I have been a member of another site for a while and a lurker here for a while too. I am curently employed by the local government and make 38,000 a year. I have been running a tree service for the last three years part time. The last couple of years I have ended up grossing around $100,000. Well I am to the point that I have to make a decison one or the other. I own out right a 95 F-800 Altec Bucket truck (old good working conditon no rust) 1990 Dodge Cummins 1 ton chip truck, 1992 F-350 4x4 7.3 Diesel, 1996 Dodge ram 2500 cummins 4x4, 2012 14,000lb pj dump trailer, 2009 21000 lb gooseneck, 2013 24ft 14,000 lb bobcat trailer. 1996 Carlton 4100D stump grinder with greentth set up and 1,100 hrs. Bandit 65 Xl with a lambordini diesel 180 hrs. 2009 Bobcat S-185 1600 hrs. Grapple bucket, general purpose, root bucket, forks snow bucket, inverted wood splitter. 1990 555C tractor backhoe. Everything is very nice shape no rust good working order. SRT climbing gear, port a wrap, buckingham spikes rigging gear etc. I have a property out of city limits with a good house finished heated 32x32x14 foot wall shop, paid for owb, for heat. The house and property payments only 580 bucks a month with insurance and taxes included. Last Year I finally turned a profit since I was re investing the profits back into the business every year. I have for the last five years have gotten to despise my mindless thankless day job, and a few of the people and the BS. I really love tree work and I am currently have been doing self study and education on proper pruning techniques, tree species, disease and all kinds of great information from sites like this. I am going to take a course for the state to become a certified tree inspector, and I would love to be ISA certified some day. My wife just landed a job with family health insurance bennies and I think that will be the tipping point for me to go full time. Our area needs a tree service that actually does good work instead of the tree topping, flush cutting, lionstailing, Idiots around. Sorry Ha Ha. I was going to see what everyones thought was on my business plan. I Plan on starting out this spring full time. I plan on doing as much as I can myself until my volume goes up till i can't keep up anymore and am forced to hire someone. I have talked to our local tiling and excavating company about some fill-in sub contracting backhoe work if the tree work gets slow and he is very interested in it. I havent advertised other than business cards and a couple of posters. My main advertising is word of mouth. I try to do every job with perfection and treat the customer fairly and also treating myself fair at the same time and it seems to be working well. I was just wondering what you guys think of all of this?