What would you do?

Hello everyone,

Say you lived in a freshly started commune that has great potential, but you the lack funding you need until you become totally self sufficient...

What would you do to generate income?

 

Get a job.

 

yeah, thanks, that's obvious, of course some of us will have jobs, but I'm looking for other ways to generate income from within the community so we won't have to be too dependent on society.

 

grow lots and lots of food..

right here soon food is going to be a highly valuable commodity..

 

If you're not going to be "dependent on society", what do you need money for?

 

property taxes at the very least.. unless of course you know of a way to pay them without money?

 

I think what SpiritWynd refers to is setup money. You have to clear land, build housing, purchase and feed stock, purchase and sow seed and operate a community full-time and feed your people until the first crop comes in. You can't eat venison and wild berries for 6 months...

...well you could but it would get boring.

 

Well I've got 500$ growing in some shoeboxes in my closet..

 

well leaving out the actual price of the land and assuming one would just buy the tools needed and do the work themselves,and assuming that the housing would be built with as many salvaged materials as possible,i would say then that out of a group of say four,at least one would have to have a real job or a very marketable craft and generate a income of at least 20 grand(after taxes) in the first 6 months to a year.

of course this is provided the other 3 are scavenging and/or bartering for all materials they would need,build the fences,clear the land,plant the garden and build the shelters while the other is working full time..

living this lifestyle i can tell you,for four people to walk onto 10 acres of raw land with nothing but hand tools in spring and by winter have cleared and fenced a couple acres for goats,a acre for gardens,planted cared for and preserved the crops from a garden,gotten firewood up for the winter and cooking throughout the first 6 months AND built a shelter and a shitter that will adequately house 4 people and their supplies through the following winter would be a monumental task without a tractor and assorted other higher dollar tools.(clearing land by hand is labor intensive and time consuming)

that being said,to guarantee ya could get it all done,it would be ideal to have 30 or 40 grand minimum of disposable income your first 6 months.that way you could have a used tractor with the attachments you needed to clear and fence the land etc.

to be honest,i really doubt many folks could accomplish what i just typed and have in the end grown enough food and preserved it to survive the following winter. i guess with the ideal piece of property the ideal growing season,the ideal area to scavenge building materials,the ideal soil for putting post holes in etc.etc. anything is possible.

i just remember when we built the log cabin we determined that their was no way 3 of us could have done what i described in the highlighted paragraph in a season with nothing but hand tools. we would have starved that winter.

the settlers were a hardy breed and i suspect their lives were harder than any of us could imagine. even those of us who live this lifestyle..

 

To go along with what hhb just typed

my own suggestion sw would be to have one person work full time off the land. A guaranteed income source of some kind. Have the most qualified person on the land stay on the land and work full time plus , get busy doing what needs to be done. Any others must have a skill that they can use to sell crafts or barter services and such part time to add to the till and in there spare time work on the land. On any days off for the off land worker all must work together to get what needs to be done... done.

Unfortunately finding 4 or so people that can actually get along well , work together and contribute in such a way is not an easy task because of the human factor we all have and someone either feels used or thinks they are worth more etc etc than the others...

There are alot of variable that would work into the specifics of any situation. Perhaps iffin ya could tap out a bit more info it would help in giving you a more specific answer atleast from our point of view...

 

I stopped posting in these threads on here because most people just want to hear pipe dream fantasy bullshit then get mad at me when I post any kind of reality.

But Spirt Wynd seems like they are for real studying this way of life so I will share some of my experiences on it.

The usual tactic is get and “outside job” and commute everyday, but I’m sure that’s not what you want to hear about for the 10th time.

I have spent thousands of hours.. trying to come up with ways to make money away from the system. I have had access to nice shops, tools and worked with people who are great craftsmen. Every idea I have come up with someone is already mass-producing it for cheaper then it could be made in a small shop (fucking industrial revolution).

I do know organic farmers and some ranchers who make a living off of their property but they have very expensive investments $500,000 + and they have very high level of skills or they have skills that were handed down to them from childhood with business connections that took years to develop to sell their products.

The closest I have came to making a living away from the system is from the Internet but I still have to rely on a decent local economy and make money off of web design and graphics.
I have tried selling books on Amazon, affiliate sites, adsense anyplace money flows or trickles but it is just not enough money to be worth it.

A person can make money just off of the internet but there is so much out sourcing that the prices for web design on the internet are just to low because you are competing with people in Asia and India who can live on $3,000 a year.

So that is just my experiences on the subject I hope it can bring a little insight to the challenges of it.

 

lets remember the reality of the coming economic collapse will bring on a forced localization of almost all trading of goods and services. therefore one must look at whats marketable in his area be it skills or crafts.

 

Thanks everyone for the replies, I'm always looking for other ideas for my notebook...
I value your wisdom and agree with much of it... I too feel the breakdown of society, and know the extensiveness of labor to build community, partly from being a caretaker for a 23 acre run down farm and bringing it back to life in under 9 months.
And to give more insight, say the nearest town is about half and hour away, the land is on the south side lower mountains, with 50 square miles of mountains north, land has some small hills, some flatland, a spring or two and a small creek nearby that we may be able to tap or make a channel flow from it, and a water main along the road, mostly hardwoods and vegetation, there are 3 good sized farms in the area, the one across the road grazes cattle on the front part, so we get free manure for the gardens, but that's before anyone is occupying the land, so maybe we can barter him to till the land with his tractor, and offer day labor for other goods. All the farms have a different focus, but all have the same elements... one is gardens, one is horses, the other is hay production.
If we make friends and include them in the community, a balance could be created.
Say the people chosen all have different skills, are hard working, and have things in common, spiritual in their beliefs, and want this project to happen, this too will help create balance...and when the chaos does arise, I have a Stand up punching dummy, they can put on the gloves and beat the snot out of it to relieve anger, then take some alone time, and discuss a solution later.

More later...

 

Zihger...I was thinking that very thing when my threads on Starting a Commune and this one seemed a bust. I read many posts about it, but when asked a direct question, they have no idea.
I have come to know the people on here who do know their stuff, and it is they I hoped would share the wisdom, though the pipe dreamers may find a random idea too, but unlikely.

 

If you got land that is worth a lot. You could try to find someone with some money to invest.

A lot of people are spending money going to school for organic farming and stuff if someone invested $10,000 in growing a crops on your land then try to sell some they would learn more then years of school. A lot of these guys spend $100,000 on collage classes get out and don’t have a clue.

If I was into agriculture I be into something like that.

But it can be hard finding people with actual money and then you have to be good at negotiating and keeping each other happy.

Just a thought.

 

28 foot self-contained RV with two batteries and solar panels: Check
100 gallons water storage: Check
100 pounds rice, 50 pounds dried beans 10 cases canned goods: Check
2 40 pound and 4 20 LP tanks: Check
Shotgun, small bore rifle with scope and several hundred rounds: Check
Assorted corn, bean, squash, pepper, and other vegetable seeds: Check
Long-range wifi receiver and laptop: Check
Satellite radio receiver: Check
Chainsaw, generator, shovels, axe, miscellaneous power tools: Check
Dog: Check

Bring it. I'll eventually run out of LP but I've taken cold showers before.

 

Dang Zoomie, not bad, just need a home base and you're pretty much set.

Also, when it hits the fan... a few tiger traps, snares, dead-falls, and alarm trip wires around the perimeter will help keep the nasties out too.

But hopefully none of this will happen until we're set up and able to live at a comfortable pace, but still, with the right group, we'll manage pooling our knowledge and skills.

Thanks again Zihger...keep em coming.

 

If I joined a commune I'd look for one that could operate a recycling business/theatre/cafe but that too takes some initial capital of at least time and some nonrecycled materials. Tutoring online pays ok and the business of teaching at the high school level online is booming. check out http://openhighschool.org/

 

recyclables have crashed. that business is dead till further notice and i assure you that will be many years down the road..

Back at Junk Value, Recyclables Are Piling Up