What I miss is something about bees, not much coming anymore, guess all bees and -keepers are in winter(ing) mode.
Like Allen pointed out in a later post, financial management and having 'business sense' are every bit as important to running a successful bee operation as good beekeeping.
Here in Central Ohio, many beekeepers are saying we had the best fall flow they had ever seen.
I run single deeps in the summer. I start getting hives ready for winter the end of August. I throw a couple empty supers under the brood box, and put in Apivar. 6 weeks later when I returned to pull the old Apivar strip and do any last minute feeding, I found hives with over 100 pounds of goldenrod honey. I haven't had to do any supplemental feeding on hives to prepare for winter.
Today was probably the last nice day this year. It got up to 70. There are a couple days next week it is supposed to get in the low 60's. After that, most days will only have highs in the 50's, and keep getting colder. If you don't have hives ready for winter, you are running out of time to get it done.
First time I ever made a mistake in anything. It will not happen again.
Well, if that's the worst mistake you ever make, I'd say you are set pretty good.
As it happens, as I arrived home last night I just finished listening to the entire nine hours and fifty-five minutes of Jim Rickards' "Currency Wars".
I also think Jim Rickards is worth paying attention to, even if I don't agree 100% with him on everything.
His new book is "The Death of Money."
Buying something because it is a deal when you don't need it is no deal and saves nothing.
Not always. A good friend of mine's brother is what old timers would call a 'horse trader'. He is always wheeling and dealing.
As Steve has said on numerous occasions, "Something bought right is already half sold."
I've bought a lot of stuff I didn't need, and would never use...simply because it was a deal...and then I resold it.
Beekeeping involves a lot of labour, a lot of knowledge, and a lot of risk therefore it should be easy to find a way to make money.
Risk is called risk for a reason. There are more ways to lose money with bees than to make money with bees.
And old joke...
I've heard there is a lot of money in bees.
Yeah, but the hard part is getting it back out of them.
Those savings if I am allowed to use the word mean that you buy when you are on site anyhow and only spend a fraction of what you would otherwise. The difference is value you effectively 'earned' and nobody can tax it.
You are on the right track. You have reduced your costs, but you still haven't quite "saved" the money yet. If you spend the value you "earned" on another purchase, then you never realized those savings. In order to save the money, you have to reduce your costs, and then not spend the money on another purchase.
If you are able to get $5 off that roast you are buying, and then spend that $5 on increased consumption and treat yourself to snacks and a pop at the gas station, then you have not saved any money.
I don't buy some things at Costco, even though the price is cheaper, because the quantities may spoil before I use it.
PS I buy TP by the case at Costco. I do not buy it 10 cases at a time even though I think it would pay better then my savings account because I am willing to forego the profit and keep the storage space.
My grandparents were raised during the Depression. They stockpiled stuff. They probably had 20 or 30 cases each of TP and paper towels. The mice had a heyday. Believe it or not, TP can spoil if you buy too much and put it in storage for decades.
My grandparents also stockpiled sugar. They had bags of sugar with coupons on the bags that expired back in the 70's. I think some of the bags were even older than that, but we had no way of dating the bags to know how old they were. And yes, mice got into those bags too. (But I inherited those sugar bags to use for bee feed.)
Money in the bank is not saving, it is a low risk investment paying about .6%, unless you have locked it up at a higher return.
Don't forget to factor in the cost of inflation. Money in the bank usually pays less than 0.6%.
You can't overlook opportunity cost though. The person who can make the deal gets the deal. (A quote from a self-made millionaire I know.) You can't take advantage of bargains if you don't have the cash to make the deal happen.
Some say it takes a government to take a valuable commodity like paper, slap some ink on to it and make it worthless.
Even when it is worthless, it still isn't worthless.
Back during the hyperinflation of the Weimar Republic (Germany) people would burn bundles of money in their furnaces. Burning bundles of money was cheaper than burning firewood or coal.
I do agree with Jim Rickards that folks should put some money in physical gold and silver that is in their immediate possession, as a way of saving money. I do not view gold coins as an investment - it is a way of saving money.
For the past few thousand years you could buy a very nice suit of clothes for an ounce of gold....or 400 loaves of bread...about the same amount of goods or services that an ounce of gold will buy you today.
B. Farmer Honey
Central Ohio