THE LONG, STRANGE JOURNEY HOME - Part 5 of 6 - HOME BUSINESS

in #life8 years ago

To be able to provide all the financial needs for one’s self and one’s family from home is the goal of many. Many others detest the idea, but we all have the freedom to choose. Personally, I’d love to be able to work from home, one way or another.

For a time, I thought steemit might be that opportunity. Even though things are not going extremely well with that at the moment, I am still optimistic, and have not given up hope.

Some of my goals in life include dropping the cost of living so that my goal of working from home becomes easier to achieve. Some of these reductions in the amount of money we need include the following.

  • Grow/Raise most of our own food.

  • No debt – Do not pay interest.

  • Seek free or cheap entertainment – No $8 movie tickets for six people every week.

  • Reduce waste – Don’t purchase things that we will eventually throw away.


As you have probably seen from some of my other posts, we are doing great with the first method, but there is always room for improvement.

We are also doing great at avoiding debt. We owe no one anything but love right now, and like to purchase things with money that we have, rather than money from the bank. When I do use credit cards, we pay the full amount off each month. Then, the credit card company owes us in cash back rewards, and we don’t have to pay them any extra.

Since we enjoy being outside with the plants and animals, a lot of our work in providing our own food becomes rewarding and entertaining. Personally, I wish I could spend more time in the garden and raising animals, but that’s what the future is for! Though I have never liked being wasteful, living out in the country and having some pigs really helps!

THOUGHTS AND CONSIDERATIONS ON A HOME BUSINESS

As I think about how to make money from home, a few key components immediately come up. First, whatever I am going to do has to be exportable. I’ll need to be able to get my goods or services to another person. My recent jobs like laying hardwood flooring and being a handyman would not be able to be accomplished from home. These types of jobs require me to travel elsewhere.

The internet allows a lot of opportunity for people to work from home, and perhaps it will play a role for me in the future. To a degree, it already is with steemit. I really like writing, so blogging on steemit or starting my own blog elsewhere may be able to help. Also, I like ideas like patents or royalties.

For instance, how many times do you need to publish a book to get paid for it? Technically, once it exists, you should be able to make something every time someone buys the book. Take the recent book that @vegascomic just published with Lulu. Link here. It appears that every time a copy of his book is sold, he should get about $5.60 USD in his pocket. He will not have to rewrite the book or illustrate it again to get another five bucks, he'll just have to have someone purchase another copy..

I'm currently working on finishing my book LOVE LIKE HIS and a few other ones, so we will see what happens as things move forward.

Since I also enjoy creating things, I am going to see if I can't market a few of my items locally or online, maybe even peerhub. I think creativity is a great way to make money if you can find out how to make it pay. Many have already gone before me, and the internet certainly levels the playing field a bit.

If you saw my post on attempting to earn an income from home and make a hobby financially beneficial you'll know about one of my ideas for spray-painting stenciled designs on wood to make some rustic art. That kind of thing is pretty big down here in the Ozarks, and who knows where this idea will lead.

You may also be aware that I like to make my own t-shirts. I have made a lot of different designs over the years, and still have a lot available. I posted about How to make a Bigfoot T-shirt and will even be shipping some to the top monthly winners in the @steemsports betting. I like t-shirts over wooden boards for shipping, but I'm glad to be able to explore different mediums with my spray-paint art.

If you saw my post from three months ago (many of you may have not) about turning Plant Propagation into a job, you'll know where my true heart is in the home business goal.

I think that plants, especially plants that produce food, are one of the best things to get involved with for everyone. Unless someone travels constantly, they usually have the opportunity to at least have a potted plant growing somewhere, if not a garden or some fruit trees.

I have been familiarizing myself with many different means of plant propagation, and you can check out my post history to get some of that knowledge too. It has been a successful endeavor for me so far. Since we all need food and more and more people are struggling to trust the mainstream food supplies, growing your own is a great idea.

Although there are some patents to watch out for with some varieties, many plants can be reproduced from an original. Earlier this year I took over 30 Fig Tree cuttings from one fig in a man's yard. My investment was only time and effort, and though all the Fig Trees did not make it, I still got a lot of free plants. Fig trees can be sold for anywhere between $10 - $70 USD, so there is a lot of room for profit in a situation like that.


The main reasons that I find plant propagation to be such a good option are as follows:

  • Everyone needs to eat.

  • Once you have the original plant, you can basically print money by making more from it.

  • Once a plant is sold, you are not responsible for whether or not it lives or produces. Once it is out of your hands, it is out of your hands.

  • When a plant does not sell, it will continue to grow. This means that you can charge more for it next year and try to sell it again.

  • If the plant does not sell but produces, you can eat the produce.

  • Also, many varieties produce seeds that you can grow, so if it doesn't sell and you eat the produce, you can save the seeds and make more plants to try to sell.

  • Plants are usually safe, unlike chainsaws or heavy machinery, so children can help in the process.


Yeah, for me, that sounds like a great idea!

I'll keep you posted as we continue to transition from working away from home trying to work from home. For us, starting a home business is just another puzzle piece in the long, strange journey home.

Here are the links to the previous posts in this series:

PART 1 - INTRODUCTION

PART 2 - THE FOOD SUPPLY

PART 3 - EDUCATION

PART 4 - CHILDBIRTH



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You are one inspirational man, @papa-pepper! You and I think a lot alike. I am obsessed with planting trees and have been thinking about starting a small tree farm to earn some side income.

Well I should be shipping those seeds out to today or tomorrow, so you can get to growing some more stuff!

Thanks @countryinspired!

Hi @papa-pepper
Upvoted, Followed, Resteemed! Excellent post!

Please allow @steemitfaucet to be link with your post?

Thank you very much!

love that goal of raising your own food, i've started doing that as well in the last couple of years, wish i had more space for it..

I'm about to start off by purchasing about 8 acres, so I should be able to accomplish a lot of my food goals.

Hopefully I can grow extra too to share and sell!

We will see.

Thanks @doitvoluntarily!

Your 8 acres should be plenty, depending on the quality of the soil. My place is about 1.3 acres. The previous owners had a dad supporting his wife, mother-in-law, and 10 children. He was an independent small appliance repairman. So they grew a lot of their food on this 1.3 acres, including having a cow and calf each year. Soil quality make a big difference! I've got Class I soil -- that's how I chose the property. You will do well with all those kids to help out, too!

I'll be working on the soil. A lot of rock and clay right now, but I've got plans.

those are some goals!

Oh yeah, and were going Full steem ahead towards them!

power generation is also a need... tired of being at the mercy of the power companies and the numerous storms around here lol

Oh yeah, on my mental to do list but not on the radar for this series of posts.

Thanks for mentioning it!

and that cheap/free entertainment ! you've got it! there are endless options for content and free activities out there, makes me sick to think of the thousands of dollars i've wasted on movies and popcorn .. coulda spent it all on precious metals or something

I really like this! Thank you.

You're welcome.

Please try sharing original content yourself, and see what happens.

Oh yeah, we have no lack of entertaining activities around here.

Thanks again.

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Great post and I read it with my pleasure.
Thank you!

Excellent, I'm glad to hear that @smailer!

great, best wishes with your goals!

Great post thanks for shareing papa-pepper! I will definately check out some of your previous posts i missed! Its great information for when i fineally move to the country ! Good luck! ♨👍♨

Oh yeah.

Use whatever information that you can.

It'll all be here on the blockchain for you later.

THANKS!

Thats awesome! Thank you very much! Steem on! And Happy Halloween! 🕸🍊🕷

You're welcome!

Bravo! @ Potato-pepper congratulations on your achievements, excellent post congratulations, you can not expect less from you.

Please do not expect less from me.

I'll keep them coming!