Garden Landscaping and overcharging.

Well its been 1 year since we moved into the new house, and i decided it was time to do some landscaping in the garden  get it ready for the summer (rectangle piece of grass as its a new house) decided on some railway sleeper raised beds and a patio with sleepers framing it. So after hiring a turf cutter and taking the top layer off with a lot of issues.... i then found that the supposed 1ft of top soil the house builders say they put down was more like 2" of top soil and almost solid brick like clay under it, At this point i re-evaluated the time and work involved in taking out 6"-12" of clay soil by hand and after breaking 1 spade, 1 fork and many hours with not much progress, i decided that the patio was going to be a raised one as well!!!!!!, 

So i finally dug out the foundations for the sleepers and cemented them in place, moved 6 ton of hard core in place and then, had to go back to work for 4 weeks, with the OH not to impressed on the progress, i got a quote from a good builder/ landscapers to come and compact the hardcore and lay the patio with motor mix only a few hours work for them with the right tools,after a few days he came back with a £600 quote, I asked to break it down, it was £100 for cement mixing as I was providing the cement???? and the rest was labor...... I’m not tight in any way but £500 pounds to lay 4.5mx4.5m of patio slabs that i already have, i told him to do one 

Why do people think they can charge the earth for simply jobs, all the actual hard work was done….. So in 4 weeks time when I’m home its 1-2 days of patio work for me but with £500 in my pocket.

I’m starting to think I new job may be in my blood but summer/dry days only please…