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2016 Farmers Market Overview

9/28/2016

1 Comment

 
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Booth before the market started.
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Booth after the market ended.
I've ended my second season of selling at a farmers market! The results are in:

I ended out the season with a tidy $509.66 in net profits (an average of $50.97 per week- TWICE as much as last year). This was $23.30 more than I made last year, despite the fact that I only went to ten markets instead of 21.

Beneficial Changes in 2016:

1. Drove a small car instead of a large truck. This made parking, packing up and unloading so much easier. It allowed me to go to the market without a helper more often, and it also saved $3.00 per week on gas.

2. Only sold 4-5 different baked goods every week. I made one type of cookies, one type of granola, one type of pie/dessert, and one or two different types of bread. This cut down on baking time, and made it easier for people to chose what they were going to buy.

3. Simplified my booth setup. By this I mean: no brochures, signs or display shelf. Because I made only one kind of cookie/bread/pie, etc., I didn't have to put a separate sign by each item. The only little signs I had were for books, jam, eggs and produce.

4. Simplified some of my packaging, to make logistics move faster. I stopped cutting fancy corners for my labels, and started using actual granola bags instead of twist tie bags. The granola bags cost about $0.25 each, and the smallest package I could buy was 50 bags. I think this was a great investment because I noticed a lot more granola selling this year. On the other hand, I bought a huge box of pie boxes (150) for $0.25 each, but only used 26 of the boxes (and 8 of them were wasted because the product didn't sell). The boxes made transportation easier and improved the appearance of my goods, but I don't think they actually increased sales, plus they added on additional $0.25 of cost onto each item I made. Often I would spend just as much on packaging for a pie ($0.25 for the box and $0.65 for the tin) as I would spend on ingredients. I am going list my remaining pie boxes on Ebay to see if I can get some of my money back. If they don't sell, I will just keep on using them, but I probably won't buy any more. Lastly, I tried using adhesive kraft paper for jam labels. While it did improve the appearance, the labels were so big that it was hard to see the contents, and the brown color made them harder to read. The labels were also expensive and a pain to format, print and cut out. Next year I will not do the adhesive labels. 


5. Took a summer break. I took half of June and all of July and August off this year, with the exception of one week in July. I really enjoyed this time off and it helped me get excited for the fall "season" of market instead of just being burned out.

6. Tried a different market. I learned that even if a market is smaller, you can still net the same amount if costs are low enough. Next year I am going to switch markets to help lower costs.

7. Sold vegetables, fruit and eggs. These items have a 100% profit margin*, and were not much extra work to bring. The fruit and vegetables took about an hour to prepare the night before, whereas the baked goods took all afternoon, plus some.

8. Sold more jam and soap. These were some value-added items I chose to sell from my little farm. If fruit didn't sell at the market, I made it into jam and sold that later. The soap was made from goat's milk, animal fat that I salvaged, and only a few other ingredients. Both the jam and soap had a pretty high profit margin (80%) compared to the baked goods (50%-75%).


Farmers Market: An Inefficient System?

One thing I've realized after two years of selling is that you can't make a fortune at the farmers market. In fact, I can't even make minimum wage. Even though I cut my working hours by a LOT this year, I was still working 6-7 hours both on Friday and Saturday. My average net profit ($50.00) divided by average working hours (13 hours per weekend), equals $3.84 per hour.

In talking with other vendors, I learned that our market and others in the area have done worse overall in 2016 than in previous years. Though there are plenty of people walking around, many of those people are not shopping. The farmers market has become more of a social event than a shopping one. And honestly, I can't really blame the consumers. In order to make half of minimum wage selling my wares, I have to charge a high price for the things I make.

And so it starts a vicious cycle: vendors don't sell because they can't make money, and shoppers don't buy because things are too expensive. Not everyone will agree with this, but that is just how I see it. Here are two big reasons I am not making enough at the farmers market:

Problem #1- Costs: If I could take home ALL of my profits- about $100.00 per week- I would be more excited about selling. I would also be making $7.69 per hour. The problem is that I have to pay for gas ($3.00), booth fee ($20.00), costs of goods sold (about 20% of gross sales) and the cost of goods I don't sell. As you can see, out of my $100.00, $43.00 is automatically subtracted. Even more is subtracted if it is a rainy day, or if I didn't sell as much, or if I sold less produce (high profit margin) and more baked goods (lower profit margin).

Problem #2- Rainy Days: I learned in my first year that cold and rainy days cut profits by up to 50% or more. It is not worth my time to go to a market on a rainy day, but many markets need to know MONTHS in advance which weeks you will be there. So I pick my weeks, and half of them could be ruined by the weather. It's understandable that many markets want to know ahead of time who will be coming, but selling during rainy days makes it even harder to earn money.

One big reason I have for attending a different market next year is the flexibility. Some of the markets I'm looking at don't require you to sign up months ahead of time. I would be able to look at the weather on Friday, and tell the market master whether I was coming or not on Saturday. I could avoid a lot of rainy/miserable days this way and keep my hourly wage above $5.00 per hour.


Thoughts for Next Year

One big problem with my current market is booth fee, which is $20.00. By attending a smaller market, I could be saving $15.00 per week. That extra $15.00 could mean an extra $1.15 per hour, or a 29% pay raise. A market that is closer will also require less gas ($1.00 savings) which will bring my hourly wage up as well.

The other problem is what I'm selling. This summer I sold about 60% baked goods and 40% farm and garden products. Here are the profit margins for some of my baked goods:

White Bread: 94%
Quick Bread: 84%
Fruit Tart: 77%
Monster Cookies: 74%
Fruit Cobbler: 58%
Granola: 56%
Fruit Crisp: 52%

On a given week, I could easily sell $18.00 worth (6 dozen) of eggs and keep 100% of the profit to myself. In order to earn the same amount with zucchini bread, however, I would have to sell $21.50 worth of goods. In order to earn the same amount with granola, I would have to sell over $32.00 worth of products. An easy way for me to cut down on time AND costs would be to sell just produce instead of baked goods.

My big changes for next year will be 1) selling fewer baked goods in proportion to farm products, and 2) selling at smaller markets. The $20.00/wk. market is just not sustainable for me. Even after two years, I am still earning less than my $4.00/hr. "housewife wage". I don't regret doing the market this year, but $3.84 per hour is still not enough to make it worth my time.

I still believe, though, that selling at a farmers market can be a good side-hustle for the housewife with an empty pocketbook. Even $50.00 per week can go a long way for the frugal lady.

Reasons to Sell at a Farmers Market:

1. It only takes one day (one or two half days) per week.

2.You can sell things that you're going to make anyway (bread, jam, garden produce, soap, etc.)

3. You can have children help with the production, packaging, and even selling if they're old enough.

4. You don't need any special skills, as opposed to giving music lessons or doing photography for people as a side-income. 

5. Relatively small one-time investment: if you have to buy a tent and table, it will cost about $250.00 to get started. However, you could always find a cheap tent, used tent, borrow a tent or not use a tent at all.

If you would like to try doing a farmers market for the first time, I would recommend investing $5.00 in the ebook version of my book, One Season of Farmers Market. If you don't have a Kindle, download the free Kindle app on your desktop or phone, and read it that way. I guarantee that you'll save 10x what you paid for it. If you DO end up selling at a market, you won't waste money making a bunch of stuff that doesn't sell. If you DON'T end up selling at a market, you'll save yourself the cost of "learning the hard way" and investing $250.00 into stuff you'll never use again. With my book, you'll save either way!! And that is my shameless plug. 

Til next time,
-Bethany

*You do have to pay for chicken feed in order to produce eggs. However, I have regular out-the-door egg customers who provide enough income for the care and keeping of the chickens.

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Frugal Accomplishments Last Week

9/7/2016

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Hi everyone! This week's updates are a little late, as we've been gone camping. We'll be super busy again this weekend, and will NOT be doing anything frugal, so really I am just popping in here to let you know I'm still alive until probably late next week.

1. Sold one dozen eggs.

2. Harvested peppers, beans, tomatoes, broccoli, and chili peppers from the garden. We are also eating green grapes from the orchard/vineyard, which are WONDERFUL!

3. Printed out some free music theory games for my piano students.

4. Made cheese with a bunch of milk from the neighbor's cow.

5. Bought a large candle on sale for $1.50. It is a wonderful scent, and now I'm sorry I didn't buy another one. I'm a sucker for candles.

6. Canned some beans and peas that were frozen. I am trying to clean out the freezer for this year's produce and probably more meat this fall. Instead of just dumping the aged produce, I decided to can it. Honestly, we will probably eat the canned stuff before the frozen. I find it hard to remember to defrost vegetables.

7. Earned $71.55 at the farmers market this week. This is actually the most money I have netted per week during the entire season. Fall is a great time to sell at a farmers market.  I sold almost all of the perishable bakery and produce items, as well as some of the non-perishables (jams, books, soap, etc.). It was a very good week and I was happy that I had the opportunity to go.
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Some new things I started selling for autumn: duck eggs, peach cobbler, pear tart, and selective produce (any extra from the garden). The pear tart received a lot of positive comments, but nobody bought it. Farmers market customers usually like buying familiar items, so that was not a surprise to me. The produce sold reasonably well; I came home with two out of eight bags. The duck eggs sold, but only after all of my chicken eggs were gone.

One lady came up and asked how much my eggs cost. I gave her the price of my chicken eggs, which had sold out, and said that I also had duck eggs available. "Duck eggs!" she whined, with a disgusted scowl. "I don't want no [expletive] duck eggs," she grumbled, and walked away.

A couple years ago, this kind of thing probably would have ruined my morning. I don't understand why anyone would speak to a complete stranger that way. However, I've learned that some people don't realize how nasty or rude they are. Others can just make things weird. Earlier this year I had an older man try to barter down something to half price. I didn't budge. Last week another lady bought some grapes and started to eat them. "Oh," she said, disappointed. "They have seeds." Well duh- they are not from the store! I thought. She spit out the seeds, one by one, in front of my booth. I thought about giving her a refund and offering to take the grapes back, but decided not to. She had already gotten into them and I didn't want to re-sell them like that. 

That being said, I enjoyed talking to the other customers and making a lot of sales. One man and his mother stopped by and asked for danishes- "those triangle things". "Aw man," he said, "They were amazing! Crunchy, but soft, and perfectly buttery. You should make those again." I love comments like that!

8. Canned peaches. Someone told my mother-in-law that they had seen peaches for $15.00 per bushel, which is a great deal. I told her I would take some, as our peach tree didn't do well this year. When she got to the orchard, she realized that the neighbor had misspoke or misunderstood the price, and it was actually $15.00 per half bushel. I still took a quarter bushel, though, because I really like peaches.

Now here's the frugal part- instead of just canning them all, I used about half of the peaches to make peach cobbler for the farmers market. I sold two cobblers at a profit of $4.50 each. The profit from peach cobbler was enough to cover my cost of ALL of the peaches ($7.50). Therefore, I was able to can seven pints of peach slices for a cost of $0.00. 

That is it for now! 

-Bethany
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Frugal Accomplishments This Week

7/11/2016

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Last week was super productive. We didn't have a lot going on, so I got to spend more time in the house and garden.

1. Made a vase arrangement for the table using lilies and ferns from the garden.

2. Harvested over five quarts of berries, 1 quart of green beans, lettuce and chamomile from the garden. I also harvested a bowl of Japanese beetles for my chickens.

In order to hand-pick the beetles, fill a container 75% full of water and add a drop of dish soap. Then go out early in the morning when the bugs are still sleeping. My beetles LOVE the raspberry patch, so that is where I collect. If they are still tired, you can usually brush or shake the bugs off into the bowl of water. After collecting, I leave the bugs for an hour or two until I know they have all died. Then I feed them to the chickens.

This accomplishes two things. First it gets the bugs off the raspberries without any chemicals, and second it feeds the chickens a nice protein-filled snack. It only takes 15-20 minutes in the morning to do this.

3. Mounted/framed some paintings from Honduras and Guatemala. Hubs measured and built frames for the paintings out of scrap lumber, and then I helped him stretch and staple the canvas over each frame. They turned out very nice.
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4. Made cheese.
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5. Went to garage sales! I ended up spending about $48.00, but $24.00 of that was on canning jars. I paid $0.33 on the jars, which were half-pint and pint sized. This price was only 50% off retail for the normal half-pints that I bought, but I also purchased an equal amount of specialty jars that cost $1.00 or more new. So those jars were 75%+ off retail. I will use the specialty jars for farmers market stuff and gifts.
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In addition to the jars, I also bought some vintage items for selling on Ebay/Etsy, several candles, lamp oil, an electricity timer, a belt, two baskets, a like-new pair of flip flops, a spatula, three small rubbermaid food containers with lids (I needed more of that size, plus they had lids!), a necklace, a clothes drying rack, a dish drainer (the one I have doesn't fit in the sink and takes up a lot of counter space when not in use), a pizza pan, two cookie sheets, brand new heart-shaped cookie cutters, baby-themed stamps for making cards, a lined notebook/journal, a folder/binder for storing coupons, a box of sewing notions (thread, buttons, snaps, velcro, etc.) and several items for the "prize box" I keep for my piano students.


My Garage Sale Strategy
​It can be easy to just fill your house with garage sale junk. However, there are some things you can do to prevent useless garage sale buildup in your home.

1) Carefully select housewares for the purpose of upgrading your lifestyle. These things should be specific items you are looking for, not impulse purchases. For example, I don't go around collecting dish drainers. I had my eye on one at Walmart, and actually considered buying it. However, by waiting for a garage sale I saved about 70% retail price.

2) Buy tools that you will use to make stuff or save money with. The stampers, clothes drying rack and meat slicer are all things I hope to save money by using.

3) Buy things to sell. That way you can make money with them AND get rid of them! You can also sell tools that you buy and end up not using.

4) Buy supplies and consumables. Things like sewing notions or lamp oil are items that I may have bought anyway and will eventually get used up. The sewing box was $1.00 and included several different thread colors. Building up a supply of thread through garage sales and then matching those threads to your project is a lot cheaper than starting a project and buying new thread to match exactly. In fact, using steeply discounted supplies is essential to frugal sewing. If you are making a skirt and spend $1.50 on thread (and that is the cheap kind), you've already spent half of what a Goodwill skirt would cost.

5) Don't buy something you already have. The problem with garage sales (and sales in general) is that people buy something just because it's a good deal. They don't have a plan for the item, so it ends up sitting in the garage or barn or attic until THEY have a garage sale. In the mean time, the item has only been taking up space and depreciating in value.

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6. Sold 2 dozen eggs.

7. Earned $53.04 at the farmers market. Technically I am taking the months of July and August off, but this Saturday Hubs was busy and I thought I'd take the opportunity to try out a different Saturday market in my home town. This one was smaller, but also had smaller fees and was close by. I was curious to see how things would work out. I priced my baked goods a little lower than I normally do. As it turns out, they were still a little bit higher than the other bakers, but people bought anyway.

At the end of the day, I actually made more money this week at a small market than I did either week of June ($47.06 and $44.36 respectively) at the large market. Though I marked my prices down and didn't sell as much stuff on Saturday, the $15 less in booth fee and $1 less in gas money allowed my net profit to be more. Who knew? Now I can plan on doing the larger market during the month of May (before the small market opens), and then move to the smaller market in June. From June-August I will probably only sell once a month. $53.00 is more than enough to cover monthly summer feed costs for the animals.

The only thing I didn't like about my hometown market was selling (or not selling) to people I grew up with. That was a little weird. I felt like some of the people I knew were critiquing my stuff. I wondered if they thought my products were stupid or overpriced or bad. "Oh, there's Bethany, trying to sell a bunch of stuff she made. I know her- she's not a REAL baker/soap-maker/author/farmer. Let me look at this... nope, totally not legit. I'll bet she doesn't even make any money at this. What a waste of time. What a loser. She should just go get a real job like all the rest of us."

We tend to take strangers more seriously than friends (especially the ones we grew up with), so my suspicions/fears were probably correct in some cases. There will always be a few people who think you are "not legit" just because you grew up down the street. However, the bottom line is that I did make more money and it was easier and less stressful than the large market. So, I'll probably sell there again.

Unfortunately, on the way home one of my tires blew. So, my market car is out of commission until Hubs finds another tire. Good thing I'm not doing market again for a while!
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​8. Separated Adi from her kids. Now we are milking twice a day and keeping twice as much milk for ourselves. Last year I didn't have any kids from Adi, so milk from her was abundant. Life with [goat] kids has been... interesting. One challenge we were not prepared to deal with was their size. If goats are escape artists, baby goats are master escape artists. Because they are so small, they can not only squeeze through tiny holes, but also propel themselves over fences and onto barn roofs. We've managed to separate them from the buck and their mother, but they are still squeezing/jumping into the chicken corner and eating chicken feed on the sly. Oh dear.

Anyhow, while we were gone for essentially two weeks (first for Honduras, then across the country for a funeral), Adi's milk production dropped to 1 1/2 cups per day. I believe this is because we left the kids on her instead of separating them and milking her (to make chores easier on the animal babysitters), and she naturally started to wean them. So during that time she went from 3 cups per milking to 1.5 cups per milking. Last year it took months, not weeks, for her to go down like that.

Now that we've separated her from the kids and are milking twice a day regularly, I'm hoping that her production will stay over 3 cups per day. 

Goals for Next Week:

1. Make soaps.
2. Photograph aprons for Etsy.
3. Continue to harvest garden produce.

Til next time,
-Bethany
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May Hobby Farm Update

6/2/2016

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The Goats
Registration for the goats is coming along S.L.O.W.L.Y. I'm going through ADGA, and it takes minimum of two weeks for them to finish any paperwork I send in. In May I was able to register Barry & Adi in my name. I sent in the paperwork for the two doe kids as well, but my check hasn't cleared and the website does not say that they received it. So that charge will go in June's report.

Castrating
My mom came over and helped me castrate our little buck. We chose to use banding because it is fast, easy and cheap. Supposedly it is painful for the goat, but Buffy didn't limp or anything after the procedure was done, and there were no outward signs of pain or suffering. Having grown up in a farming community, I watched people band calves for years and never thought anything of it. The other procedure people use that is supposedly more "humane" involves crushing internal parts with an instrument called a burdizzo. In addition to buying another tool, it sounds like it requires more skill than banding, and I don't know how you can tell if it worked... which is kind of important.

The Tethering Experiment
This month we also experimented with staking Barry (our breeding buck) outside on a leash. I would consider it a semi-success, but not a good long-term plan. After several days he got used to being on a leash, and he definitely leads a lot better now than he did before. However, it was a hassle for me to watch/unwind/water him all of the time (for some reason he kept dumping over his water). He made more noise while being staked, and somehow managed to hurt his foot while he was out there as well. At night when we put him back in the barn, it seemed like he enjoyed being locked up in the little stall more than he liked the fresh grass and bramble being staked. For now we put him back in his own pasture, next to the other goats. While staking might be a good strategy for getting an area of brush cleared, it's a lot of work and worry, and I can understand why not very many people do it.

Milk Production

Combined, the mama goats are now giving about a quart of milk per day. Adi is giving 3.5 cups, and Alex is giving about a half cup of milk. Adi is my dairy goat, and Alex is the fiber goat who only has half an udder. Some people wouldn't bother milking Alex, but I figure if I have to feed her anyway, I might as well get a half cup of free milk. I've also noticed that she is more friendly than she was before I started milking her.

Fiber
In May I sold my first ounce of fiber at the farmers market. The spinner that bought it gave me some tips on labeling (I had forgotten to put the weight on the label, for example). The next week, her daughter came back to my booth and gave me the most beautiful ball of yarn, spun from my very own fiber. I was delighted! The spinner said I could use it to make something with or use as a display. At least until market is over, I plan on using it as a display.

Chickens

We had one chicken fatality this month. I'm not sure what caused it, but after researching a little bit I think it may have been "egg bound"... when an egg gets stuck and the chicken can't push it out.

Broody Hen
We also had something exciting happen in the coop last month. One of my black hens started to go broody! I noticed for several days that, no matter if I came out in the morning or evening, she would always be sitting on the big pile of eggs. Unfortunately the other hens were beating her off to lay their eggs in the pile, so Hubs and I built a broody box to put her in for the next few weeks. It has been fascinating to watch her sit. She is so quiet and still, and always sitting on her eggs. I put some feed and water in the box as well. She hasn't eaten much feed, but I did see her drinking the water. About a week ago, she broke one of the eggs. Does anyone know why that could be? If all goes well, I should be seeing some chicks in a week or two. If not, there's been nothing lost.

The Bottom Line

Income:
Eggs: $74.00
Soap / milk products: $67.00 
Fiber: $6.00
Other farmers market income: $140.02 
Total Income: $287.02

Expenses:
Registration transfer fees for Barry & Adi: $12.00
4 bags goat feed: $35.14  
CDT vaccine: $6.99 
Needles: $2.25
Syringes: $2.90
Green tattoo ink: $6.50
3 Goat collars ($3.00 each): $9.00
Total Expenses: $74.79

Net Profit: $212.23

Year-to-date Net Profit: ($87.23)

Yay! Thanks to the farmers market, we were able to actually make money this month. For the year, we are still almost $90 behind on costs. It is my hope that we'll be able to break even next month.
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Now that I've got a system figured out, the farmers market is actually a good way to sell my farm stuff. On a normal week I've been making $20-$40 on farm stuff. The baked goods are really my bread and butter at this point, but I'm still able to use "farm" produce- my own fruits, for example- in my granola, pies, jams, etc. 

On the other hand, the market has not been a good place to sell fiber. I had a sneaking suspicion that this would be the case, but I thought I'd give it a try anyway. In the coming months, when I get my soap supply built up, I'd like to try my hand at a craft show. Some people have mentioned selling my fiber at a fiber festival. Right now I feel like I just don't have the inventory or fiber experience to justify a $50-$150 booth fee.

Goals for June:

1. Tattoo & sell doe kids
2. Collect tree hay
3. Sell strawberries at the market

Til next time,
-Bethany
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Frugal Accomplishments This Week

5/16/2016

2 Comments

 
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I had a lot of fun and got many things done this week. On Thursday night Hubs went out of state for a few days, which made me lonely. But do you know how productive one can be without having to make meals, make the bed or stop what you're doing when he comes home? A lot!!

1. Cut asparagus from the garden. Hubs hates asparagus, so while he was gone I took the opportunity to eat a lot of it. Asparagus and eggs, three nights in a row. Delish. :)

2. Sold 4 dozen eggs (3 at the farmers market).

3. Line-dried some laundry.

4. Dried lemon balm for tea.

5. Made $43.93 at the farmers market, after costs. It was cold and windy, so not many people showed up. Nevertheless, I still made $86 in sales. Last year I would have struggled to make more than $20.00 net profit.
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I sold all of my granola, three dozen eggs, a jar of jam, one loaf of zucchini bread, three dozen cookies, three rhubarb crisps and one book. It was a good day. :) I'm driving Hubs' 1991 manual transmission Saturn to the market now, which is a frugal accomplishment in itself. Though it's a bear to drive, I LOVE LOVE LOVE how small the car is as opposed to the truck. Plus it gets better gas mileage.

6. Picked lilacs for the kitchen table.

7. Made yogurt, cheese, and... butter! One of the highlights of my week was learning how to make butter with my goat's milk. It was super easy... all I did was scoop the cream off the top (yes, Nigerian Dwarf milk has a lot of cream, yes it separates to the top after a couple days, and NO, it's not "naturally homogenized") and put it into my Vitamix blender for literally a few seconds.

Goat butter is softer and whiter than cows' butter. It was harder for me to rinse than cows' butter, because it was so soft. The butter was almost flavorless at first, but after a few days it developed a "cultured" flavor... probably because I didn't get all of the buttermilk out.
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I've started collecting cream from almost all of my milk now, to put in the freezer until I have enough to make butter with. This is a huge breakthrough for me! Making butter is one more way that I can extract value from my goat milk and save money. Fats and oils are something I don't use a lot of because they cost so much, but now I can make my own.

8. Went for a bike ride and collected cans. It's kinda my free gym membership/ treasure hunt/ nature walk (ride). 
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9. I feel like I did a lot of work in the garden this week when it was worm. On Monday I collected a huge pile of mulch (grass clippings, raked up and dumped in the garden). I also planted more seeds and mulched more of my raised beds. Transplanted some herbs. Over the weekend it got VERY cold (almost freezing), so I decided to put cloches on my smaller transplants. They were simply plastic cups with holes punched in the top. I will probably reuse the cups for seedlings/cloches next year.
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Thankfully I only lost some melon seedlings and a basil plant to the cold. Everything else made it though alright.

​10. Started sprouting my sweet corn seeds indoors. I have done this for the past two years, and it's worked very well. This week I'll plant the sprouts in the garden.

11. Got a free onion and discount tea using Ibotta rebates.

12. Lastly, I fixed Hubs backpack before he left. It has seen a lot of wear, being our primary motorcycle backpack and carrying everything from eggs to milk to morel mushrooms (yep, we found some more this week!). The bottom was starting to tear open, I so I used dental floss to sew it back up. My dad always used dental floss to sew up his Carhartts, so I thought it would work well for the backpack. :)

Goals for Next Week


1. Use up extra milk.
2. Work on animal housing arrangements.
3. Finish planting flower/vegetable seeds and transplants.

****

P.S. Guess what else I did this weekend... printed off my first restaurant coupon! It's a buy 1 get 1 free entree, so Hubs and I will be cutting our date night bill in half sometime soon. Some people earn money/free stuff by signing up for different credit cards, but you can do the same thing with restaurants! Many of them have a "Loyalty Program" or "Rewards Card" or "E-Club". Many times they will give you a freebie or deal just for signing up.

If you're a subscriber to my email list, you can do this with me. The newsletter I sent out today has seven different ways you can save money when you eat out. I've also included the spreadsheet I'm using- it lists over 50 different restaurants- to keep track of all the freebies and discounts. 

Happy saving!
-Bethany

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It's LAUNCH Day!

4/15/2016

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It's LAUNCH DAY! My new book, One Season of Farmers Market, is officially for sale now on Amazon. You can buy it as an ebook, and in a couple weeks you'll also be able to by the physical book (like the one I'm holding above). I'll also have physical copies for sale at each farmers market I'll be attending this summer.
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If you enjoy attending farmers markets, this book will give you a vendor's point of view. What it's like getting up super early every Saturday, making sales, making products, the Story of the Flying Canopy Tent and more!

If you are more interested in being a vendor, this book will help you for sure. I've included actual profit & loss numbers for each week, how much I made for my time, and in the back of the book there are BONUS links to free spreadsheets and printable records (the same ones I will be using in a couple weeks' time!).
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It is going to be a beautiful weekend here. I'll be spending some of it in my garden, planting stuff to sell at my booth and playing with my baby goats. Oh yeah, and printing off some of those record sheets for my market folder!

Have a fantastic weekend!

​-Bethany
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Guess What I've Been Working On...

3/25/2016

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Guess what!? I've got an exciting announcement to make.

I've almost finished another book!

Set to release on Amazon on April 15th, 2016, One Season of Farmers Market is the book that I only wish I could have read last April. It is part how-to survival guide for newbie vendors, and part memoir (in the form of weekly blog posts) of my journey as a new farmers market vendor.

The ebook should be available for pre-order on Amazon soon. For those of you wondering, I do plan on doing a print version as well, but that could take longer to finish.

One Season of Farmers Market EXCERPT:

The Dip

In every project you decide to take on, there will be what author Seth Godin calls, "the dip". It's the point where you just want to quit- to give up and go home. The dip will be the hardest part of your venture. The important thing isn't knowing how to get through or avoid the dip. The important thing is knowing if you are willing to follow through with the project regardless of the dip. If you are not willing to follow through, then don't start your project in the first place.
 
I had spent most of the winter of 2014/2015 thinking about the farmers market. I thought about what I would sell, how fun it would be, how much money I would make. Then the weather began to warm up, and I had second thoughts. Do I really want to sit at the market every Saturday when I could be on a bike ride or working in my garden? Do I want to be tied down every week, stuck making candy and bread at least all day on Friday? I knew there would be a lot of garden work to do, and I still had a blog to keep up, a house to clean and meals to make. I told my sister-in-law that maybe I wouldn't do it after all. It was too much work. Then she mentioned that she would be willing to help with most of the baking. That would take a load off of my shoulders, but would it still be worth it?
 
I knew that if I decided to go through with doing the market, I would have to invest several hundred dollars in ingredients, a spot at the market, a canopy tent, table, and every other little thing that a booth requires. And I knew that after I invested so much, there was no turning back. In order to build a customer base, I would have to be there every week, consistently. I would not make a fool of myself by talking about it all winter, investing hundreds of dollars, and then quitting.
 
Tara, the Marshmallow Lady
 
My first week as a vendor, I walked through the entire market to see what was there and scope out any competition. Sure enough, there was a lady selling baked goods and marshmallows. She was there with an older woman (maybe her mom?) and a van full of sweets. Tara* had a nice big banner with her business logo and contact info. She had ordered matching business cards as well, and had bought a canopy tent like the rest of us. She had cinnamon rolls and biscuits, individually packaged in plastic boxes, and was also selling no bake cookies and plain marshmallows. Each product was $1, and the cookies were $0.50 each. These were stacked up on a short card table with a pink plastic tablecloth. The decor was nicely matched and put together. I talked to Tara and got one of her business cards.  I didn't think she would be competition to our business just because she had so few products.

That day when I got home, I sorted through my business cards and visited the other vendors' websites. Tara had a Facebook page for her business, where she had posted pictures of some of the things she had made and sold to people. Her page had plenty of likes, and some good reviews. She had only opened the page a couple months earlier. Her most recent post was asking her readers what she should make next week, and a comment about how she underestimated the work load involved in doing farmers market.
 
The next week was rainy and I was busy at my booth so I didn't get to see Tara. The third week, however, the market manager had placed her just down the street from me. It was cold, a little drizzly, and sales were extremely slow. Thankfully, later in the morning things picked up a little. Every once in a while someone would come by with a pack of Tara's marshmallows and show them to me (as had happened the two weeks prior). I would smile and make a comment like, "I see. It's good that she has plain ones, because we only have flavored marshmallows." That day was my least profitable; I only made $4 after costs.
 
On the fourth week, Tara was not at the market. I checked her Facebook page, and she had posted that she would not be at the market due to allergies getting her down. Uh oh, I thought. This is the beginning of the end! She had probably not made a red cent last week, and was wondering if farmer's market was really a smart thing to do in the first place. I was surprised that she had not shown up or sent her mom, because it was a gorgeous Memorial Day weekend and her sales would have been higher than ever.
 
Sure enough, before the next Saturday Tara posted on her Facebook page that she was pregnant and would no longer be at the Farmer's Market, though she would still be taking orders. I was happy about this because now I would get ALL of the marshmallow business, but sad for Tara because she had invested so much money and time in those first three weeks. She had decided to "cut her losses", but it would have been smarter for her to cut the project BEFORE there were any losses.

Have you ever been Tara? I know I have. If you are thinking about selling baked goods at a farmers market this year but aren't 100% sure about it, reading One Season of Farmers Market will help you decide. And if you do decide to take the plunge, I guarantee that you will save you loads of time and money.

Til next time,
-Bethany

*Name changed to protect privacy.
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    Bethany

    Housewife, happy wife, and mama to one. :)

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    The Housewife's Guide to Frugal Food
    How to Eat for $10.00
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    The Housewife's Guide to
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