engrick

A side note, be sure to understand (talk to your agent) about what is covered and what is not. If you are involved in an accident outside of your coverage your insurance company will not cover you, if you are with in your coverage your insurance company will cover you at the minimum level (protect their assets). Depending on the severity, you may also want you own lawyer but as stated above "the lawyers always get paid". Insurance minimizes the damage in the event the the unintended happens. Doing something out of your ability (such as under designing a platform to hold 100 people without proper engineering) may place you out of your coverage.

I tend to agree with everything you said as I estimate projects on the design side. It is much harder to estimate when there is no design (as I do the designing). Having a quantifiable design make estimating much easier as opposed to a client that "thinks they know" what they want. If you do not have something on paper, put it on paper and make sure it agreed upon. From there I tend to take two approaches - piece by piece and as a whole, along with some 'gut feel'. Example would be - a box of cookies should cost $1 for a box of ten(the whole/gut feel), but then I would figure a single cookie takes 1/2 oz of this, tablespoon of that, and 1 minute of mixing, 2 minutes of baking, electricity.....times 10 (piece by piece). If the two come out to about a dollar I run with it. If not, it is back to "what have I missed?" or "what have I over assumed?" Sometimes if they do not agree I make sure I document exactly what I am giving and not. Documenting what you are going to give and not give is how some contractors give "less of a product" such as "I will provide 5 chocolate chips per cookie" where you will provide 10/cookie. My nickles worth. PS do not forget your overhead - this computer I am using was not free!