Today is Part 2 of my series on supplemental income. Last week we discussed some short term ideas for earning extra cash as a homemaker. Today we'll talk about a long term solution: micro businesses.

Long-term Cash (3-5 years)

My best strategy for long-term supplemental income is starting a little micro business using skills unique to you. This could actually go along with a lot of the previous ideas in Part 1. However, it's one thing to have a garage sale, and another thing to have multiple garage sales and actually run a little business hosting garage sales. I like using the word "micro business" because running a small business (my husband has a small business... it's a full-time job) is probably too much for those of us who are working wives, mothers of small children, homesteaders or homemakers.

The difference between a business and odd jobs is that a business requires focus and record keeping. A business needs to scale, and it needs to be sustainable. If you are selling a service, that means you can't spend five hours on a job and get $20.00. If you are selling products, you can't put $20.00 into supplies and sell an item for $25.00. You won't make enough money that way. If that's your idea of "business", you'd be better off just working a "real" part-time job.

Another difference between a business and a short-term odd job is that your business will be unique to YOU. Anyone can sell stuff at a farmers market or teach a 5-year-old how to play piano. Your business will be most profitable if you are the BEST at what you do and everyone knows you for that one thing that you do. As homemakers we need to be generalists and Jills-of-all-trades, but as business women we need to specialize in order to make the most money.


My Micro Business

I enjoy doing odd jobs and selling stuff on the side, but my real micro business is writing books. Being an author is something that can scale (more books under your belt = more money) and it's sustainable for me because I'll never get tired of it. But in order to start a business writing, I had to learn new skills that most people don't have. I had to specialize. Anyone can type out a blog post or put their thoughts in a Word document. But I also had to learn how to format those documents for ebooks AND print books. I had to learn how to use different publishing platforms. I also had to learn how to SELL books, which is way different than just producing them. In order to sell, you need to have a marketing plan and have customers.

Not everyone was born to write and not everyone who writes a book can make money at it. If your personality and interests are just like mine, then maybe book-selling is for you. But if you are an extrovert or don't like to write, I know there is some other micro business out there waiting for you.


Multi-level Marketing

When talking about home businesses, the subject of multi-level marketing/ direct sales/ network marketing is bound to come up. If you are going to get involved in one of these "businesses", keep records like you would for any other business. Keep track of all of your expenses, time spent, and gross profit on a monthly basis. Subtract your expenses from your gross profit, and that is your net profit. But we're not done! Divide your net profit by the time you've put into it, and that's your hourly wage.

One pitfall I see with network marketing is people not calculating their hourly wage or subtracting actual costs. For example, they might say "I made $500.00 this month!" That might be the number on their commission check, but what about expenses? Most consultants have to pay membership or have in-home parties or drive to potential customers' homes in order to do presentations. If you subtract the cost of gas and/or party supplies, plus membership (or required product purchases), your $500.00 might be down to $400.00. If you're spending 10 hours per week on your business, you're earning just $10.00 per hour.

Again, $10.00 per hour isn't BAD, but is it the best? Are there other things you could be doing with your time to earn more money?

I'm sure network marketing is a good micro business for some people. However, if you took the time you spent in network marketing and started a business giving piano lessons, that 10 hours per week would earn, at a minimum, $200.00 per week ($800.00 per month). By hosting the lessons at your home and having students purchase their own supplies (standard practice among teachers), you could eliminate gas and other costs. If  you put $50.00 per month back into your business, your net profit would be $750.00 and hourly wage would be $18.75.

Multi-level marketing needs to be treated like any other business. And like any other business idea, you need to ask yourself if it's truly a right fit for you, long-term. Do you have the skills? Do you have the right personality? Recruiters like to say that anyone can succeed in network marketing if they do the right things and put in enough hours. If that's true, then it's true for ANY home-based business including private tutoring, writing books or doing wedding photography.

Any good network marketer has put hours and hours in with little or no pay, in order to build their business. Are you willing to stay in the same company for several years, hosting parties and making phone calls for free? If you love the products, parties and phone calls enough to do it for free, then network marketing is probably for you. 


Finding a Business for You

If phone calls and parties aren't for you, then what is? What kind of work are you willing to do for free? When I first started selling ebooks, I was happy to sell one or two copies per month. Most months I didn't sell any copies. This went on for over a year until I wrote my second book. After that book was published, I sold at least one book per month, and three on a fabulous month. That means I was lucky to make $4.00 per month. Almost two years after publishing my first book, I published my third book. This time I put the past two years' worth of accumulated marketing knowledge to work and the book earned $500.00 in the first three months. Wow! That's an average of $167.00 per month!

Unfortunately, nine months after the launch I'm not making that kind of money any more. However, I AM making a lot more than $5.00 per month (with almost no work at this point). A business is something that needs to be built and it needs to be built on something you really enjoy. Because you might not make any money for the first year or so.


Long-term vs. Short-term Extra Income

The difference between short-term and long-term supplemental income is your hourly wage. When I first got married, I was happy to earn $4.00 per hour after costs, because that's what I would have earned as a married secretary (thanks, Uncle Sam). But I didn't want to be 25, 30 or 50 years old and still earning $4.00 per hour. As we mature and add skills and knowledge to our repertoire, our income should increase as well.

If you are paying off debt or saving for something that you needed YESTERDAY, then short-term income is the way to go. You don't really have time to develop skills or find customers. Get all of the financial fires put out (i.e. debt) before you start trying to build a business. 

Here are some (free) steps you can take in the meantime:

1. While you're listing Furbies and old American Girl stuff on Ebay, think about what you'd like to be doing in five to ten years from now. And no, lying on a beach in the Caribbean doesn't count. That gets old after about a week (ask me how I know). As human beings, we were created to work. So think about what your skills, passions and personality are. Think about what you enjoyed doing as an elementary school kid; that is often a very good clue of what would work as a business for you. I spent hours and hours using my grandma's typewriter (remember those?) to make books and poems and newsletters. I did the same thing on my dad's typewriter in the basement, and later on our computer. What activities did you enjoy as a child?

2. Borrow some business books from the library and read them before going to bed. Some of my favorites are The E-Myth (or The E-Myth Revisited), Good to Great and Rich Dad, Poor Dad. While most business books are not geared toward the homemaker, we can still learn from them and use what applies to us. 

3. Find ways to acquire skills or hands-on training for free. For example, you can help someone else in their business or find someone whose tools you can borrow. Volunteer work is a good way to gain experience, though it might require a babysitter. If you are going to make and sell quilts, don't buy a bunch of fabric to practice on. Instead, find some old ladies' church quilting group and help them make quilts for charity. You will learn a LOT more by working with experienced hands then by fumbling through everything on your own. Plus you won't have to fund the whole project by yourself. 

Next summer I plan on selling strawberries on a roadside stand. Instead of paying for a $500.00 "strawberry business ecourse", I just talked to a lady who is already doing it. In addition, I spent a week being one of her berry pickers. At first I wondered how much I'd learn (because how hard is it to pick a strawberry?), but after 13 hours of picking I had a grasp on the best and fastest way to pick. More importantly, realized how I need to have BIG berries and weed-free plants that are easy to look through. The bigger I can make my berries, the less time I'll spend picking for more profit. As a bonus, my "training" was paid! It was enough to pay for the 300 plants I bought in April.


If you are past the debt-free journey and have some money to invest in your business, here are some more steps you can take:

1. Invest in tools. Knowledge is easy to get for free, but you'll probably have to pay for tools. Why invest in tools before business cards, courses and memberships? Because if you decide you don't want to do your business, the tools can always be sold. No harm done.

2. Buy supplies and make some products to sell. Not too many though, in case you change your mind about what you want to sell. 

3. Find some customers and start making money. If you are in a services business, you can skip step #2 and just start making money. It doesn't have to be a lot at first. Even one job per month is a start, and it will help you earn some capital to grow your business. Remember my $0.00 - $4.00/mo. book sales? It was still better than nothing, and I gained a lot of experience during that time.

4. Reinvest 10-50% of your earnings back into your business. If you are in a services business, you can start paying for more/better training or buy books that will help you learn your trade. If you're in a product-based business, you can invest more money into tools or acquiring customers (selling at different shows, through different online platforms, etc.).

When you are reinvesting into the business, do it in a smart way. Ask yourself "What training would make me more valuable to my customers?" "What tools will help me earn more money per hour?" Don't just buy MORE stuff or MORE training. Don't just buy better advertising material or things that won't give you a return. Look for ways to make your business more efficient and profitable. If there's no financial gain from a purchase, it's not an investment.


Why a Micro Business?

Half of home economy is saving money and cutting costs. But you can only cut costs so far. The other half of home economy is bringing in an income via cottage industry to pay the costs that remain. Economics is about money in, money out. Most of us have the "money out" part down pat; it's the money coming in that could use a little help. Having a successful micro business (or lifestyle business, as some would call it) will create a steady, dependable source of income for many homemakers and stay-at-home moms.

Do you have a micro business? What are some of your favorite books or things you've learned from hands-on experience?

​2. Garden: Harvested strawberries, thyme, lettuce and lavender. I am SO excited about my lavender plant finally producing blooms! I started the plant from seed last year, but it was so small that I didn't have much hope for a harvest anytime soon. This year it is full size and producing lots of blooms. I've been harvesting them every few days and drying them to make lavender sachets out of.

​Growing lavender has been one of my homestead dreams for several years now. Even though it takes more time, I've chosen to grow the lavender from seed instead of buying plants. I bought one plant last year for $4.00, and it died over the winter. This year I decided not to buy any plants and just do it the frugal way by starting from seed. Unfortunately my germination and survival rate for seedlings is not awesome, but I did manage to get three baby plants into the garden and only one of them died. If both of the other plants survive, it's an $8.00 value and that was just using the lavender seeds I had from last year.

3. Earned $60.00 picking strawberries for the neighbor lady. I won't lie; getting up at 6:00 or earlier and picking for 3+ hours each morning Monday-Friday wasn't exactly fun. BUT I wanted some experience for my own patch next year, plus I earned enough money to pay for my new strawberry plants.

Another thing I did for my strawberry patch this week was set up a sprinkler system. It cost over $40.00, but I trust it will pay for itself next year by providing an increase in berries.

4. Cooking: Cut up and froze the free onions I was given (see grocery haul). I also made cheese, yogurt and Greek yogurt, and froze some of our surplus eggs. There are several ways you can freeze eggs. I froze my yolks and whites separately, but you can also mix them together and freeze in ice cube containers (1-egg portions).

Some meals we had this week were tacos, salad, baked potatoes, salad, leftovers and more salad. We also went to a contractor's lunch at Menards and ate for free there. They were giving out free T-shirts, so I picked up a large one to re-cut into a fitted T-shirt for myself (Youtube tutorial forthcoming!). Dinners were pretty sketchy this week because we were gone every night to a local church camp meeting/ revival services. Usually when we have somewhere to go at night, Hubs tends to wait until the very last minute to come home from work and ends up skipping dinner. This happens mostly during the "busy season"- thankfully not all year long. Of course it doesn't give much incentive for me to make/eat a real meal. Instead we just had cheese and grapes or whatever grab-and-go food I could come up with.

5. On Saturday we went to one of my favorite places here in MI- Greenfield Village!! Even though it wasn't frugal, I thought I'd share anyway. For those who aren't familiar, the village is a living history museum started by Henry Ford in the 1930's (it's affiliated with the Henry Ford Museum, also in Dearborn). Below are some fuzzy pictures I took with my phone. Too bad the lighting wasn't better in some of them.

​One of the reasons I LOVE Greenfield Village (or history museums in general) is because I can collect new ideas to implement here at home. Even though I appreciate technology and modern advancements, sometimes the old-fashioned way of doing things is more economical, efficient and healthful. A lot of ideas have been lost over years and centuries. My husband took a picture of one of the Firestone Farm wooden gates so we can make a similar closure at home. We have pallet gates, so this particular closure will work well.

​One of my favorite sites at the village is Daggett Farm. It's a home from the 1740s that portrays farm life of that time. Unlike the modern system of purchasing whatever we need and paying for it with a salary, people living in pre-industrial times had to make their own stuff. The Daggett home had a garden in back that not only produced food, but also medicines, plant dyes, and other useful things from plants. Inside, there was a giant spinning wheel with some homespun yarn on display. The Daggetts weren't rich, so they owned a "junk breed" or mixed breed of sheep that would have produced meat and wool. Today we have money to buy whatever animals, medicines and food we want, but back in the day they just made do with what they had. Visiting the farm inspired me to expand my garden and look for more ways to have my little homestead provide value.

Some other sites I really enjoyed visiting were Dr. Howard's office (full of herbal and plant-based medicines!) and the Hermitage slave quarters. One of the slave cabins is just an empty building with a bench in the middle and quotes/photos on the wall, but the other cabin is furnished. Slaves from the second cabin worked within the "task system" which meant that after 8-10 hours of work they could do what they wanted. I really enjoyed seeing examples of baskets, instruments and other handcrafts.

The last of my favorite sites for this visit was the Mattox home. Even though the house itself was built in the 1880s, the interior looks like it would have during the Great Depression. The staff member there described how the Mattox family would have practiced subsistence farming and made as much of their own stuff as possible because money was tight. I thought it was interesting that the family had a vineyard out back and sold wine to make extra money. This was probably extra lucrative during the prohibition years, which overlapped a bit with the Great Depression.

So that was our fun Saturday! Like I said, our visit wasn't particularly frugal. We paid full price for tickets, bought the ride pass, and ate lunch at the historic Eagle Tavern restaurant. And bought TWO frozen custards each! Travel isn't really something we economize on, but tourists on a budget could easily save money by finding cheaper tickets, buying a membership (for large families), forgoing the ride pass and bringing a sack lunch. 

So, that was it for frugal accomplishments. As fun as our week was, I'm looking forward to some more time at home. 


Youtube Videos:
I put up three Youtube videos this week:

 Fresh Lettuce Prep & Storage 
Thursday #2: Chicken Salad Wraps (part of my Weekly Menu playlist) 
Aldi Grocery Haul: $19.94 

How was your week?
-Bethany

A while back, I put up a reader survey on my blog to see what you guys are interested in. Topics like sewing, gardening and animals were hit or miss, but you all wanted more ways to 1) save money, and 2) earn money from home. Today I'm going to share some ways that I earn extra cash without having a "real" job.

Note: First I will talk about short term ways to earn extra cash. Then we'll talk about a long term approach to extra income.

​
Short-term Cash (1 week - 3 years)

1. Sell stuff on Ebay or Amazon. Ebay is more accessible to the cash-strapped homemaker because it has lower fees and you don't have to be any kind of monthly "member" to sell. You can also sell on Amazon without being a member, but fees have become so high for non-members that it's very hard to make a dollar. You are better off having a garage sale than selling stuff on Amazon.

2. Return recyclable cans. I know this won't apply to everyone, but those of you who do live in a bottle deposit state should take advantage of it. Whenever I go on walks or bike rides, I look for recyclable cans and bottles on the side of the road. I keep a big cardboard box in our mudroom, and when that is full we take it to the store and return it. Depending on how often I walk or ride my bike, I can make between $40.00 and $80.00 per year at this. It's not a lot of money, but it's not a lot of work either.

3. Sell homemade/vintage items on Etsy. To be honest I've had more success selling vintage garage sale items on Etsy than homemade products. However, the fees are low enough that anyone can try it. 

4. Sell homemade products at farmers markets or craft shows. I've had some success selling homestead products (baked goods, soap, produce, eggs) at a weekly farmers market. If done right, I can make between $30.00- $80.00 per day after costs. The good news is that you can turn a consistent profit this way. The bad news (from my experience) is that you have to work at least one whole day out of the week (about six hours producing and another six hours selling) so your pay varies between $2.00 and $7.00 per hour.

5. Sell homemade products directly out of your house. I've had the best success doing this with eggs. Next year we are going to try a roadside strawberry stand. While we won't be selling right at our property, the stand will only be five minutes away and the cost to sell there will be free. My plan is to also take along other products (produce, eggs, etc.) and sell those at the stand as well. Without travel and booth costs of a farmers market, the profit margin and hourly pay should be MUCH higher.

6. Give private lessons. It's relatively easy to make money teaching beginning piano (or art, etc.) if you have the patience for little kids. Your skill level will have to be a little higher if you want to teach teens or adults, but I'm sure it can still be done. Hourly wage for this kind of work is often $20.00-$40.00.

7. Take on odd jobs. Some ideas include garden work, babysitting, sewing alterations, pet-sitting or anything else that folks need done. Odd jobs often pay more per hour than selling homemade products, but probably less than giving private lessons.

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Next week we'll talk about long term strategies for earning a supplemental income. With short term income, you're just worried about dollars in the bank. If there are more dollars in the bank, you've succeeded. With long term supplemental income, you want your hourly wage to INCREASE steadily as the years go by. "Dollars in the bank" is no longer good enough. Next week we'll talk about increasing long term supplemental income with your own home-based micro business.

​2. Garden: used free grass clippings to mulch the garden. This week I harvested strawberries, lettuce, and cilantro. I spent a lot of time out there weeding. Right now the lettuce is in full swing, so we will probably be having a LOT of salad this next week.

3. Cooking: made cheese, yogurt, Greek yogurt, butter and ice cream. It was a dairy kind of week. Most of our meals were variations on salad and leftovers (I pretty much cleaned out my leftovers stash in the freezer).

4. Clipped some coupons from newspaper ads.

5. Went to garage sales and spent $8.55. Some of the things I got were clothing for myself and kitchen items. I have a haul video with all of the specifics here.

6. Resized a t-shirt to fit myself.

7. FRUGAL FAIL: Farmers market. This week I tried selling at a Thursday night market instead of my regular Saturday morning market. I spent pretty much ALL of Thursday baking and/or selling, and ended up losing $4.75 after costs. This was my last scheduled market of the year, thank goodness. I can usually make $30.00 or $40.00 at a Saturday morning market, but the Thursday booth cost more and I sold less than half of what I normally do. It was a complete waste of a day for me. 

I am happy to be done with farmers markets for the year (most likely). I will be able to focus a lot more on my soap making, strawberry patch, writing and homemaking. 


Youtube Videos:

I put up FIVE (!) videos over the last week:

Wednesday #2: Spaghetti (our lunch meal for Wednesday)
Instant Pot: Boiled Eggs, Bone Broth and Rice (food prep in the IP)
Eat for $10 a Week: Couponing
Kroger/Couponing Grocery Haul: $12.42
Garage Sale Haul: $8.55 

Well, that's it for my frugal week!

Til next time,
-Bethany

1. Garden: harvested lettuce, strawberries, thyme and raspberry leaf from the garden. I dried the herbs in my oven to use for tea and spices. We have a gas oven, so I don't actually have to heat up the oven in order to dry herbs. The pilot light will provide enough heat. This saves money because I don't have to use the dehydrator.

2. Shopping: I went shopping at Aldi this week and spent $10.76. You can watch my haul below:

3. Sold one book on Amazon and earned $1.34. I expected the earnings to be higher since it was a $5.00 book, but alas. I need to look for another place to sell used books. Any ideas?

4. Made another Goodwill donation. If feels so good to get rid of things we don't need! I also listed some items on Ebay, so hopefully those will sell.

5. Made yogurt, Greek yogurt and cheese.

6. Line dried two loads of laundry.

7. Made a new batch of oatmeal lavender soap! I got to use my new soap mold (Bulk Apothecary) and wavy soap cutter (garage sale). Both of them made the process so much easier and faster. I also melted/rendered almost all of my fat collections into single-batch-sized blocks. "My fat collection" sounds really weird, but I save little scraps and bits of fat in the freezer. Then I melt these scraps down and use them half and half with olive oil to make goat's milk soap. If I can use free fat and free goat's milk for soap, it means my only costs are the olive oil (cheap enough at Walmart), lye and essential oils. Selling one bar of soap will pay for a whole batch (10 bars), and the rest of the profit from each batch is mine to keep. 

My previous recipe was not quite enough for the new mold, so the bars turned out short (I made them wide to compensate, though!). The ugliest bars I'll use for around the house, but the better looking bars can be sold or given as gifts.

8. Menu Planning: Some meals we had this week were spaghetti, leftover chili, fettuccine alfredo, hash, chicken salad wraps, turkey/swiss sandwiches and turkey noodle soup. If you'd like to see HOW I make some of these meals, be sure to check out my Weekly Menu playlist on Youtube. Every week I plan meals according to the same basic menu (pizza, tacos, rice, sandwiches, etc.). As seasons and sales fluctuate, I do variations on those basic meals. Currently I have Monday-Friday dinner videos up, but this week I am going to start adding lunch videos.

Normally I give a little introduction to each meal and show each ingredient, where I got it and how much it costs. These are NOT difficult meals to make. Most of them are made in my Instant Pot, but you can also use the oven, stovetop or crock pot. I use the Instant Pot because it is fast, easy, saves money on electricity/propane, and it also makes for easy cleanup.

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YouTube Videos

I had time to edit three new videos this week. One was my grocery haul (of course) but I also did a library "haul"; a condensed book review of three books that I checked out at the library. Two of the books were good, and one of them was not. Lastly, I made a farmers market video about the stuff I sell at farmers market and how I package it. 

Aldi Haul: $10.76
Library Haul: Tidying Up & Orchids
Selling at a Farmers Market: Products & Packaging

So that's about it for my week. What were some of your frugal projects?

​2. Bought some badly-needed clothing items at the local Volunteers of America 50% off sale. VOA has a 50% off sale on the last Tuesday of every month, so I try to put off buying clothes and household items until then. I spent $6.34 on two shirts and two pairs of jeans, plus $0.30 on a book. 

3. Garden: harvested peppermint, spearmint, lemon balm, lettuce, and ONE fresh strawberry from the garden! During my massive Aldi/Walmart/VOA shopping trip, I also stopped at a local greenhouse and bought $10.31 worth of pepper and cucumber plants. I love to start seeds, but this year it just didn't happen for the peppers. The pepper plants cost $0.45 each, so I know that if each plant bears just one pepper, it will have paid for itself. I only bought four cucumber plants, and those were just $0.34 each (again, one cucumber per plant and they will pay for themselves). I should have started my cucumbers from seed, but I forgot to buy the seeds. Last year my little seedlings got eaten by bugs, so I thought it would be a good idea to start with bigger, hardy plants. At least maybe I'll get some cucumbers from them!

Some people have an all-or-nothing approach when it comes to gardening. If they can't plant a big row garden, and start all of their own seeds, then they just won't grow anything at all. I think this is very silly. Every item you grow yourself will save money over buying it at the store/farmers market. Even if you buy transplants from a nursery like I did.

In addition to the seedlings, I also planted the last of my sweet corn seeds in a pot on my porch. This is a little experiment I'm doing for the benefit of all you city folks. My lettuce has done AMAZING in the porch pot. I'm excited to see how much money there is to be saved with my sweet corn porch pot. Like I said before, gardening is not an all-or-nothing venture. Every plant you grow has the potential to save a few dollars. Even people with just a balcony can save a few dollars gardening in porch pots. 

4. Line dried three loads of laundry.

5. Butchered a rooster. It kept attacking me, so... we ate chicken this week.

5. Made cheese, yogurt and Greek yogurt.

6. Collected cans to recycle while I went on walks.

7. Used a $1.00 off coupon on our weekly date night.

8. Sold three dozen eggs.

Some meals we had this week were tacos, chicken salad, chicken soup, cheesy rice/broccoli dish with coleslaw, baked potatoes, and venison roast. And of course, leftovers. I still have a lot of the cabbage left from two weeks ago, so we will probably have coleslaw again and I might try to do something else with the cabbage. Any ideas?

*************

Youtube Videos:

I uploaded four videos this week.

Selling at a Farmers Market: My Story (first of my farmers market playlist)
DIY Milk Processing at Home
Friday: Pizza (part of my weekly menu series)
Aldi/Walmart Grocery Haul: $25.27

Well, that's all folks! How did you do this week?

​May was a great month on our little hobby farm. 

Chickens & Ducks

Ducks: All of my ducks here are doing fine. Right now we have two females and two males. I intend to butcher the male ducks this month (like I say every month...). I think one of the female ducks may have gone broody, so I've set four duck eggs under her to see if they hatch. If not... I'm out four duck eggs.

Speaking of broody... the duck eggs I gave to my brother last month have now hatched!! Our fall hatching experiment was a total bust (half of the 20 eggs were fertilized, and only two eggs hatched out of those). This spring I gave him 22 eggs to hatch. ALL of the eggs were fertilized, and 16 of them hatched!! Two died after hatching, but the rest are still growing and being happy little ducklings. They are the cutest things EVER!!!

​So, moral of the story is to always hatch duck eggs in the spring and not in the fall. Also, I think having a duck pond for my birds to mate in was a factor in getting more fertilized eggs. What I LOVE about this is that the 20 fertilized eggs were produced by only three ducks- my two females and one male. Theoretically, my brother could raise the 14 ducks, sell 11 and keep one male/two females over the winter. Unlike chickens, Pekin ducks are a truly dual-purpose bird. The females are consistent egg layers and both sexes produce a good amount of meat. Ducklings, duck eggs and duck meat are worth more than chicken (if you can find a market for them). So the success of this hatching experiment was a BIG win for both my brother and I!

Chickens: We had one chicken die this month of natural causes, and one rooster died of natural consequences. About a week ago, one of our barred rock roosters started chasing me around. Last Tuesday, while I was milking my goat, he flew up onto my back and launched a full-on attack. I decided that was going to be his last attack. That very afternoon I boiled some water in a big pot, got out my boning knife and made him supper. No rooster attacks since.

As much as I hate butchering chickens five or six at a time, doing one wasn't too bad. It took about 45 minutes from start to finish (yes, I'm really slow at it). Plus, I felt better knowing that I wouldn't be bothered at milking the next day. By butchering the non-productive rooster, I not only saved on feed, but also extracted an extra $5.00 worth of meat from my farm. This could technically go in the "income" line of my P&L (because it's money I saved on groceries) but I'm going to leave it off for now (see below about my "value" spreadsheet I'm making!).

As for egg production, the chickens are laying an average of 10 eggs per day. I'm giving them $0.66 worth of feed every day, which means my cost for a dozen eggs is $0.79. In order for the poultry to be self-supporting, I need to be selling 11 dozen eggs per month, or just over three dozen per week. In May, the chickens more than paid for themselves because I was able to sell some eggs at the farmers market. In months that I DON'T sell at market, though, I will need to bring in more out-the-door sales.  


Goats

As of May 31st, all of the goat kids are sold and happy with their new owners. I did the castration all by myself (first time ever) and it went great. CDT booster shots went great. The only complaint I have about my goat kids this year is that some of the horns grew back a little. I thought I burned them with the disbudding iron pretty hard, but apparently not hard enough. Next year I am going to do it sooner and maybe hold the iron on just a touch longer.

​Adi and Barry, the mama and papa goats, are doing great. Their pastures are almost getting TOO tall with grass, which is better than not having enough, I suppose. Now that the kids are gone, I've been milking twice a day and getting over a quart of milk per day. Because the goats are self-supporting (thanks to goat kid sales), those two gallons of milk per week are FREE to us, for however long they last.

Right now I'm making a spreadsheet to determine how many dollars worth of food I'm getting from different hobby farm items (eggs, milk, meat, produce, etc.). It's neat because I can punch in my morning "haul" and see exactly how many dollars I saved. I can also punch in how much time I spent, and then see what my hourly wage was. This is helpful because it will show me which products are most worth my time to produce, and which ones aren't.


Profit & Loss

Expenses:
Shelled corn- $20.00

Income:
Eggs- $33.00
Milk products- $25.00
Goat kid sales- $170.00
Baked goods (market)- $13.36
Fiber- $7.00
Total income: $248.36

Net profit: $228.36
Year-to-date profit: $147.85

Yay, we have actually cleared a profit for the year! I have a feeling that the rest of 2017 will not have so much income, so I am working hard to cut costs down to the bare minimum. For June, my goals are to make more goat's milk soap and also butcher the male ducks and two more roosters. I still aim to do one farmers market per month, weather and schedule permitting, and that will give a boost to the income. 


New Sources of Hobby Farm Income

Slowly, I am hoping to shift hobby farm income from farmers market to other things:

1. Soap sales (online and off)- Soap is something I enjoy doing, doesn't cost very much, and I can do a majority of the work when I have extra time. I also believe in the product and know there is a market for it. I will probably try Etsy again, and might do some Christmas or other craft shows, just to see if it's worth my time.

2. Roadside vegetable/fruit sales- for those of you who don't know, I put in 300 strawberry plants this year and next year hope to sell them at a roadside stand. Even though this venture is a lot of work, a majority is work that I can do whenever I want to. It's also family/baby friendly and there is the potential to make several thousand dollars per year doing it, which would MORE than pay for my little hobby farm. Plus, it is outdoor, physical work that will keep me in shape.

3. Online book sales. I know from experience that a well-written, interesting book can bring in at least $10.00/month in royalties, and twice that if you do a little marketing. And that's AFTER the initial launch (my launch months have brought in anywhere from $40.00 to $200.00+). I really enjoy writing/researching/projects, and again, this is something I can do in my spare time. The residual income every month is really nice, because all I have to do after the book is published is watch money come into my bank account. $10.00 per month doesn't sound like a lot, but over the lifetime of the book it really adds up. If you have several books making $10.00 or more per month, it can be a fantastic little side gig. Plus, did I mention that I love writing?

Hopefully these other pursuits will bring in more money per hour than the farmers market. I've more or less enjoyed doing markets thus far, and they are a good backup plan, but at this point I am trying to do some of the prep work and shift gears a little for 2017. I'll do one more market in June, and then after that I am going to change markets and only go weather/schedule permitting. 

Til next time,

-Bethany