Please no trolling. I'm serious about this...
Being a contractor isn't like being an employee with a set wage.
And......their estimates were all wrong.
They forgot that you can actually lose all your money, your house, wife, pick up truck, dog and possessions.
Your individual expectations would be called projections. To arrive at these numbers, you need to know what YOU will be capable of doing.
If you have a pickup, hand tools and no accounts, you might start as a Craigslist electrician working cheap and sitting around waiting for the phone to ring and you might
gross 500 bucks on a good week.
If your have more tools, equipment and experience in commercial, industrial, you may be able to go out, knock on some doors and find some accounts and start grossing 2K on a good week.
If you are a good troubleshooter AND salesman, you could realistically bring in an average of 200-300 per hour. Of course, the amount of hours you will be working depends on your skill set and how you approach the business.
In any scenario, how you manage whatever you bring in will be the key to upping your income. Do it right and you might earn a decent living. Do it extremely well and get really lucky and you could end up with a multi million dollar business.
Or....do it wrong, make a major mistake of stumble onto a really bad break and you are in debt, over your head.