Business ideas for permies

A healing center for cancer patients and other ailments. Come and stay and heal with natural plants and herbs and nature.

Recording studio for musicians in nature. Help them focus and get away from distractions.

A home school learning center for single parents. Place for single parents to support and meet each other. Teach children life and survival skills and permaculture

Local ommunity food banks

Recycling center

Rehabilitation center for people incarcerated, rehab, military veterans, traumas, etc.

A sort of retirement community that is linked with a children learning center, so the elders and children have a way to pass on and receive wisdom and knowledge.

Grounds maintenance service company. Anyone who like to do maintenance could have a directory that permies could reach out and call for maintenance during after storms or routine landscaping etc. keep it local alot better or have it nationwide.

Farm/permies share service plan for restaurants in the community

Tractors, tools, machinery etc made of recycled and natural materials

Paper business hemp, natural environmentally sound materials

Food preservation business/service geared towards permies,

Chop and drop materials for folks who could don't have chop and drop in their ground.

looms

Etc etc

Share, stir, and circulate just like the waters and the wind. Our hearts and blood do this every moment of the day.

Ain't about the food, its the people coming together and making memories.

I only see two on your list:

Recycling center

hop and drop materials for folks who could don't have chop and drop in their ground.

Best Wishes!

Good ideas, but creating a business designed to make money is not simple. How much up-front capital would be required? Insurance? Marketing/promotion? What returns would justify the costs and personal time/effort?

It's generally much easier to be a self-employed "consultant" who offers services to established organizations. My 2c.

Interesting. Thanks. How would I go about being a consultant to organizations? Do you write up contracts or offer them a service for something they are trying to do? What would be an example of that? I'm currently in water treatment and would like to offer my experience and wisdom to folks trying to get water on their land, or I guess water resource management.

That's something I'd like to do.

You mentioned land maintenance/landscaping...

I've been doing it for several years now and in my opinon it can be pretty challenging, but sometimes rewarding.

I've made some pretty good money on certain jobs, which helps me get by - but have also spent some good money and time on getting back and forth to those jobs, and the tools/equipment used.

I'm backing down from it this season, as most people want the work done when I need to be busy in my own gardens! Makes for a very physically and mentally demanding lifestyle juggling the 2. Loooong days which is hard to sustain and keep a decent diet/clean dishes/clothes washed, etc...it's a mess sometimes :)

Another reason I'm backing off is that a vast majority of people don't "get it" and they won't listen to you...they want aesthetic/ornamental, expensive plants and mulch, and also the people with enuf $ to hire you will typically be using poisons around the yard, which is a bummer to work in all day. I've experienced this first hand multiple times.

Maybe someone with better management skills or more disposable income, maybe even a hired hand could pull it off better than me tho! Good luck to anyone pursuing it :)

Cmon bub let's turn that frown upside down down lol. I hear though...frustrating at times...man you outta get into rain barrels. I forgot to mention that one on the list. You could easily rig rainwater harvesting, barrels or gardens, with landscaping. I hear ya especially as the weather gets warmer. Best of luck and may you find the help you need to survive and thrive.

Also selling vintage and/or second hand things.  The store I had my vintage booth at went away and I've been wishing to be able to open my own type B home business mini shop, but that won't be happeing right now, so scouting antique/vintage malls in my area for a new location to have my booth up and running again.

Yes that's a good one Riona. I'm willing you get her up and running again at the right time. I always buy stuff from places like that. And when I'm moving I'll go donate some things to em. There's one here in town, it's run by volunteer nurses from the local health care center. The profits go into buying medical equipment, wheelchairs and stuff for the health center. Everywhere I go now I think there's so many ideas for survival and a hustle, we are so conditioned to buying for stores that carry everything.

Rad Anthony wrote:Cmon bub let's turn that frown upside down down lol. I hear though...frustrating at times...man you outta get into rain barrels. I forgot to mention that one on the list. You could easily rig rainwater harvesting, barrels or gardens, with landscaping. I hear ya especially as the weather gets warmer. Best of luck and may you find the help you need to survive and thrive.

... :/ ... Ok I did it!

Thanks for keeping up the positive inspiration and offering up energies and ideas of posibilities.

I am in the farm equipment repair business but end up working on a bit of everything.  While I would argue it is very worth while in a sense it has a number of downfalls.

1.  While the lower end repairs don't require a huge tools set they require a large experience/knowledge base to reduce problem solving time and increase the number of problems you .

2.  Many customers don't understand the value and the costs.(sometimes it is me in the wrong)

3.  older stuff.

A lady I dated 20 years ago was going to school, raising 4 kids and working.  Her extra income was morning walks on trash days in richer neighborhoods.  Mostly she took 4 things home,  Vacuum cleaners, lawn mowers, BBQ grills and bicycles.  

She said more than half of the vacuum failures were simple plugs.  Usually dry cat or dog turds wedged in the hose.  If she could not fix it easy it went in her trash and the rest she sold or gave away.  Now one lesson she learned the hard way here was bug control.  Every vacuum she brought home went in the freezer first.  She kept a chest freezer that about half of its capacity was devoted to killing by freezing.

Mowers she had about half there again that a new plug, fuel system cleaner and clean gas solved.  I taught her a few other common problems and their fixes.  Starter rope replaced as another common one.

BBQ grills were typically hose, valves and igniters and she salvaged pieces to deal with other broken parts.  There again picked the best and about half went in her trash.

Bicycles she was more selective on and tried to only take home the one that were pricey or in good shape.  She kept her kids and neighbors kids in bikes.

Over all she figured she could make twice as much as her food service job per hour if she was a bit picky and because her overhead was low.  If she hauled home 6 things a week found while taking a walk she took anyway, fix and sold 3 it was a nice little side income.

I know it's hard man. You gotta find the strength to keep on kicking. You got people counting on you. Anytime.

All of these smaller side hustles are good ideas for pocket money, because they fly under The Man's radar. Insurance, liability, lawsuits, permits and licenses, blah blah blah. Trickles of income are like trickles of water in the desert -- they matter.

In mid-May I'm going to resurrect my casual sharpening gig. People have been asking. All those pruners, loppers, and kitchen knives are long overdue for a tune-up. Earns a bit of cash and does a good deed for the community -- what's not to love?