as well as pay my bill? That must be how it all works?
I appreciate any help figuring how this all works so try to take on any contracted work in the future I may get Thanks!