In another question I asked (about property available in Oregon), I mentioned that we're self-employed. Someone asked what it is we do. The kids are waking up, and we'll have to start getting ready for church, but I'll answer briefly here and expand later.

Ten years ago, we moved to rural southern Oregon from California (one of the hordes of new migrants "Californicating" Oregon), so I could go to grad school. We have no kids, no debt (at the time), modest savings, and no jobs. We were both professionals (me in biology, my husband in geology).

Rather out of desperation, my husband started turning a woodworking hobby into a business. He began perfecting a technique for making hardwood drinking tankards - like beer steins, made of wood - and we began selling them at shows such as Renaissance Faires and Oktoberfests. It was juuuuust barely successful enough to keep us going. Ten years and two kids later, it's successful enough to keep us both working on it (alternate hours, so no daycare) with no outside employment. We achieved this by going wholesale - we sell wholesale quantities of our products to folks who go to Oktoberfests and Ren Faires. We stay off the road, stay home (sometimes more than we want!), and make products. Naturally, with our own business, we work our butts off and have very little free time, or excess cash. It's worth it, but let me tell you, it took a LOT of work.

I wrote a somewhat humorous article on the subject for Backwoods Home Magazine which was printed in the May/June 1998 issue, if anyone's interested (it's entitled "Spousal Support).

Kids're up, it's time to go. I'd be happy to offer more info or answer questions if anyone's interested.

-- Patrice (dldesigns@wave.net), March 03, 2002

Answers

Cool! So were you able to pay off your student loans too? That would be really cool! Ah Grad. school, I would love to go but kids are settled and it will be at least 3-4 years before I can realistically consider it. My dream grad. school is in Oregon. A friends daughter is there now for her undergrad. degree.

Can you post a few pictures of your tankards? Here we have an annual woodcarvers festival, it is always fun to got to.

Susan

-- Susan in Mn (nanaboo@paulbunyan.net), March 03, 2002.

Being self employed on my property also I'd like to ask you the 64 thousand dollar question about health insurance.

-- Emil in TN (eprisco@usit.net), March 03, 2002.

Emil, we have been self employed (farmers and truck drivers) for over 22 years, we have always paid for our own health insurance. When we were younger, it was easy, very cheap then, like 87 dollars a month for both of us, now it is up to $350 a month with a high $1500 deductible and only 80% coverage until after $5000 is reached. We are switching to a different company and are going to carry catastrophic medical coverage only, for $147 a month that covers both of us, we will have 100% coverage for all hospital, clinic, doctor's office visits and prescriptions, therapy or home health as needed, but this does not come into effect till the deductible of $5000 is reached. This is for those "big ticket" things like heart surgery, cancer treatment, those things in which you can easily lose the farm if you don't have good coverage.

We found this cheaper and better coverage through www.ehealthinsurance.com, they were recommended by Time magazine awhile ago for the best rates nationwide for health insurance.

Many times we have had to scrimp to makes ends meet and still we paid for our health insurance, it is all a matter of having the right priorities, no newer cars or trucks at our place because of the cost of health insurance is the same as a car/truck payment.

-- Annie Miller in SE OH (annie@1st.net), March 03, 2002.

Emil, we also have our own health insurance. We were uninsured for the first five years, but when the kids came, we (obviously) needed something. We found a policy that is catastrophic ($5000 deductible) which we can afford. This means essentially that we fork over $235 a month for insurance which doesn't cover anything. What I means is, for any minor thing we may want to see the doctor for, we just pay cash, since we never meet our deductible. The insurance is just for catastrophic injuries - car accidents, etc.

We go to the doctor as little as possible for that reason. Thankfully we're all pretty healthy. The policy did cover "well baby" checkups, so the kids got all their shots, etc., but now even they're on a once-a-year schedule - anything else we just pay cash.

Oh well, it's a living.

Patrice

-- Patrice (dldesigns@wave.net), March 04, 2002.