financial problems are burying us

Potbellied pigs as money-makers? I bought one at an auction years ago for $5.00 (the guy sitting behind me was talking about buying her and using her as target practice). And, then, when I had to find a new home for her (she fell in love with the neighbors' cows and wouldn't stay home), I practically had to PAY someone to take her!

I'd stay away from all those "novelty" animals. It's been my own experience (and knowing others who got involved) that, unless you're in on the ground floor and can sell the "breeders," you're not going to get anything in return except big feed bills and animals nobody wants.

I've known people who have raised emus, ostriches, etc. and, after the market was flooded, had nothing to show for it. Most end up giving the birds/animals away just to get out from under them.

I remember when pygmy goats were the big deal. I have a bunch of them that I could probably give away for meat, if I was so inclined; however, they will live out their lives with me as "pets." (I did have a little market of pygmy/dairy goat crosses that were in pretty good demand as pets. People liked them because they weren't tiny like the pygmy but not full size like the dairy. Plus, the Saanen breed the pygmies were crossed with is such a personable breed it made the babies pretty desirable. However, that was NOT a money-maker, either. All it did was sort of help me recover some of my losses.)

I can't agree more with getting chickens. They provide eggs and meat. They don't eat much for what you get in return... especially if you can let them free-range a bit. We have 20 hens and always seem to have one with little babes running around. The hens do the hard job of raising them... much easier than the incubator/babysitting job.

Also, we have rabbits. We paid $5 each for a doe and a buck. We've had them about 6 months and have already butchered seven for the freezer (4-5 lbs apiece) and have 8 more babies that are two-weeks old. They don't take much room or eat much food. Their pellets are supplemented by green leafies from the garden or around the farm.

I think the bottom line to all of these animal suggestions is... one must realize that for every penny one doesn't spend... one is, in fact, EARNING that penny. "A penny saved is a penny earned" is not just an adage. It's TRUE!

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Before you marry someone, ask yourself, "Will they be a good killing partner during the zombie apocalypse?"
-someecards.com

Actually, you do not pay taxes on that penny saved. So, if you are in the 33% tax bracket, a penny saved is 1.33 cents earned. A 33% return on your efforts!

One way my Mom used to save pennies was, if there were leftovers that were not enough for a meal, she would chop them up and put them in a cassarole dish. Add a can of veggies, juice and all. Top with biscuits and bake. Serve as a hearty side dish to whatever meat you are serving, or, if it is meaty, just serve it as a main dish.

We ate that (or leftovers mixed with rice) once a week when she cleared out the fridge. Use your leftovers, al of them!

Hello,
This loan will not be the answer. You will be given a checkbook and the gov't cosigns with you. You will be accountable for every penny. Our son tried to get that loan. He decided it was not worth his time to jump through the hoops to get the money.
He went to Farm Credit Services of America. He was given loans at 7%. They were willing to work with him because we are here to help him. He uses our machinery, etc. He is slowly being weaned off of our help. We are close to retirement age. But you have to know farming will never make you money. Our son has his own construction company and that keeps the farm going. HIs hearts desire is to farm full time. but that won't happen for a very long time. HIs wife is a federal gov't employee and makes excellent money. They have no kids and don't plan on any. Good luck. Cindy

You say your "farm" is too small to ever bring a profit and your solution is to borrow more money. I don't quite seem to understand. I would say the paperwork is to see what the plan is that they should lend you money for and how you will make money with that plan to repay the loan. I think most on here would love to see a plan that would allow them to be a profitable "farm" on a small basis. It is a current topic here with very few true success stories, and most of them started out debt free to succeed.
Please give us more facts because from what is given it sure seems that the original plan didn't work and you are just looking for more money to throw at it.

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"Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self confidence"
Robert Frost

I note you mentioned the farm not being large enough to return a living. So not knowing your prop size I would agree with some of the other folks on this tat you should rethink what it is you are doing. Perhaps you are trying to compeet with the big boys. In the area I live in most "farms" are hundreds of acres and raise corn and or soybeans. Sort of outdoor factories. So if you were trying to do that around here and have less than a coupel hundred acres you will go under. Allso a large number of the "farmers" around here are in debt up to their eyeballs. Borrowing large sums just to keep going. When their crops are sold at end of year the money goes directley to the bank or Gov. loan. I knw one fellow who decided that he had enough of that and let a lot of his crop ground go to pasture which he turned to grass fed livestock. He then bought a small buildeing near a well traveled highway and fixed it up to look like every one thinks a "farm building" looks like. Next he started raising produce, tomatoes, sweet corn, decrative corn and gords. He sold it frome his "farmers market". Allso instead of hireing migrant labor he employed his extended familey. Now they all do well and he is not trying to compeet with the big boys. The gist of this is for you to look around and decide where there is a nich market for something you could raise or produce as a value added item.

I read her profile on her blog where she stated that she likes to watch the history channel & discovery. So my first suggestion is to drop the cable or satellite & put that money towards debt. Cut every extra expense you can. Do not eat out, do not go out unless absolutely necessary. Combine trips to save gas. Check out the frugal tips on Melissa's forum here on Homesteading Today. Lots of usful tips that will help you cut corners. If an outside job is out of the question, you need to find ways to cut expenses.

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I can't believe I deleted it!

check out Dave Ramsey online or AM radio

Not to be mean.......But.

IF you can't make a profit on a small scale. You won't make one on a large scale.
Your profits should be per head or per acre. If you lose money on 10 animals how can you expect to make money with 100? The problems are only magnified with an increase in feed/overhead/labor costs.

Now if you just need more money and your bussiness plan is sound then. Expand with loans if the interest can be justified through additional profits. But higher gross profit doesn't always mean higher net profit.

Myranda,
Its very tough to make it at a farming operation these days. I applaud you
for even trying. In fact, I recently have returned from a year in MN where I discovered that the ONLY people that are actually farming, and making an actual living at it, are those that are not saddled down by a huge mortgage. They either 1) inherited the farm (probably the most common scenario) 2) bought the place many years ago before land prices became so overvalued, so their mortgages are not so outrageous or 3) one of the "farmers" has a very good off-farm job that supports the entire operation.
Don't bother cutting your cable or doing without a few treats here and there since it will take far more than that to make it. (And I agree with the others
that I wouldn't take on more debt to try and keep afloat).
I just had to put my $0.02 in 'cause I get sick and tired of the many on this
list that like to "blame the victim" for these situations. Victims of a sorry economy, in a sorry period in our history. Meanwhile they don't like to admit
just how they themselves were "blessed". And no, its very rarely just "hard
work" that did it. Good luck to you and yours...we're all going to need plenty
of that in the future!
james

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"These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert, to fleece the people..."
Abraham Lincoln, from his first speech as an Illinois state legislator, 1837

If someone is serious about getting out of debt, they have to do exactly that. Yes an occasional treat is fine. But if someone is spending $40 or $50 a month on cable, that would buy a lot of groceries. An extra $50 applied to a mortgage would really save a lot of $$ in interest over the years. That of course is what I would do. If cutting cable would cause you to go insane, then I guess you should keep it. Cutting out all the little extras really does add up. Say $50 a month on cable, $10 a week eating out, combine trips to save gas $$, & before you know it, you have an extra $100 a month to apply to the mortgage.

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I can't believe I deleted it!

I agree with you Wendy.
I think the original poster frankly donst have a lot of financial smarts, rather than being a victim like PCWERK suggested. For every dollar one of us earns, thats one dollar somebody else had to give up. We cant all be "haves". Its sad, but that is the way the world is and if your dumb with money, the smart people will take it away.

I 3rd that though best not to get in debt to begin with egaads I cant imagine paying 9.9% interest I would get out of that situation ASAP. If I were you I would move and both work in the city or something for a few years to save enough $ to buy a little farm outright.Or just stay there and both work an outside job atleast till the place is paid for.

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marching to the beat of a different drummer

[QUOTE=Terri]Actually, you do not pay taxes on that penny saved. So, if you are in the 33% tax bracket, a penny saved is 1.33 cents earned. A 33% return on your efforts!

QUOTE]
If it is food you grow you also save the 10% tax in Ar that you would have has to pay if you bought it.
By the way I read down and saw where the thread starter has all the kids with special needs so I guess my suggestion of you both working would not work.

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marching to the beat of a different drummer

Guess I am the exception I am making my farm thur hard work and lots of self sacrafice. Saved my $ and never even had my own vehicle till I was 26. No movies at all except what I watched on friends Tv's from the years 92-06. ate lots of marked down food when I was in the army the first time so I could save my food allowance I ended up averaging 60$ a month for food for the two years I had the $220 food allowance. You have to live below your means and cut out the extra's if you want to make it work just like Wendy said.

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marching to the beat of a different drummer

Well said, I would add that I think it is a mistake to even have a computer internet connection your paying for until your mortgage is paid for unless your making more than you pay out from an internet buissness.

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marching to the beat of a different drummer

While I agree that there are things one might do in this woman's case to lower expenses... including refinancing which is what she is considering... I also think that some people are blessed. Blessed with certain skill sets, blessed with a higher tolerance for some discomforts, blessed with family, blessed financially... the "it's your fault because you didn't do it like I did" is one reason I'm not crazy about Joel's work. One size does not fit all. We are keeping our farm afloat with two full time off farm jobs. And our animals break even every year! But they sure don't pay any more than their own bills.

Having addressed this I'd also like to add that rather than recriminations and personal assaults on the home budget anyone in this situation would be better served by stepping back and examining their business plan. Business is not personal. Business is its own animal. The fact that I like textiles is great, the fact that I know a lot about them and have been in "textiles" for four decades means I bring a fair amount of knowledge and experience to the table. None of that changes the fact that I've had yarn/weaving shops fail under me three times. Much as I love textiles there is no demand for them in this area and the profit margins selling them on the internet are too small for me to bother with. Yarn shop, at least the way we ran them = bad business plan in my local area.

When I look at this woman's post I don't see "personal failure" or "lack of discipline in the household budget," I see "bad business plan." I suspect that no market research was done before the farm decided to get into pot belly pigs, nor has any been done to determine if there is a market for "pigs" or "goat milk" locally. The world is awash in goat milk body care products (sorry, bad pun) and your area may be saturated as well. Or there may simply be no demand for the product. In short, bad business plan.

Being no stranger to the bad business plan myself (note to self: building a website which is designed to attract people who want something a respected national research firm has conclusively shown nobody is buying is a Really Bad Business Plan!) I can tell you this with some authority:

If what you want to sell is not what anyone wants to buy... you're in trouble. You must, without delay, change your business plan. You can scrap it wholesale, alter the product to something the market is interested in, try to educate the marketplace so they understand why they really want a product they don't think they do (emu oil comes to mind), but you can't hang in there cutting the household budget, working part time off the farm, and nickle and diming yourself to death.

You've got a failing business plan. It's nothing personal, it isn't that you're not frugal enough, can't pinch a penny tight enough, are lax, lazy, or incompetent... it is that nobody wants what you're selling at the price you need to sell it.

Which means you've got to reconsider your business plan.

While you're doing that, of course, it wouldn't hurt to pinch pennies, take on a part time job, and refinance to a lower interest rate. But even if you do all these things and your household budget looks better these things will not change the most important fact you're currently dealing with: you've got a bad business plan there. And you've got to change it before it drags you under.

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Icelandic Sheep and German Angora Rabbits

I think you have to prove you're capable of making true profit before they'll give you the loan.

Knowing more about what you have for land and resources will help us help you. I hope you'll come back to post more information.

Cable is an unnecessary debt.

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Robin

If you know what you are going to do with your farm to start making money on it, go for the loan. If you don't know, don't get it. For example, if you can sell goats milk and need a small pasteurization plant, then this might be the way to go. If you need the operation loan to get 40 more goats, etc, then it might be the way to go. But you need to know what you are going to be doing with the money to make a profit--perhaps you do and you just haven't stated it here.

Jennifer

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-Northern NYS

I've read and re-read all the posts on this, and certainly can see the points several people have made. It's easy for someone in a moderate climate to make a profit on a small farm, or EASIER, let me say, than for someone in Minnesota, for pete's sake. Having ONE child with special needs is extremely taxing and exhausting for a parent, let alone several. I don't know that I would have enough energy to even think about a business plan after taking care of the children, critters, battling the school system, and her own medical condition to boot.

I think I would pull the 8 year old out of school and homeschool him, not worrying so much about socialization, as that point is always what people point to when thinking about homeschooled children. There are groups of homeschooled children, 4H clubs, etc where your children can be 'socialized', without the trauma of being left behind in public school. It just isn't for everyone. You can homeschool all the children, for less expense than sending them to public school, less stress on you and them, and have more time to deal with making a go of it in some manner on your farm. Just my thoughts, as I'm doing that myself. Think less money for school clothes, shoes, school supplies, etc.

As others have said, you would find it difficult to make money selling goat's milk toiletries, but they are nice to have for your own use and gifts. I'd considered trying to do that with the milk from our dairy goats, but there are several people living near me who are struggling with it, so ..I'll just do it for us. Using the milk to raise calves bought from a dairy for a low price, and piglets from a huge pregnant sow we purchased at auction for cheap, have brought in some income, and used the excess milk. Selling some of the meat goat and dairy goat kids, as well as lambs has helped, too.

Try not to get too discouraged, check out any book you can from the library on subjects you are interested in doing there, and then see what you can manage. Good luck, and let us know how it goes.

Jan in Co