A Losing Proposition
Every once in a while I have a “brilliant” idea for a way of making extra money. This usually happens around the holidays or a few months before my annual kayaking trip with 15 friends. Extra money is good for both of these occasions. Over the years, however, my way of making extra money often becomes…well…a drudgery and, if truth be told, the extra money is hardly worth it. I’ve learned the hard way that it’s better to save all year long than to try to make a few extra bucks in some brilliant way.
My latest endeavor was to make mother-daughter felted purses. I made one set for my daughter and granddaughter and the purses are really cute. Friends and family members urged me to make more sets and to sell them. Wow! What a great idea for making extra holiday cash.
I took my set to a chi-chi children’s boutique in town to show the owner my creations. She loved the purses and said she’d be happy to make them available on consignment. She would sell them for $50 a set and take 25 percent. This sounded good. She wanted five sets by the following week. I could do this.
After purchasing the necessary wool yarn ($10 per set), I set about making my flower-embellished creations. For the next week I worked day and night on these purses. Knitting the mother’s purse takes approximately four hours; the daughter’s, two hours. Then there are the flowers and leaves. Another two hours are required. After everything is knitted, felted and dried, it then takes at least an hour to attach the embellishments, which includes pearls, crystals or buttons for the flower centers, to the purses. My labels are added and the purses are done. Total time is just over seven hours per set.
Now let’s see. The $50-per-set, which sounded like a fortune, becomes…well…hardly worth all the effort. The amount is first reduced by the shop owner’s take, which is $15. Okay…so I only make $35. But wait! I’ve got to take off $10 for the yarn. (I don’t even add in the cost of thread, flower centers and labels.) Now I’m down to $25 per set. If you put in the time it takes to make these purses, I make a grand total of approximately $3.56 per hour!
In addition to making a less-than-minimum wage, this newest endeavor threatened my love of knitting and my husband’s patience. (I had no time for him because I had to “mass produce” felted purses.) My house was a mess. (No time to clean.) Making meals became a thing of the past. For a week my life was all about purses.
Years ago a friend, an accomplished and popular artist, gave me a painting that he had created just for me. This artist sold his work for no less than $300 a piece and he gave me one for free! I was overwhelmed by his gift and offered to pay him for it. “You never lose what you give away.” He told me this and the words have stuck with me—most of the time—as the years have progressed. I forget the words occasionally when my goal of making extra money takes over.
I started out making felted purses as gifts to family and friends. Each one I made provided me with joy. I was able to combine my passion for knitting with a way of providing a special gift for someone I loved. Turning this activity into a business became a losing proposition in a number of ways. Thankfully I learned this lesson in a short amount of time. The five sets of purses were delivered along with the proclamation that I was no longer in the knitting business. I wanted to return to the joy of never losing what I give away.
Comments
Now, Sandra, if you really want to make some money, you take all these stories and put them in a book. You are a great writer.
Posted by: Carol | November 5, 2007 11:46 AM