Category: Self-Employment & Home-Based Businesses

2015 – The Year In Review of Starting a Small Business(es), by T&BR

In our goal of self sufficiency, we established that being self employed was at the top of the list. We also wanted to apply the idea of redundancy to this area, meaning multiple businesses. Our criteria: Income now, income during a collapse, and income in the recovering of a collapse. Allows us to be good stewards of the land. Something that allows us to strengthen our community by providing jobs and affordable services. Web Store One of our ventures started from a failure. We saw the sale listing for the Homestead Store site and business. We weren’t able to get …


Letter Re: Some Harsh Lessons of Beekeeping, by Keith K.

To the Editor; Keith K. was absolutely correct in that if one is considering keeping bees as a TEOTWAWKI pollinating vector and food supply (honey), there should be an innate interest present before devoting time and effort to the project. I fully realize that there should be more initial motivation than just consideration of a cost/benefit analysis before entering into the hobby of beekeeping. Specifically, the overall homestead health and sustainability must be considered to see whether beekeeping would be a good fit for daily life and upkeep. We will all respond in relation to our own skills and gifts …


Letter Re: Some Harsh Lessons of Beekeeping

Keith K, Thank you for that informative write up on beekeeping. I’m jumping in to beekeeping this spring with an innovative new hive called the Flow Hive. You can check out their product at honeyflow.com. I have no experience with beekeeping, but this seems to be a revolutionary product that might make enough of a difference to you that you’ll give it another try. I think the non-invasive method of collecting the honey may help with your mortality rate and level of effort since you don’t need a bee suit, smoker, or honey extractor. The method also doesn’t remove the …


Some Harsh Lessons of Beekeeping, by Keith K.

I would like to share my experience with beekeeping to help others decide if it might be for them. My initial interest in beekeeping began before I moved to the Redoubt. My wife and I attended a beekeeping night at a local library and later took a four-day (four Saturdays) beekeeping course. We learned a lot. We found that beekeeping hobbyists were very enthusiastic and touted the many benefits of beekeeping along with the fun of it. It was very easy to be influenced by all of the positive and energetic people. Ultimately, we decided that beekeeping would be part …


Letter Re: Progressive Presses

Sir, I’m fairly new to prepping for TEOTWAWKI. I am currently attempting to secure as much ammo and OD green tactical clothing as my budget will allow. I am also a fan of your books; I am currently reading Founders. You mention many times in your books that ammo, silver/gold coins, and gasoline will become a kind of currency. That being said, do you recommend those who are properly trained buy progressive presses to make their own ammo? What caliber of pistol rounds would you feel will be more valuable after WTSHTF? HJL Responds: Most people get into reloading their …


Taking Control of Your Health and Your Pocketbook at the Same Time, by RWL

[Editors note: This article contains information about a multi-level marketing system. There are generally two ways to look at these programs. If you like the products, you usually get a discounted price if you are a reseller. If you are looking at some sort of income, understand that marketing is a skill and not everyone excels at it. There is generally a “buy-in” to a sales program and if you are not motivated, you will lose your investment. Multi-level marketing in particular depends on people selling below you. If you don’t recruit sellers, you have to work harder for your …


Bartering for a Living, by J.J.

Just as we will need people with blue-collar skills, like farmers, carpenters, mechanics, welders, and so forth, society will also need entrepreneurs who have the inventory and negotiating skills required to open stores and to restart local economies in the event of an economic collapse. In such times, it will be mutually beneficial for a farmer to let the local trading post sell his produce as a middle man while he is working the farm rather than spending precious hours each day trying to sell that produce himself. Most preparedness articles talk about the importance of having extra items on …


Brewing Up Business After TEOTWAWKI, by K.M.

(Preface by HJL: SurvivalBlog neither condones nor condemns alcohol consumption. However, we stand by a biblical perspective that takes a strong stance against drunkenness. There are serious issues that must be weighed in regards to alcohol consumption and commerce, and each reader should measure them carefully to know whether home brewing is for you or not.) “People are going to want to escape from reality and history has shown that alcohol is the escape of choice.” I don’t know how many times I have seen this exact quote in prepping manuals, on survival sites, and included in SHTF barter item …


How To Create a Home based Business for TEOTWAWKI, by TJ

I would love to never have to work for an employer ever again. I am 30 years into working for other people, with the exception of a total of five years during various time periods that I worked for myself as a consultant. I have run more than one small business from home over the years. Each time that I was working as a consultant, I loved making my own hours and answering only to myself, because I am far more demanding than any employer has ever been in regards to delivering excellence. The part about working for myself that …


Beekeeping for Long-term Self Sufficiency, by T.D.

Several years ago I was introduced to a book called Passport to Survival written by Esther Dickey. This book elaborates on how you can provide for all the essential nutritional needs for you and your family with just four basic ingredients– wheat, powdered milk, honey, and salt. As I thought about these four items, I realized that I had it within my power to provide for one of these four items without much change in my lifestyle and without an excess of effort. I live in the city, so growing more than just a few handfuls of wheat in my …


Letter Re: Cottage/Local Manufacturing After SHTF

I am a former dressmaker, with considerable experience in making clothing, and I appreciated the article on doing this for barter. However, there are problems. The first is fabric. Presumably the sensuously idyllic pleasures of going to the fabric shops in the garment district of New York City will no longer be an option. Too charred. Apart from that, while there are a few scattered fabric stores here and there, they are steadily going out of business, as fewer and fewer people sew. For the most part, assuming you can get there and assuming they are intact, they carry mostly …


Cottage/Local Manufacturing After SHTF, by S.T.

Post-SHTF America will see the end of the current modern centralized-style of mass manufacturing and all of the poor-quality foreign imports. However, it will also see the rise of the new, local, home-based and small-scale manufacturing of local, functional, non-electric, and reusable items that will replace all of the electric, disposable, and toxic items that are purchased and used now. Unless you have a group that includes two doctors (a doctor cannot operate on himself), two dentists (a dentist can’t fill his own teeth), a nurse, a pharmacist, and a herbalist, as well as the teens to act as apprentices, …


Getting A Real Education– Why Becoming Self-Sufficient Is Better Than Going To College, by D.T.

Everywhere you turn experts are predicting that the world is heading into some very troubling times. At every level, they say we are heading into a period of history that will see major upheavals in economics, politics, education, food production, housing, jobs, and basically everything. These major changes will effect everyone on earth. That is why so many people are trying to prepare for these changes before they happen in full force, and most experts agree the best way to prepare to meet the challenges of living in this kind of future is to have a skills-based education rather than …


Livestock Breeding Strategies For When SHTF – Part 2, by S.W.

The goat is called the poor man’s cow. They are inexpensive, easy to handle, and eat a wide variety of vegetation. They are basically browsers, meaning they eat leaves and stems from shrubs and trees. They are the most efficient animal to convert browse to lean meat. When commercial feeds become unavailable, they would be the most likely survivors. They are also easily trained as pack and cart animals, able to pack 20 to 40% of their weight and pull five times that. They can negotiate more difficult terrain than any other pack animal and continue with only the water …


Letter Re: OPSEC and Paid Security

Dear Jim and Hugh, I agree with the statements about private security. However, having too much visible security implies you have something worth protecting inside, and with the glut of marijuana production getting legalized in many states, the price of that drug has dropped, meaning the growers who were used to a certain income are now scrambling and desperate. There have been many reported incidents of home invasions in pot growing areas, with violent outcomes, and it is likely there are many that weren’t reported because the invaders were all killed and buried. Falling crop values and potential full legalization …