I need some ideas!!!!!!!

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You can get 10 lbs of pecans for $8.00???????
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I wanted to bake a pie the other day so went to the store for nuts - 1/2 cup was $3.59; 1 1/2 cups was $8.00. Walnuts were higher.

That's why I said Costco. Last year they were $12 for 10 lbs, but then I saw them for $9 the other day. Costco ROCKS!

Yeah, except our closest Costco is 250 miles away and would cost me a $500.00 plane ticket to get there.
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Guess no cheap nuts for me!
 
At our orthodontist's office, one of the staff has a home schooling sister who has made a decent living off of making home made (and the most amazing) toffee ever.

This stuff melts in the mouth, crisp, buttery, with loads of chocolate and nuts and its so -- soo --soooooo--- oh heck now I"m drooling....
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Anyway, their toffee business has boomed! It was featured on the Food network and they get orders from everywhere. Her husband quit his job to become a full time toffee salesman! He goes to trade shows and business shows - he's found many different markets for their family toffee.

Find a niche, make the best of whatever it is - and then find creative ways to market yourself. Microsoft has free business websites for small businesses (and free downloading accounting program - not the greatest but better than nothing!) and they do a good job of helping small businesses. I'll give you more about that below.

I also make custom designed Rosary (Catholic prayer) bracelets and while I'll never get rich making them, I do get pretty good sales through the Microsoft website, through friends and happy customers handing out my home made cards to friends and Catholic gift stores. I also have a friend in England who found several pilgrimage sites with gifts shops that wanted good quality bracelets not manufactured in China, to sell to pilgrims to help support the upkeep of the shrines. Have friends give you a hand expanding your sales and your market. Nothing sells your items like a very happy customer or very devoted friends and family!

I also sell them at a local university gift shop (It's Catholic, and they liked the fact that I'm local, home schooling the kids, one daughter is a student there, and that I will make & supply whatever they need quickly. Knowing your market is half the sale!) I also offer to trade in any items that don't sell within that calendar year - if black beads aren't selling that year, I will trade them in for another color or style. That's a service that suppliers of larger companies often won't do, but little ones like me can.

Microsoft business http://smallbusiness.officelive.com/ The website is free, but there is a fee if you want to open a webstore. I custom design and my business is mostly seasonal (Christmas to June with only sporradic sales the rest of the year) so I don't need a webstore, but I do use the offered slideshows and photo features to show different kinds of beads and bracelets. I also have a few sterling silver items for gifts, but don't have the paypal stuff set up on the site to make it a 'store'.

Microsoft small business accepts loads of pictures, and you get a lot of pages to use. I only use a fraction of the pages alloted to me. The site is easy to use, there are a lot of colors and design features and they do get back to you quickly if you need help with your site. I've been very happy with them. If you want to see my website shoot me an email - I'm new to this forum and don't know the rules about posting business websites on the forum. I can send you the information for the toffee business if you like, too.

If you have any friends who run blogs or websites that might run advertisements for you, ask! I have two friends that have pretty well read blogs, and both run occasional ads for me for free in an effort to get more people to run paid ads on their site. When they give me free weeks, they see many more paid advertisements come to them. In turn, I keep a log for them of how many new visitors I got with each run, and they can use that information to entice more people running paid ads who might ask for that information while considering the cost of the ads vs the number of potential buyers. (Microsoft business will give you that information in their record keeping and it is great to know where your business comes from!)

Once you have a website, you can also use the url in postings on blogs and as a tag in your emails. When you post things, that information appears with your name and you will often get people coming in to see what your website is all about. About a quarter of my customers come to my website through my signiture in various blogs around the internet. You can also put your information into Google and Yahoo so your business site comes up during internet searches, and that is also about a quarter of my new sales. Nothing, though, beats friends, family and happy customers for new sales, especially when your business is new!

I hope this information helps!
 
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can you knit I want sweaters for my cat I can't find anything that does'nt have a dog on it. There is a market for those kind of sweaters.
 
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Thanks for the ideas.


Gaited Horse,

I could knit one if I knew how you wanted it. I would need to know the size. I have never made one an animal. I have made several for children.
 
I don't nedd one right now I finley found a plain plue with white strips and I ordered one of craigslist and its going to have a cat head on it. But if you can make sweaters for cats there is a good market.
 
Hotels are always looking for weekend workers it seems and the front desk is easy and very interesting at times. PLUS you get GREAT rates at the hotel chain you work at, all over the world
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Can you tell I work at a hotel
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I LOVE it and it's easy work and they always bend the hours for me. Now I went to full time but when I worked part time they were always good about it.
 
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My wife used to sell cloths on eBay, then I was made redundent from work and had no idea what to do. I worked part-time in a flying school (Paragliding) and we decided to get some T-Shirts embroidered. When we got them the fisrt thing I said was, I can do better than that. I went out and bought a small embroidery machine (which turned out to be rubbish) Bought another one. 3 years later the business is going very well with 70% of sales on eBay, 3 big machines, plotter, heat press and hope very soon a Direct to Garment printer. Just need to find the $20,000 to buy it.
We moved out of a 2 room appartment and bought quite a big place in the country with over 7,000sqm of ground so Embroidery has been very good to me. Just learned as I went along (not bad for a guy)
Hope you find something and hope this has been of help.

Regards jonty
 
My wife used to sell cloths on eBay, then I was made redundent from work and had no idea what to do. I worked part-time in a flying school (Paragliding) and we decided to get some T-Shirts embroidered. When we got them the fisrt thing I said was, I can do better than that. I went out and bought a small embroidery machine (which turned out to be rubbish) Bought another one. 3 years later the business is going very well with 70% of sales on eBay, 3 big machines, plotter, heat press and hope very soon a Direct to Garment printer. Just need to find the $20,000 to buy it.
We moved out of a 2 room appartment and bought quite a big place in the country with over 7,000sqm of ground so Embroidery has been very good to me. Just learned as I went along (not bad for a guy)
Hope you find something and hope this has been of help.

I have wanting to get an embroidery machine for awhile now. My husband's grandmother had one she said I could use. Then, she pasted away. Now, no one from that family will let me use it. Anyways, I have been trying to find one that I can afford. I will hopefully beable to get one soon.

I just got called back to my part-time job. I haven't worked since January. I guess some things happen for a reason. They said they would need me to work for six weeks. I am still working on crafts that I can sell online or at craft shows.

Thanks for all the ideas.​
 
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I have wanting to get an embroidery machine for awhile now. My husband's grandmother had one she said I could use. Then, she pasted away. Now, no one from that family will let me use it. Anyways, I have been trying to find one that I can afford. I will hopefully beable to get one soon.

I just got called back to my part-time job. I haven't worked since January. I guess some things happen for a reason. They said they would need me to work for six weeks. I am still working on crafts that I can sell online or at craft shows.

Thanks for all the ideas.

Pleased to hear you got called back to your part-time job but when you get an embroidery machine if you need any designs just let me know. I have thousands upon thousands and being so far away from each other your no compertion to our business:) If when you get one I would suggest a machine with at least 6 needles. Having said that, I started with just a one needle machine. It depends what you want to do.
Anyway, have fun at whatever you do. I've just spent a few hours with the chickens putting heating in for them.

Regards

jonty
 
You can grow a large garden and sell the produce, I know it would be a while before the selling part comes, but now would be the time to think about it, to decide on what to grow, what needs to be started early, and when...
 

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