The Campfire Trail: October 19 - DIY Homestead - Developing New Sources of Income

October 19, 2022

Day 383 of the Adventure

One of the big challenges many face when living a Homestead, Off-Grid or "Cabin in the Woods" lifestyle is income production. Obviously, this does not apply to everyone nor to the same degree. However, to those who are genuinely needing to figure out sources of income, it can be an important part of their lifestyle equation. Many of the obvious choices for producing additional income are easy. Those have to do with selling excess produce such as eggs, chickens, other livestock, or fruit and vegetables. Many of these measures do not add up enough to make a significant difference unless the scope and scale of the production is great enough. All of that is based upon the commitment to growing a cash crop of something beyond just the excess of a family sized production effort. That may mean orchards, berry patches, greenhouses, wood-lots, flocks, herds, livestock support systems, processing equipment and so on. I would say that the decisions needed regarding size of operation largely have to do with the size of income needed. If generating an additional $100 per month is all that's needed, almost anything could do that. If a full family income is needed, then bigger decisions and bigger commitments are required.

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Personally, our "side income" has always involved rental of cabins and campsites. It's also included product sales of various kinds such as outdoor gear and fishing tackle. We've even been the sole supplier of propane gas bottle fills in an area that had decent demand and no other providers. In one case, we rented kayaks where a river was close by and there were no other providers of boat rentals of any kind. We've marketed and sold firewood, owned and operated a sawmill as well as built wood craft home furnishings. We have even contracted with a custom coffee roaster to provide us with premium coffee under our own coffee label. (Base Camp Premium Coffee) We've had friends in the past that have done things from dairy goat products, apple orchards, farmers markets, a pumpkin patch and corn maze and even one family that had a greenhouse and raised Mums on a large scale and provided to retail outlets around their area. (see the video list below entitled "Mountain Craft for more interesting income producing ideas)

As you can probably tell, there really is no limit of opportunities to earn additional income. If enough thought and planning goes into it, then it could perhaps become a lot of income. Almost all of our ventures each produced at least $1,000 per month or more. Many of them were running simultaneous with each other adding up very nicely. Our cabin rentals were probably the highest payout of all, but they were also the largest initial investment as well. The kayaks were interesting because that was all started on a shoestring. We had borrowed money from friends to purchase the kayaks. Our agreement was to pay them half the rental proceeds as rentals occurred until the loans were paid off (with interest of course) The loans were repaid after only about six months and then the entire income became ours.

Our homestead adventure is largely supported by the efforts we have done over the past ten years or so to build income streams. The early years required some serious determination to get them established. Each small stream of income was built upon the previous ones until a nice, reliable income had been established. It's something that I believe anyone can do. It's also something that can be a success or a failure depending on your level of commitment, creativity, imagination and determination. When searching for the ideal income opportunity, look for things you can do, are willing to learn and have a built-in demand for. Start small if needed. Add additional streams of other income as often as possible. Get started and don't stop......

Carry On

Adventure Quote: “Embrace the empowering belief that you can always find a way. Resourceful people know that even though a solution may not be immediately obvious, it probably exists.”

― Anthony Iannarino

Base Camp Coffee of the Day: Lost in the Woods (Guatemala)

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Mountain Craft

Candy Making

Rug Weaving

Making Wooden Buckets (Cooper Craft)

Pottery

Cornmeal Grinding

Blacksmithing

Sassafras Tea Making (Chicks in the Sticks video)