Yip, as you say it's the little stuff. I was shocked to see what we spend on bank fees, lunches and refreshments etc. And, as you say, things like ECA does very little for one.

After a very introspective weekend I am going to fully understand my costs, evaluate them, set profit goals (a holiday away), and use that as a basis to arrive at what I should be charging. This way it can be defended. And you know your breakeven point that you CANNOT charge less than, or else you are paying the customer to do the job.

I think we often think that charging a client what we do is a lot but, in reality, a packet of groceries is R1000. We HAVE to pass our legitimate costs onto the client in order to stay in business.

I'd love to hear what other successful businesses do.