I work in the city. A little over an hour away. A nice little drive, don't mind it, even enjoy it a little. Manage production in clothing industry. Does anyone know of a good way to supplement an income in the country where we all could pitch in and earn more, maybe quite a bit more? We have either no talent in or little interest in crafts, selling our milk and eggs, or MLM (though I know it can generate lots if worked properly). Just looking for something that could earn us an extra 20k or 30k per year. Could use lots of ideas. You also may need to know we live about 10 miles outside of a town of about 1300 people. Something will be right for us. Want to do something where we won't alienate our friends and family and don't have to push people to increase our income. Having child number 5 this month, buying a larger vehicle to accommodate us all. Clearly need a little extra. Thanks. Please e-mail me with your proven ideas. scout@kanokla.net Scout Scout

-- Scout (Scout@kanokla.net), February 06, 2000

Answers

I'm not trying to be smart but I could live on 20 to 30k a year, easily. Have you thought about ways of spending less instead of increasing your income. To me, it is fun and a challenge. There is no doubt in my mind that it costs to be employed. Not only money but if you have children, it costs in precious time with them. The whole Countryside theme is living simpler so we don't have to be so much a part of the rat race. I realize we do have to have some money for insurance, taxes and medical expenses but there is a whole lot we think we have to have that we don't! Think about it.

-- barbara (barbaraj@mis.net), February 06, 2000.

Hi again, I think there are a lot of things you could do for a home business. There are some things to consider; like first of all, what are your interests? You will have more fun and do a better job if you truly enjoy what you are doing. For example, do you like woodworking, breeding animals, gardening,raising poultry, making soap, or any other kind of hand work? or do you like to work with people? If you like people you could make a service type business where for example you prune fruit trees or hedges or clean houses or check on elderly people a few times a week to make sure they're OK and run errands for them.I have a home business of soapmaking(goat's milk soap), it is a good seller, the only problem is my husband doesn't much care for the soapmaking much, but I do it all and he delivers it for me.I try to do it when he's not around, he doesn't like the lye and fat. The other thing I am doing is raising registered dairy goats. It's illegal to sell raw milk,so I don't do much of that-too risky. It is hard to use up the milk when you have 5-7 gallons a day, in fact it is a challenge to find some place to put it all! This year I am hoping to get some bummer lambs and raise them on the extra milk, eat one or two and sell the others for meat raised naturally. But back to the breeding stock, it costs as much to feed a grade goat of lousy conformation as it does to feed a really nice purebred animal. I don't like to eat the baby goats, and with registered stock a decent buck kid could sell for between $200- $1500 or even more if you have the best stock and take it to special auctions.If you are going to breed and sell animals you need to have a good eye for quality and be able to get rid of the losers, and you need to know what good conformation is and work to improve your animal's faults. For example if you have a goat with a perfect udder and body that only gives three quarts in her peak time,you breed her to a buck whose mother has high production records and then the kids will be better than the dam.I really like this kind of thing. It is so satisfying to see them improve through the generations, and genetics is interesting to me. Also, it is nice to see a beautiful annimal in your pen where they were mediocre a few years ago. It is hard to make money off of a goat through the milk or selling the meat but with a little investment and plenty of time you can sell the kids for more than it costs to keep their mother. If you work with the clothing industry,do you have access to the fabric scraps? It is not hard to make a quilt on a machine and these sell well.Or maybe you could package up the fabric scraps and sell them to quilters by the pound.You would be surprised at the demand for packages of cotton fabric scraps!!These are only a few ideas,ultimately you will have to find something that you are interested in. But I hope it got a few ideas going for you.

-- Rebekah (daniel1@transport.com), February 06, 2000.

Since you already work in production/manufacturing and you have no interest in crafts, etc. yourself, why not blend your experience with your neighbor's abilities??? My husband, Neil, retired after 31 years in manufacturing and knows how to "get things done" and market them.Perhaps your area needs a flea market site. Do you have the land to use for that ? On any given Saturday in PA, someone makes alot of money renting out space to crafters, etc. to sell their goodies.Or..what about marketing your friends and neighbors crafts for them in the "big city", where each person does not have enough goods to market alone and make it cost-effective, many crafters marketing their goods through you might be good for everyone.Since you go into the city anyway, it would not take long to develop sources for this idea.Congrats on child #5..been there, done that and, egad, I'm happy it's all done now !!!!I agree that it is a really good thing to carefully examine your expenses and weed out stuff that could be done without entirely.You can do this without suffering, since it is always a great feeling to think up new ways to do things or different forms of entertainment, etc.......good luck!!!!

-- Lesley Chasko (martchas@gateway.net), February 06, 2000.

Hmmm. Sounds familiar, except for the 5 children. I survived until our two were grown, but then ended up having a granddaughter to raise until recently, when her mother decided she wanted her back. Sure did strain our income when we had only planned to be just the two of us, then had to do all the kid stuff again. We did cut our expenses every way possible, though. Cut our electric bill $47 per month by just not using the dryer anymore. I couldn't believe it made such a difference. Anyway, on the income side, I don't know how much ground you have, or buildings, etc. My sister has a paperback book exchange which she started small with, and now employs three or 4 people to run it for her while she works as an RN. Takes a few years to build up your clientelle, but there are lots of businesses out there. If you have space, you can rent out ground for those in town to store their RV's, Boats, etc. Don't know what the insurance liability would be, you would need to check that out. Pick your own berries, vegies, etc. would be another option. I mean you plant, then advertise for others to come pick the produce at a price just slightly lower than the going rate at the farmers market. Good luck, hope you find something! We supplement our income by doing Mystery Shopping, were recruited by a firm in Kansas, and make a few bucks each month evaluating businesses in town, plus you get to keep some of the goodies they have you buy, and are reimbursed for. Gets us into town and around people, and we try to schedule our trips around the ones required by the shops. Jan

-- Jan Bullock (Janice12@aol.com), February 06, 2000.

I'd just like to second the value of saving money. What you save is already tax-paid. For instance, if you're looking at a marginal tax rate of 40%, then you get to keep 60% of any extra you earn (work out what's applicable for you here). The example of the lady who saved almost $50 per month by not using the clothes drier - $600 per year - if they were on a marginal tax rate of 40%, then that's like earning $1,000 per year, or a salary increase of $20 a week.

If you're in a situation where you can think of twenty or thirty thousand dollars as an income supplement, then it should be possible to save at least $50 per week off your food bill, maybe twice that, maybe more. That begins to add up to a fairly substantial amount, when you take into account how much you'd have to earn before tax to get the same amount in your pocket - we're easily talking the equivalent of a salary increase of $100 a week, maybe much more. It may not be enough for you in itself, but it may be sufficient to make other things possible. Think buying generic brands where it doesn't make a difference, buying cheaper brands where the difference isn't worth the cost, bulk buying, buying ahead when the price is good, bulk cooking and freezing to make your own instant meals, and on and on. Think buying monthly. Plant an orchard, and grow berries and melons to fill in until the trees bear. Have the kids run a home vegetable garden - you still have to buy the vegetables, but you should save something on their cost, you also save on pocket money, and the kids learn a LOT. If the kids aren't big enough, then have them do some of it, while the marriage partners figure out how to run the rest. The kids could own the poultry too, buy feed, sell eggs to you. It would teach them the value of kitchen scraps and frugal living if the alternative is their expensive bought chicken feed.

Throw the phrase "frugal living" at one of the multi-engine search sites like "Ask Jeeves" or "Dogpile", and take a look at the results - you may not want to adopt all those ideas, but think about things. One of the best uses you can make for all those savings is to use them to pay off credit cards, consumer debt, other loans, mortgages - any interest you pay is dead money, as far as you're concerned. This could actually put you in a position where you're saving HEAPS each month, about as quickly as establishing a home business, and put you in a much more secure position in case things go wrong (injury, death, loss of job, long term illness - things can happen, believe me).

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), February 07, 2000.

Scout-

How are you on the computer? Does your small town have anyone to build web pages? How about transcribing medical info?

You could make a lot of cabbage by listing things on Ebay. Your stuff or other people's. This is simple to do, esp. if you know how to use a FTP and have access to some web space. Or use one of many free services available on-line. I haven't done this, actually I buy on Ebay, but not yet sell. I have no defense for this other than laziness. You wouldn't believe what people will buy on there.

(like, old 6 or 8 pane windows from your barn with all the glass missing -- $30 they pay for shipping. How about $15 for that tarnished, bent, brass-with-paint-all-over doorknob that's on the basement floor. How about this one; 2' sections of old barn wood for crafts, 8 pieces for $40)

You could type papers for college students. You could be a home health aid for your elderly neighbors (it would make you feel good, too.) You could run a daycare (maybe three more kids).

-- Rachel (rldk@hotmail.com), February 07, 2000.

HOOEE! I wish we could make 20-30k a year, PERIOD! I second the frugality thing. First figure out every way you can to SAVE money, before you start worrying about MAKING more. Here's your required reading list: The Complete Tightwad Gazette by Amy Dacyczyn The Best Of Living Cheap News by Larry Roth

Get them from your library - interloan them if they don't have them. These books do a very good job of showing you the real cost or savings of doing or not doing a thing. Amy likes to calculate her "hourly wage" when doing something to save money, like how much per hour are you "making" by making pancakes from scratch rather than from a mix? Larry is a lot more "business-y" and I think many men will find his stuff a bit more readable.

Anyway, it would be worth a try. Read the books - it won't cost you any more than a week's worth of evenings curled up with a book. (And your "hourly wage" could end up being beyond your wildest dreams!)

-- Becky Michelsen (beckymom@kjsl.com), February 08, 2000.

My dear new friend Scout! (A quick aside here: Silver was the Lone Ranger's horse. Scout was Tonto's horse. The Lone Ranger's nephew often rode with them in later episodes [I'm talking radio here!]. What was the Lone Ranger's last name [don't give me "Ranger!]? What was his nephew's name? And what was the nephew's horse's name? Bonus: "Hi Yo Silver","Get'm up Scout" and what command to the nephew's horse? But I digress!) A friend and classmate a few years ago, in preparation for a college reunion, sent out a questionaire. Among the questions was "How much do you make?" My response demeaned the question. More important, I replied, was "How much do you KEEP, and How much do you NEED?" I have friends who make more than I (we, actually - we no longer have kids at home and both work for "outside wages" part- time). Some of these friends are happy, some miserable, and the most moneyed of the lot seem to fit in the latter category. I guess I would suggest you re-channel your efforts into lifestyle and happiness, rather than coin of the realm. Even working for wages at a distance can be sweetened by doing what you can (no pun) at home. Do what you enjoy! I enjoy "putting by" the garden veggies, or raising piggies, or putting "chickens the city folks don't know exist" in the freezer, more satisfying than earning a dollar. And the chicky in the freezer isn't taxed! (At least not yet - beware Algore!). And if you raise a few more chickies, or piggies, or turkeys, than you need yourself - sell the others, and if you don't make a profit (DO NOT count your time!), you'll at least put your meat in the freezer pretty much "free"! Anyway - an extra few thousand would be more than many of us could fathom. But SAVING a few thousand is what most of us are about! I know this is vague, if not cryptic, but you have a great network here to help you out. "Come on back" and we'll all muddle through together. Good Luck! Brad

-- Brad (homefixer@mix-net.net), February 08, 2000.

Dear Scout

I don't know if any of the responses were what you were looking for. I know just how you feel about MLM and the craft thing.

Are you willing to look at a project that you start gradually, and grow with, or do you want to jump right in? Do you have some start up capital to work with? How willing are the kids to help and will they stick with you through the long haul? Are they old enough to be real help? Do you have a little ground?

Have you considered sheep? We target some seasonal markets with the 35 pound lambs. They bring about $70.00 each. Although we run several ewes, it can be done on a smaller scale and make excellent money. (To give you some exact acres and animals figures: One field in particular, is about 15 acres. In a good year, we run 100 ewes in that field. We use prolific ewes, and those 100 ewes will give us at least 250 lambs. If you do the math, they sell for $17,500. Not "get rich quick", but they make us money.) Again, we run several ewes, so the math is a little more impressive for us, but we started small and grew into sheep to get where we are.

No, it is not as simple as that, but it will give you food for thought and I would be happy to discuss it at length. We are prejudiced, we love the sheep. Our three boys were raised with them and it was a priceless education.

Most of the time, the sheep are just out on grass or out in the field at the round bales. There are a few hectic weeks at lambing time and a few key, timely things that must be done during the year, but all very managable and with adult supervision, the kids can do a lot of it.

When our one boy was eight years old, he could do a lambing time, barn check, and I guarantee you, you didn't have to wonder if he checked them thoroughly. His heart was in it and he looked at every one of them. He would come flying to the house if he discovered a ewe lambing. When he was nine, and he didn't return to the house promptly, you would find him setting up a pen for the ewe and her lambs and he would be getting them nursing by himself.

It made responsible, strong sons and it has made our living.

A web site for you www.marietta.edu/~blacksto We were always careful not to burn the kids out on work and to hover over everything they were doing with an eye to safety, - and, as importantly, - we have kept it fun.

-- homestead2 (homestead@monroecty.net), February 09, 2000.

Check out www.friendsinbusiness.com , she has some ideas for working at home, resources, info on get rich scams, and a lively forum.

-- dani (teamtc@quixnet.net), February 21, 2000.