About Markus Field

Marcus left school at sixteen for a four-year carpentry and joinery apprenticeship with a family building firm in Rotherham, finishing his NVQ Level 3 at nineteen and getting his CSCS card the same summer. He spent the next six years as an employed chippy on housing developments and shopfitting jobs across South Yorkshire and the East Midlands, mostly first and second fix, kitchens and staircases.

At twenty-six he went out on his own with a second-hand van and no idea what an hour of his time cost. He was busy from the first month and skint by the ninth — quoting off what the last bloke charged, taking no deposits, and paying merchant bills out of the next job's money. Working out his true hourly rate on the back of a delivery note was the moment the business changed, and it is the reason the first calculator on this site is that one.

By his mid-thirties he had turned the sole trade into a limited building contractor doing extensions, loft conversions and full refurbishments, with two carpenters, a labourer, an apprentice and a regular bench of subcontracted electricians, plumbers and plasterers. Peak turnover was a little over £1.1m a year. He learned employment status the hard way, learned staged payments the harder way, and learned that a 13-week cash forecast is worth more than a full diary.

He handed the contracting side to his site manager in 2021 and now writes, teaches and mentors full time. He still keeps his hand in: a handful of joinery jobs a year for old customers, mainly because he does not trust anyone writing about pricing who has not priced a job recently.

Marcus lives in Sheffield with his wife Rachel, an ex-practice manager who did the firm's books for nine years and who still reads his money guides before they go out. He is a Sheffield Wednesday season-ticket holder, which he describes as the only unprofitable commitment he has never been able to price properly.