How To Make Big Money Selling Firewood! Not What You Think
You know I can't figure out the firewood Business You know on one hand I think it's a Great idea for something that my kids Can do and help out with and maybe set Up a roadside stand a lot of good Lessons hard work Flexible around schedules you know you Can just kind of do it when you have Time but on the other hand folks that Are out there doing this As grown-ups I I can't make the numbers Work I really can't so I am missing Something hopefully you guys can fill me In on it but there is so much touch time That is involved With producing firewood and especially Firewood bundles on top of that that I Just I mean it It doesn't seem it seems like you're Making less than minimum wage on a per Hour basis not to mention all the Equipment that you need hear me out I'm Going to go through what I think are are The costs that are involved in this Whole process here the things that just Don't add up to me I mean if you value Your time at all what kind of what kind Of price point are you putting on an Hour's worth of your own labor for a kid I think it makes a lot of sense for an Adult I can't figure it out Hometown Acres did a video about this recently he Did a little experiment where he spent a
Day or two pretending like he did Firewood just producing firewood Full-time for his business he crunched Numbers I think he's an accountant by by Day if I recall correctly so he knows a Little bit about numbers Came down to it at the end of the year It was like bringing home thirty four Thousand dollars which I think that was making like 200 plus Cores of wood a year full-time 34 Grand Year that you're bringing home no thanks Man okay so here's why I think it's a Great business for kids you know if you Have Active kids like we do in sports and all Sorts of other extracurriculars going on You know it can be tough to find Something steady That you can do at a set time or going Elsewhere so besides regular chores if You want them to kind of learn the value Of money and and how their work can be Rewarded Then I think it's a really good business You know you can do it in your free time You can do it at home it's fresh air Outdoors season doesn't really matter Too much manual labor it's doable right Every kid can pick up a small piece of Wood There's a real need for it out there Right in rural communities everybody Needs that wood it's satisfying you know
To hear that wood split to stack it to Turn it in from just a a tree trunk into Something usable that's really cool too And you're teaching them life skills Right even passive sales right how to Make money and how you can learn how to Do something at one point and then kind Of like how I do on with the internet Right you make these videos on working During the day but we'll have sales come In at night nobody's answering the phone Folks just go to our website maybe they Look at our videos they see what they Want they figure it out an order comes In overnight happens all the time right So those are kind of passive sales so to Speak and a smarter way to do business If you can and so to translate that to The firewood business it's it's setting Up the roadside stand right where you Have it down at the end of your drive And folks just come there when they're Passing by it doesn't matter you don't Have to be there attending it there is a Bit of a trust factor involved I know Some folks have done videos about you Know getting all their their cash stolen And different ways to secure that and Extra costs involved there and yada yada So don't want to overthink it right now It's just kind of the general principle Where I do think there's a lot of value In doing so With the kids now obviously folks out
There have figured this out Ohio wood Burner he's killing it you know he's He's got the magic recipe put together He's knocking it out and good for him I'm obviously not smart enough to figure Out what that is but Getting back to Hometown Acres said Making 34 Grand a year bringing that Home he's charging a premium in his area For a cord of wood for example I think he was getting 350 I don't think It was 400 I can't remember but it was Definitely a lot more than around here Which you you scan Facebook Marketplace And it's ranging from 225 to 300 bucks On a high end for a cord of wood And so that profit that hometown's Raking in would be even lower if he was In our area in Michigan we are proud to Be sponsored by rim guard Solutions a Liquid ballast weight it goes right Inside your tires completely hidden We're big on safety on this channel These tractors are just too light and Tippy right out of the factory not only Is it going to help with safety keeping Those rear tires planted on the ground It helps us loader efficiency and Traction too the benefits of rim guard Include being the heaviest all-natural Liquid ballast weight on the market it's Not going to corrode your rims like the Old calcium chloride it's not going to Freeze and it's available at over a
Thousand dealers Nationwide find the Dealer near you at rimguardsolutions.com Okay so anyway I had to to think about How could you do this with the least Amount of touch time right that's I Think widely known Your labor time involved with you know The selling the limbing the Bucking you Know the the splitting the stacking the Drying time the moving things around It's there's just so much labor time Involved That you need to cut that down somehow And yeah there are expensive pieces of Equipment that can do that like a Firewood processor we've shown you guys That too But you have to plan on doing that Basically full time I think in order to Justify it you know year round An operator on there constantly Producing firewood in order to recoup That investment which is tens of Thousands of dollars so crazy idea Want to run this by guys what if You bought in bulk cords of wood all Right so around here they're selling 225 To 300 I paid 300 for some cherry that Had been two years seasoned probably Don't need to do that but let's just say The average is 250 what if you bought Four cords of wood from somebody maybe You could get it for 170 180 bucks Delivered per quart of wood all right so
You're taking all of that earlier stuff Out you don't have to find the trees if You don't have them right cut them down Limb them block them Split them Dry them Find the big IBC totes to put them in Move all the stuff around I mean there is countless labor hours Gone right and you're buying at Wholesale prices doing some research it Seems like typically a firewood bundle Is the most profitable way to sell Firewood okay and one cubic foot It seems to be the industry standard You'll see some three quarters some a Little bit over a cubic foot but one Foot okay and there's 128 cubic feet and A cord so that's 128 five dollar Firewood bundles five dollars seems to Be the standard you may see six in some Locations who knows maybe inflation is Affecting trees too okay so let's say You have a hundred percent Usable quantity out of that cord of wood Get 128 five dollar firewood bundles That's 640 bucks from one quart of wood That you paid 180 bucks for now I've Seen some firewood bundlers out there Look pretty sweet some claiming you can Do a bundle in a minute that seems crazy Fast to me Let's just say you do a bundle in two Minutes half that speed that's 30
Bundles in an hour it's going to take You let's just say four hours to bundle A quart of firewood so you have four Hours of Labor right there now there's Other costs involved as well right You're gonna have the bundler Which a thousand bucks seems to be on The low end of one of those bundlers and I did some math there uh oh hang on I Did the math yeah yeah let's see Thousand dollars for a bundler let's say You did four thousand bundles which is 31 cords of wood That would make the cost per bundle 25 Cents all right so you break down that Firewood bundler cost if you get to 4 000 bundles produced on there that's 25 Cents a bundle 4 000 bundles It's a lot of bundles man okay plus an Average it sounds like of about 25 cents In uh the wrap okay so you can go that Route or you can go with the bags the Bundle bags that are typically around 75 Cents maybe a little bit more a little Bit less uh you don't have that bigger Initial expense if you want to stop say You're tired of doing it after a Thousand you give up and you throw your Hat in well then you don't have that be Extra expenses sitting out there to well You can probably sell it off or recoup Some of that money but uh either way You're going to have
50 to 75 cents in the materials there to Prep that bundle so our input cost Per bundle is our firewood all right our One cubic foot of firewood is about a Dollar forty Then we have let's just say 50 cents in Our our packing of some kind for the Wrap or for the bag or whatever so That's a dollar ninety out of five bucks Okay so we have three dollars ten cents Left over for a bundle so at a very high Level this is very simple this doesn't Take into account Um having to move the bundles from point A to point B uh cost of equipment to Move said bundles from point A to point B other things that come into it but if We're making five dollars a bundle we Have a dollar ninety we're gonna round Up to two dollars going into it that's Three dollars a profit okay and if you Can make 30 bundles in an hour you do 30 times The three dollars in profit and that's Potentially 90 bucks an hour that you Can make as long as you get them all out At the roadside stand and sell them all At that price now I don't know what kind Of traffic you get in your area I don't Know how many bundles you could sell in Your area in any given week or month or Season or year But for me that's kind of how I look at Something is what I can get doing
Something in an incremental amount right So an hour's worth of time what can my Potential return be about 90 bucks is Kind of at the high end there if Everything goes smoothly and not taking Out all the other little costs that are Going to chip away at that I do think Potentially if you have your bundles and Bags versus the the plastic wrap they Probably look a little bit more Professional and presentable and you may Be able to charge higher you can always Experiment with six dollars a bundle That would really up your profit level But at that point you have Way less time into producing firewood Than you do With the entire process right you're Getting the the whole Goods delivered to You prepped and ready to go And you just have that last component There to tackle let somebody else do all The heavy lifting right do all the labor Intensive stuff use all the expensive Equipment Just have a delivered to you and are Ready to go State and resell it so going Through all that okay I then thought Well man maybe there's an even easier Way to do this right because folks sell Face cords of wood and there's three Face cords of wood typically in a full Court of wood and so face cords of wood Sell at a premium cost right typically
You buy smaller quantities the price Goes up on a per unit basis and so you Can sell in my area it seems like 120 to 150 bucks for a face cord so a few times Let's just say 130 Times three that's 390 bucks Yeah that's 390 bucks for something that You Paid maybe 180 for the whole cord okay So that's a lot less touch time there's No bagging everything involved You may have to include free delivery And for me then I don't know about that A face cord I think you can fill in a Full Um and an over in a heaped over a truck Bed so if you can dump it all in there Maybe if you're even a little bit on the High side it's just not worth the extra Labor time to to measure it off or count It piece by piece if you can get close And you can minimize your time involved The less you can unless you can have to Mess with something and the more money You can make for it the easier life is So that's how my mind works okay so I Think step one eliminate all the other Stuff if you really want to make money Right eliminate get get find somebody to Buy wholesale from three four five six Ten yards of firewood seasoned ready to Go and one Fell Swoop go about your Bundling that way if you want to Otherwise maybe a bundle part of that
Turn the rest of it into face chords and Sell it off that way that's just Um That's how I would do it right and I I Don't discount you for going out and Doing it on your own I don't discount You for wanting to do it as a hobby for Wanting to heat your house but maybe you Buy and bulk like that and you sell off The face cords or you you resell enough Of it to get the remaining balance of Your firewood for free and heat your House for free that way too so there's a Lot of different ways you can look at Things and I tend to not look at things The same way other folks do so maybe I'm Completely off base here maybe there's Some other key ingredients that I'm Missing that we should be thinking about But this is a bit of a random discussion Today as we now have our own property Have our house we have a firewood Processor we have a wood splitter we Have tons of trees all over the place Too right and I just want to Go into this whole process and I'm going To do it the right way the smart way and The most cost effective way If you want to learn all sorts of stuff About firewood don't watch my Channel Watch Ohio wood burner watch Hometown Acres watch in The Wood Yard watch Outdoors with the Morgans and the list Goes on so many folks out there know so
Much about firewood and that's who I Lean on and who I turn to and you're Going to get a ton of great advice and Ways to shorten your learning curve That's a good thing about YouTube and Over here we deal with trackers that's What we mainly can primarily focus on Here So if you do have a tractor we would Love to earn your business you just Might need some tractor attachments so Check us out at goodworkstrackers.com Our prices include free shipping rewards And financing too so firewood is full of Opinions if you have yours to share Leave a comment down below and let us Know and if you enjoyed today's video And want to see more we'd love to have You tag along hit subscribe as well Thank you for taking time out of your Day to stop by and until next time stay Safe we'll see you soon [Music] [Applause] [Music] Today [Music] Foreign [Music]
