Discussion #4 - making money on the homestead

[homesteadmamma]

As we become more self-sufficient on our homesteads, we need to look at ways of making extra $$, especially if we plan on making our homestead our only income.

This weeks discussion is about ways to make extra income so that we can become totally self-sufficient (if possible).

~What ways have you looked at for making more income on your homestead?

~Have you put planned it out well or are you rushing into it w/o doing a thorough study on it? Or are you waiting for a more opportune time to implement your plan?

~Have you had success or failure at bringing in more income? Tell us about it?

~If you have kids still at home, will they be a part of your plan in bringing in more income, by helping out? Do you plan on sharing some of your income with them?

~Will you be able to make your full income off your home based business? Or will it only be to supplement the income you already have coming in? Will it eventually help you in working only part time outside your homestead?

[guest2]

Since we live in town, we are very limited in the space we have to grow things and we can't keep livestock. We have sold cherries and lettuce in the past from our garden and will do the lettuce again this year. The sweet cherries were pretty much wiped out by the frost this year. I need to check with some friends to see if their trees made it and if I can get fruit from them for our personal use. We have also sold homemade breads before at fundraisers and I suppose we could do that as a home based business. Until we get more land though, I can't see how we could be self sufficient here.

[forestdale]

I don't want to be totally self-sufficient but I'd like to be producing a lot more on our homestead than we are now. I'd like to extend our garden and plant up a few more gardens with the staples that are easy to store here and we use a lot of. Things like potatoes, onions, tomatoes etc.

I would like to get rid of our shop and have a weekly stall at the local market. We have a list of things that we know by experience in our store would sell extremely well at a market. The cost of a stall is $10, the cost of the rent on the store is $200/week. If I could convinve dh that we could make enough money at a stall to live on + increase our food production at home, I'd be an extremely happy women. Dh is worried that unless we have the store that we'll have no reliable income.

I think the challenge of being as self-sufficient as possible is one of its joys. I like that it's not easy - it makes it better when you achieve what you set out to. I like the idea of working together and finding new ways of providing for ourselves that don't involve working in our store or working for someone else.

We have no debt, no kids to feed, it's just us and our pets and I'm sure if we tried we'd make a success of being much more self-sufficient than we are now.

[MJsLady]

Well for right now, I am concentrating on growing stuff to feed my family. I am taking baby steps but someday I hope to live mostly off my land.
As far as making money off of it, I have not really thought it out, yet anyway!

[sunshine]

We plant a couple acres of pumpkins and crooked neck white squash every year. The kids help plant, weed, harvest, price and sell these at a road side stand.

They generally keep the money from the pumpkins (the kids)

We've also raised angora rabbits-- for meat (for us) and so I could spin their hair, then knit/crochet items from the yarn. I used most of those items as gifts, but did sell some to my coworkers. Had I had more time, I could have turned it into a part-time business.

My dad raised pheasants to sell. He bought an incubator and bred his birds, then incubated the eggs and sold the chicks when they got "eating" size. He made a tidy profit from them.

[Heather]

~What ways have you looked at for making more income on your homestead?
~boarding horses
~selling eggs
~market gardening
~growing own fruit and veggies therefore saving money in groceries.
~baking (dh has wanted me to do this for years but I never have.) A small shop was for rent with ovens and such and he thought it would be perfect....too chicken I guess.

~Have you put planned it out well or are you rushing into it w/o doing a thorough study on it? Or are you waiting for a more opportune time to implement your plan?
We have boarded horses since we moved here and only have one extra horse here now but are thinking of not doing that anymore...seems to be lots of hassles. I think on a big scale it would be ok, you would have contracts and stricter rules. We are finding it just isn't worth it after bringing in the hay etc..

We sell eggs but that is for little treats. We have enough eggs for us plus some customers and that pays for the feed, all the fresh eggs we want and a little left over.

Market gardening-we've thought long and hard about this and each time we think of something to bring in an income it always ends up with this. I love to garden, we have the space, the kids are old enough to help and it's seasonal. With strawberries, they keep multiplying, asparagus comes up each year, as do raspberries. We are starting slow and we'll see what happens but we are going for it!!

Baking and selling-again something I like to do but there are more regulations to that and I really don't know if I want to right now, I can see maybe when the kids are older.

~If you have kids still at home, will they be a part of your plan in bringing in more income, by helping out? Do you plan on sharing some of your income with them?
Yes, they can help and yes they will either be paid for their work or share a certain percentage of what sells probably paid for their work each week.

~Will you be able to make your full income off your home based business? Or will it only be to supplement the income you already have coming in? Will it eventually help you in working only part time outside your homestead?

Right now it will supplement but eventually it would be nice to be the main income but then we would have to come up with something for winter months. DH is a long distance truck driver, he owns his own truck so he would have to get out of that first which he is desperately wanting to do so we are trying to get something set up before he does that.


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[FarmLady]

Since my DH lost his job of over 30 years last year, we have learned to look for ways to make extra money; we had to out of necessity. Her are a few things that we have done;

We sell extra vegetables and fruit we grow to people that live in town that do not or cannot garden. We only sell what we have that is extra, we get all we need to out own use first and for stocking up our freezers and pantry, other wise it would defeat the purpose if we had to go out and buy those items later on.

I do sewing for others that can’t, alterations and such. My biggest job was a wedding dress.

My DH does odd jobs in his spare time for others, painting, home repairs and carpentry jobs. There always is someone wanting something fixed that they either can not do or do not have the tools to do. If you do a good job for a few people you phone will not stop ringing, believe me.

In the summer we mow lawns and in the winter we plow out driveways.

There are all kinds of ways to make extra money, all you need to do is take a look around you and see what the needs of your area are. Farmers are always looking for workers around here all of the time also. Good Luck!