Selling firewood

June 17, 2006 | Filed Under manual labour, Money making as young | 4 Comments 

If you have access to natural resources like trees and wood you can count yourself lucky.

Easy to sell, but do not forget the delayed gratification

When I was 17-18 years old I chopped down wood all summer, put an advert in the classifieds section of the local newspaper in the winter and people started to call me.

It was easy to sell because the demand for firewood was high at the time due to rising electricity prices. The alternative cost of using firewood instead of electricity to heat your home was favourable, therefore creating demand for my products.

The downside of it is that it is very hard work to do for a lifetime and it can be hard to expand the business due to limited natural resources (only had a tiny tiny forest to work with). Another thing you have to be aware of is “delayed gratification.” You work during the summer to produce the firewood, then it has to dry for a few months before you can sell it in the winter when people demand it. You will not get your money until 4-7 months after the work is put in.

How to become filthy rich in the firewood business?

As I worked with all this wood I had plenty of time to ponder about that particular question. The solution if I was to go into the business on a larger scale would be to import wood from countries with low wages and plenty of resources. In Europe this would be Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia. By importing the goods I would gain 2 things:

1) No more hard labour for myself

2) The business was easily expandable because you could only import more if you wanted to sell more.

Of course, this transformed the business from a production based enterprise to the art of marketing and selling firewood.

At the time there were several other people doing this import of wood from low cost countries so I decided to not go through with it. A few years later the price of firewood had dropped due to the competition.

An OK option for young people

To conclude, firewood is like a commodity. I think it would be pretty hard to become filthy rich by selling it, but if you enjoy some hard work on your own, I think it is a nice little earner for teenagers or children that want to earn some extra in their vacation.