Ideas:
1. start growing my own lettuce inside and possibly other veggies like carrots and potatoes. Also to start tomatoes and cucumbers at least in the spring so that Jani and I can start eating healthier and hopefully lose some weight.
Reasoning: I've read a lot about starting an indoor garden online in the past few days. Lettuce sounds like the most simple plant to start with, leafy varieties like arugula are easy to grow and are supposed to taste better than store bought lettuce. Also with the price of veggies being what they are its a huge money saver to grow my own veggies.
2. Start a home based business. A store on Etsy.com where I can sell crochet hats and scarves and perhaps some other things like snoods and blankets. Potentially a wider base of objects and potentially branching out into selling knit items as well.
Reasoning: I have been having a difficult time finding work here. I've sent out many job applications and done ten months of language courses. So in my spare time I've been crocheting a lot and since loads of people buy things on Etsy and everyone who has received crochet items from me as gifts has really thought they were swell. So I'm hoping that if I try to sell them that it will provide at least a source of some income until I can get a job or perhaps grow into a reliable home based business.
3. Crochet items: I had this really great idea to crochet a round hammock that we could somehow suspend from the roof of the ceiling of our patio. Also I want to make gloves and a hat for Jani to match his scarf that I made him last winter. I think these items will make good samples to post on Etsy if they turn out well. Plus I really enjoy making things for him.
4. Cooking ideas: I have all these recipes I want to try but somehow I just never get around to them. I hope to do more home cooking in the winter months. Hopefully I'll actually get around to making them and posting pictures of them here in this blog.
5. This blog: It was a random idea a way to document my life and a way to connect with people who I don't have daily contact with. Its turning into one of the best things in my life, its a great form of therapy. Getting all my thoughts down on paper and having other people read them. That is if there are any readers. But even if there aren't I will keep writing this blog and getting my thoughts and emotions down in type.
I hope to keep you readers updated with the progress made with all these ideas.
Re: #2. As a business person I will add what little insight I can. In an individual run home-based type of business the ratio to watch is time:profit. First, this is not time:revenue. Profit is revenue-cost and is all that matters. Second, by profit I mean REAL profit, not theoretical profit. high-margin items that never sell are negative profit (0 revenue - X cost).
ReplyDeleteif you can raise the profit per unit of time invested, business improves.
Now, the other side of that is enjoyment. You cannot dislike or hate the activity involved when your business relies on self-motivation with no outside supervision (i.e. slave driver). Some people are motivated by the $$ alone and thus willing to do activities they don't enjoy as much, but not many people.
Bliss is finding something you love, are good at (and thus can do efficiently from a time invested perspective) and which has high demand leading to volume and profit margin. Finding that can take experimentation.
Just remember, if you see something for sale everywhere on the net, it likely ISN'T the best thing to "also sell". What you want to do is find something either new/variant that nobody is selling, or something where demand is outstripping supply (often evidenced by waiting lists, etc.)
Hi Michael,
DeleteThank you for the lovely advice. I chose the idea to start the etsy shop to sell my crochet goods because I love to crochet, its what I spend my days doing anyway. So Jani and I figure I might as well make some money from it. I found a great website that has great quality bulk yarns that I can purchase for much less cost than the yarns in stores here. That will help make the profit margin larger as the costs will be less. I'm not so worried about compensation for my time. Since I spend my time crocheting anyway its not a big change to do it as a business. I have no idea how much volume I'll sell but Etsy is great. $0.20 USD to post an item in my shop and that stays for 4 months. So no expensive overhead and if things don't sell well then they don't and I'm only out the couple of bucks I paid to post the ads and then when they lapse I move on to other options. Sure there is a lot of variety of crochet and knit stuff on Etsy but not all of it ships everywhere and there's an epic amount of hats and scarves etc. and I have some ideas to try out other items, like snoods and baskets. I'll keep you updated on how it goes. And ask for more advice when I need it. =)