Hello everyone, I have a few questions my husband and I are working towards our first homestead. He wants to work from home and is willing to go back to school. I have read all the past posts for Income and found nothing that would be steady. I did get a lot of ideas for me though thanks. But what can he do. Create softwear, build websites? We have it figured that 50,000 a year is what we need in order to have our homestead paid bought and paid for before we die. Hehe I am 23 and he is 25 and I homeschool and it is very important to us that he be at home as well but I am unsure how to acheive this or if it is even possible. I would love all your ideas on computer jobs that can be worked from home. Also are many of you paying long Dist per minute on your internet. How does that work outside the city? Thanks you guys. I love this place you have all jumped to help when I have asked questions before. God bless you all Jennifer

-- Jennifer (jenniferthf@aol.com), March 03, 2002

Answers

Jennifer, I would be completely amazed if you can make $50,000 from home doing anything. Most folks never make that doing anything anywhere.

As to long distance for the Internet in the country... here in rural south Texas, the local-small-town phone companies have gotten in the ISP business, so that no matter where you are, you at least have dial up and don't have to pay long distance. I even have DSL here on the ranch.

You didn't give us any idea as to your skills. What do you do? What do you enjoy doing? How much time per week can spend on a job?

-- Rose (open_rose@hotmail.com), March 03, 2002.

my hubby and I want the same thing, but we are alittle older. If you hear of any ligite things let me know please... Kristean

-- Kristean Thompson , indiana (pigalena_babe@yahoo.com), March 03, 2002.

Fifty Grand a year??? What sort of homestead are you buying...the Taj Mahal?? :^} Seriously, 50,000 would just about pay off my homestead! (We are talking U.S. dollars here, right?) If you figure it out, make sure to clue us in!!

Really, though, good luck and think outside the box...something will come through when you need it.

-- gilly (wayoutfarm@skybest.com), March 03, 2002.

Jennifer, A lot depends on your skills and the area you plan to be living in. You can homestead 200 miles from nowhere or 30 miles outside of a major city. It's not as much a place as it is a state of mind. This is going to effect the opportunities available to you. Basically do what you know, if that don't work, do what you love because your going to be doing a lot of it. 50K a year is a mighty hefty number. Not saying you can't do it, heck you might do triple that but I know for a fact life can be pretty good on a whole lot less. Every year I make up a budget, look at the figure and wonder how we're going to bring that much in. Then I look at the previous years numbers and wonder how we got by on so little. Then I stop worrying about it. Good luck.

-- JJ Grandits (JJGBDF@aol.com), March 04, 2002.

unless you're really remote it's usually not a problem getting a local dialup for internet. Finding broadband is alot harder if not impossible. Alot of the telecommute tech jobs aren't entry level. You might have to put your time in onsite first. However, some skills are in demand freelanced. Web-design, Flash developers, graphic, Java engineers. You could take a look at Elance.com to get an idea of what's in demand right now and if you have any marketable skills now, register there. Craigslist.com might lead you to a few ideas also.

There's lots of other things you could do from home that aren't tech related. 50k/yr is well within the reach of 2 people. Don't forget the bookeeping and taxes involved in self-employment. If you can, avoid SSI/self-employment tax. Talking to a CPA to determine the best way to handle it might be a good idea.

-- Dave (multiplierx9@hotmail.com), March 04, 2002.

Jennifer, if your husband is a computer whiz, then he should look into going to school in video game design, as off homesteading as a topic can go. As my maw used ta say "whatever turns yer crank!" Video game design is one of the largest growth industries in the North America, and as much as I have reservations for it, their are a hundred thousand kids who'll laugh at me, and pay it out for a game to play. I grew up with the beginnings of the video/computer world, and many of my friends got into it, but I am a bit of a non- conformist, and a luddite ta boot. Anyway, the friends that still do these things are tired of the games that are being marketed. A close perusal of the scene will show only a few basic game ideas, with different graphic packages. They are not idiots, and would like to be stimulated in more diverse ways. They are also tired of blowing things up, and beating things up. There is so much more that can be done. there is an interesting idea in the Sim City , Sim Ant Sim Earth, idea(These simulated reality games have you as a civil engineer building different structures, and making exectutive decisions, and dealing with the consequences, and random events of the place), and a friend thought it would be a good idea to have a Sim Eco-City, or a Sim-homestead. This would bring the whole thing full circle, would it not?

-- roberto pokachinni (pokachinni@yahoo.com), March 04, 2002.

$50K a year and work at home doing computer somthing. Sure its possible. You need lot of work experience to even consider it. If you think you can go take a weekend web design class and start building web pages or programming for that kind of money. Its not going to happen right now. Maybe a couple of years ago it might, but there are to many people out of job with lots of experience right now.

Even if he went to an office and did his "computer" work, $50k is going to be bit much for someone with no experience.

As for dialup cost its not an issue. Any real programming/web type job is going to need more bandwith do effectivly do the job, this means dsl, cable modem, or satellite link. your also going to need a few computers for vairous enviornments.

Can it be done sure. I have did consulting and made a nice wage, but I also have over 20 years of expericnce to take to a client to say I can really do the job.

-- Gary (gws@columbus.rr.com), March 04, 2002.

Here in Pennsylvania the only business from home that really pay is Organic chicken farm. I don't know if you like chicken enough to raise them, and organically you need space, and the chicken must rum etc. Ralph.

-- Ralph (rroces1@yahoo.com), March 04, 2002.

We mortgaged are place for 10 years instead of 30 .The difference really wasn't that much monthly but the savings is HUGE .

-- Patty {NY State} (fodfarms@hotmail.com), March 04, 2002.

When we moved out from Cincinnati I lost my local dialup on Juno and for a while paid 9 cents a minute in long distance for internet access. Then a little outfit called Dragon Net began offering local dialups to their service in the small towns of south central Ohio, including Georgetown. Now I pay $10 a month for Dragon Net. Not a premier service, but it gets us there.

If you can't line up $50k a year income, don't give up on homesteading. Instead, as the other posters are hinting, live on less. You might want to read "Your Money or Your Life" by Joe Dominguez for a perspective on money and a pretty good approach-in-a- nutshell to frugal living.

-- Scott McAlpine in Ohio (scottmcalpine@juno.com), March 04, 2002.

Jennifer, what does your husband do for work now? Is he already making at least $50,000? That's a lot of money.

I have 10 acres, an underground house and an organic vegetable farm. At no point have I had an income above $12,000/year. The place is now mortgage free after 15 years!! ;-)

What are you going to use all that money for? I'd rather grow my own food, get used clothes, borrow books from the library, sew, preserve food, etc. than use the time making money to get value-added products.

My daughter was unschooled for the last 11 years. You can see the house she is building here.... http://www.homestead.com/peaceandcarrots/HeathersHouse.html

-- Wendy Martin (wsm311@aol.com), March 04, 2002.

I couldn't resist this thread.....as far as the video games go, we have the Sim-Farm game. Great game. not quite homesteading and I *lose* more money at the game than I could in real life, but it is a blast.

$50,000 a year from home?? Lots of luck. If you find it, let me know and dh will quit his job and I will quit my in home business and do whatever you find and increase our income. :)

-- Roxie (roxie@nothing.com), March 04, 2002.

Scott's idea was best - if you need $50K a year to make it, you need to reduce your expenses. Making fifty grand a year working from home is possible, but it will take a looooong time to achieve, and income fluctuates throughout the year.

We've been working from home for ten years now, and know when we can spend (September and October) and when we can't spend (the rest of the year). We've pared our expenses down to minimal levels, and if all of our debts were paid off (which is getting close) could get by on $12K a year - and that includes the mortgage payment. If we didn't have a mortgage, we could get by on $6K a year. We have two small children and homeschool.

You said your husband wants to work from home and is willing to go back to school. Evaluate carefully whether going back to school will get you to where you want to go - if it will, fine, but be aware that student loans can be a killer. I speak from experience. Could he get by with studying on his own, or taking community college classes? Sometimes this is possible.

You also mentioned that you looked through all the posts on income, and found nothing that would be steady. That, in a nutshell, sums up a home business - it's not steady. Income will fluctuate, sometimes severely. In two months, we make a huge amount of money. For the rest of the year, we make very little (by comparison), so we need to save and budget and be careful that the income from those two months will last the rest of the year.

You're lucky you're both so young - you've got a lot of time on your side. We were a bit older when we started this business (30 and 35), and we waited five more years before having kids.

First thing to do is get out of the city mentality, and live as if you were going to be unemployed tomorrow. Good luck, and please keep us informed what happens!

Patrice

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

People near us started a greenhouse and sold directly out of the greenhouse. They were wildly succesful, even so it took 3 years before they could quit their town jobs. The business took 3 years to pay off enough greenhouses to support them.

-- Terri (hooperterri@prodigy.net), March 04, 2002.

It IS possible to work from home and make it!

IF you can't get a local internet connection, check out a sattelite internet connection! You can probably get info on that from Dave Duffy and the folks at BACKWOODS HOME MAGAZINE. They can point you in the right direction on that. It would be more expensive than a local company but you could count it off your taxes if your husband is actually working at home.

If he is a computer whiz there are likely several at home careers he can look at.

We work from home and "at home". I have been an investigative newspaper reporter/photographer for 22 years this month! My office has always been at home even tho I am senior staff writer at one of the papers I write for! Thankfully both my editors think that experience, talent, and hard work are more important than me working physically in their offices!

I have to leave the homestead to cover meetings, interview folks (like the governor last Wednesday) and things like that but I do all my writing here.

Also I am up for a job as a pianist at a large church near here that would be $400 or more a month and require me to play for their services and choir practices, something I've done for another church.

Also, my husband will celebrate his second year of having his handyman business in June. He goes all around our county doing electrical work, putting up ceiling fans, installing storm doors, that sort of thing. But he is based here. and he is his own boss!

The best thing is to have income coming in from two, three, four or even more places so that "all your eggs won't be in one basket" so to speak! Then if things get tight in one area you'll still have the other to fall back on!

I've done other things through the years like taught piano, keyboard and beginning guitar at home to supplement our income.

We were a homeschooling family too but the last graduated in 1999! Don't EVER give up on your homeschooling!!!! best wishes!

-- Suzy in Bama (slgt@yahoo.com), March 04, 2002.

Finally a question I can contribute!

You can make $50,000 a year with computers working from home, I do. But I live in southern California and am barely making it on that. I would think it would be very hard to make that in a homestead setting unless it was close to a good size city. But I don't think you would really need to make that much either.

One thing you need to realize that working for yourself is a lot harder than you might think. When you work for someone else you know you are getting a paycheck no matter what. When you work for yourself you might be a king one week and scraping pennies to buy milk for your kids the next. It is very hard sometimes but I don't think I could work for someone else again.

Somebody mentioned teaching yourself which I think is a good idea. Paying somebody to get a certificate seems like a waste of money to me. There are so many books and internet sites nowadays that you can learn pretty much anything you want. The clients I deal with want their problem solved they don't ask for certificates they just want to be confident that I can do the job. Learning the computer stuff is easy, learning the business stuff is a lot harder. If he does go to school some business classes might be helpful.

I could go on. If you have any questions feel free to ask. Sometimes you just have to do it and learn as you go. Life is a learning experience.

Robert

-- Robert King (info@king-consulting.com), March 04, 2002.

Hello Folks,

We we left Orlando a couple of years ago my wife and I were bringing in about $42,000 a year. We had nothing. We rented an apartment. We had the usual stuff and a couple of cars.

After a couple of years here in the Ozarks we bought our land with cash, have almost finished building our new home, had a baby, have another on the way. Our income this past year was just under $10,000!

You will be surprise how inventive and creative one can be if they want to move to the country and start a homestead. Dollar amounts really do not mean anything if you look at it from different perspective.

The goal should not be how much money you need to make but, how self reliant you can become without that much money.

My humble opinion,

Ernest

-- http://communities.msn.com/livingoffthelandintheozarks (espresso42@hotmail.com), March 04, 2002.

I would respectfully disagree with Robert on the certificate thing, depending upon the circumstances.

While it is true that you can learn a lot on your own, the certificate can allow you to charge more and also gives customers a feeling of confidence that you can do the job. "Certified (company) repair or engineer or whatever" may not matter to someone who is too lazy to run through their Filemaker tutorial and wants some private lessons, but if you are holding yourself out to be better than the other people out there doing this, a bona fide certificate will set you apart.

Also, where you are doing this may dictate your need for a certificate. If you are doing this in say Silicon Valley or equivalent place with lots of computer-savvy people (who often have the latest and greatest), you need the certificate, and also to be able to keep up with the latest. If you are set up in the middle of nowhere where people barely know what a computer is (not being derogatory, just that there are lots of places where people don't have access to computers or reliable internet), then the certificate is clearly optional.

-- GT (nospam@nospam.com), March 04, 2002.

I do agree with some of what GT has said. Yes, you can charge more but you also have more expenses keeping up with the training and certifications. If you are going to work and live in the city until you can save enough to buy a homestead then I think it would benefit your husband. But if you are going to run the business from a homestead I don't think it would be money wisely spent.

Just my humble opinion.

Robert

-- Robert King (info@king-consulting.com), March 04, 2002.

Certificates are a waste of time if you cant backup the certifcate with real work experience. When I was a consultant I interviewed hunrded of people wanting to work in our consulting firm.

Many tried to highlight there great pile of certificates. But asking them the most basic question about what they would do in a specific case they couldnt answer it. All they knew was what was on the test and the correct answer. Microsoft certificates are the worst. Buy the book, take the test get the paper. On top of that the microsoft networking certificates are crap. The network layouts they suggest are not real world examples. They base all their questions and answers on living in a MS only world. Sorry the word is not that way.

-- Gary in Ohio (gws@columbus.rr.com), March 04, 2002.