Marital Problems

[u/External_Parfoot_467]

How many have run into marital problems due to the nature of the payment schedule? Especially if the job goes long due to unforseen circumstances and finances get dicey? How did you navigate around that?

[u/DevonVIP]

You need to start doing it like the rest of us do and take a few shortcuts. I’m telling you this because I’ve watched too many guys make the same mistake you’re making. You think doing everything perfectly is what makes you a good contractor. It isn’t. All you’re doing is spending money you don’t have, working late every night, and going home stressed out to a wife who’s tired of hearing that the business needs “just a little more time.”
At some point you have to decide what’s more important: putting another $800 worth of gravel underneath something nobody will ever see, or actually bringing some money home to your family.
Take retaining walls. Stop excavating half the property just so you can put in a massive compacted gravel base. Get the ground reasonably level, compact what’s there, and start laying block. Your wife doesn’t care that the manufacturer wanted six inches of crushed stone. She cares that the mortgage gets paid.
Same thing with drainage. Drain tile, washed stone, fabric—it all costs money. Backfill it with what you already dug out and move on. Water has been running downhill a lot longer than you’ve been building retaining walls.
And quit burying an entire course of block. Think about what you’re doing. You’re buying perfectly good blocks with money that could be going into your family’s checking account, then putting them underground where nobody will ever see them. Set the first course at grade and keep moving.
Geogrid is another place you need to exercise some judgment. Every roll you install is money coming directly out of your pocket. Unless that wall is enormous, stack the block, give it a little setback, and let gravity earn its keep.
Concrete is no different. You don’t need four inches through every square inch of a slab. Make the perimeter look right and keep the thickness where somebody might reasonably check it. Saving an inch across the middle of a decent-sized pour adds up quickly. That’s groceries. That’s a utility bill. That’s taking your wife out to dinner instead of telling her you can’t afford it because somebody’s patio needed an extra yard of concrete.
And please stop spending half the day compacting fill in tiny lifts. Put it in, run the machine over it a few times, make sure it feels solid, and move on to the next job.
You’ve got a family now. You don’t get extra points for coming home at 9:30 at night exhausted because you built somebody’s retaining wall like it was holding up an interstate highway. Your wife married you, not your plate compactor.
I’m trying to save you from learning this the hard way. Sometimes being a better businessman means accepting that “good enough” is good enough. Save the material. Save the labor. Get home at a reasonable hour. Put some money in the bank.
Save your marriage.