SW Wisconsin | kipps - 7/8/2022 20:55
If this is the aspect of dairy farming you miss, consider replacing it with handyman work. There's a whole industry of folks who are mostly one-man-bands just driving around and fixing stuff for people. Replacing lightbulbs, drywall repairs, hanging shelves and TV's, reflashing roofs, caulking windows, clearing fallen trees, replacing bathroom fixtures, fixing tile, flooring repairs, small painting jobs, etc. Charge between $75 and $150 per hour, depending on your area; but don't give that number to the customer. Instead, quote each job over the phone, so that they are paying per job, not by the hour. Aim for 20 billable hours per week.
My dad does some work roughly like this, there are websites that you can sign up and companies will call with whatever kind of jobs they want done. I've done a couple of jobs with him, the money is fairly decent sometimes even really good, but the work drives me crazy. On the farm ownership is a huge part of the satisfaction of a job done well. The stuff he's doing is because the owner, who manages 1000 employees, forgot to put "replace a broken light switch" in any of their contracts. He doesn't own anything, nobody where he's working owns anything, and even the company that hires him is a subcontractor. |
Life after dairy farming
