What Other People Will Pay For…
I’ve been thinking about chickens lately. No *great* surprise for those who know me, but it does tie into money and small business quite nicely.
I’ve recently hatched some chicks – they hatched yesterday in fact and my kitchen is now a mass of cutely cheeping fluffballs. Aww… I did this because I’m a self-sufficientish kind of a person, and I fancy having a small meat flock which I can bump off and fill my freezer with, whilst still allowing me to have a breeding stock left to do it again. To buy 24 eggs (14 of which hatched) for hatching cost me just over £8 at the local livestock market. The incubator took a tiny trickle of electricity which didn’t even show up on my “how much power are you using?” green eco-meter gadget. I imagine that feed at the current price will cost me something like £6 to get them to slaughter age. I reckon it’s likely to cost me something like a pound a bird, going down to something like 20p – 50p a bird as I breed my own. The incubator was on loan from a friend.
The same bird, from a supermarket would cost something like £7.00ish. Buying a live, just-about-to-start-laying, chicken from the livestock market will cost about £2-4ish, and will reliably give you 400 – 600 eggs in two years depending on the breed.
So why so expensive to buy the finished product when it can be done so cheaply? (Or should that be “cheep-ly” going by the noises in my kitchen…?)
We’re paying for the convenience of not having to find somewhere to raise chickens ourselves, not having to feed and clean them, not having to deal with the day-to-day health and upkeep issues and the general hassle of having livestock. It’s OK for me because I actively enjoy keeping poultry and the by-products are a really good excuse to support my hobby. As money is tight, I really appreciate the difference it makes to our bank balance, too.
But basically, people pay – in all sorts of situations – for the convenience of Not Having To Do It Themselves. This is a great, and very different way to look at income generation. Instead of thinking what you like to do, why not try thinking about what you don’t mind doing, but other people hate. I gladly pay an Accountant to do my taxes every year because I detest them so much – to me it is money well spent. My neighbour takes in ironing because she quite enjoys it, but finds increasing numbers of people who can’t abide it. Gardening, car washing, cleaning, tidying – these are all things that people hate and would gladly pay someone else to do. A perfect example of finding a niche and filling it brilliantly are those people who come round and clean your oven and hob. Who likes cleaning ovens? Not me, that’s for sure.
So, the key to a great little business is finding something that everyone dislikes doing, but you don’t mind. Don’t be afraid to fill a tiny niche – you don’t have to offer a full housecleaning service if all you want to do is set up video/hard drive recorders for the elderly…
What niches can you think of today?
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Comment by marie
Hello,
First time on your website.
Interesting idea to raise your own chickens but a lot of work.
And above all, what about the SMELL? And the noise? I sure couldn’t do it. That’s why I gladly pay the $2.00 a pound for a roasting chicken at my market.
Marie
Comment by Talis
Good post.
I quite like mending, actually. Handsewing, making whole something that was torn or lost a button or sprung a seam. I recently mended a skirt in exchange for some cleaning… it was one of those long muslin tiered skirts with layers, and she’d put her foot on the hem and ripped it in several places. It was a challenge, but an achieveable one!
‘Scuse me, the kitten is playing silly beggars with the music stand…
Comment by Annie
Hi Marie, Welcome! Chicken-raising is very much something that is only worth doing if you enjoy animals – I absolutely love it, and would probably do it even if I didn’t get meat and eggs. They are very characterful and a lot of fun to watch and interact with
As for the smell – they honestly don’t smell if you clean them out regularly (once a week with the little ones inside and once a fortnight for the bigger ones outside). The noise is OK as long as you don’t get a rooster – a bit of gentle clucking when they get big, and a lot of spirited tweeting when little (a lot like a budgerigar, actually). But I wouldn’t recommend chicken-keeping as a money-making thing unless you actually like animals – you’d probably end up hating them! The key is to find something that you enjoy but that other people hate – ironing, cleaning, taxes, filing etc. and fill that niche…
Talis – hi
Mending is definitely a lost art, I think – I remember my mother teaching me to darn socks, but I’m not sure that many people of my generation know how… It’s sad to see how many people throw out perfectly good, mendable things just through a lack of knowledge. I think that helping other people like this is a winning idea – the skirt gets mended (and not in landfill), you get some cleaning and a skill is kept up! Yay!
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Comment by sara l
I think this is the best way to earn extra money. I’m still trying to find my niche though I do lots of little things.
Comment by Jane
Just to reassure you: I, too, was taught how to darn. Also how to replace buttons, and hem enough to turn things up when they’re too long. I’ve even figured out how to alter clothes to make them bigger and smaller (not much use for the latter).
Most of these skills, though, assumed that the garment in question was made from decent quality fabric in the first place