Making Money In This Hobby

[Littleblue12]

Im just curious how profitable is this hobby ? Or does it eat more than you gain in sales ?

[Dallas Cowboy]

Well i am a newbee in this leather world. But i will tell you i own 2 other businesses. Hobbies don't "make" money, businesses do. I have never seen a part time hobby that has made any money to speak of. Now don't confuse hobby with part time job. I know of a couple of holster makers that have full time jobs and make holsters at night or on the weekends. They work 5 or 6 hours a night and usually all day on saturday. SO this to me is a part time job not a hobby. Basically just have fun if thats your goal, or go make money at it if you want a part time job.

[lightingale]

Dallas is right about it being a hobby, not a business. You can turn it into a business, although I believe it's a tremendous uphill battle to get there, especially if you're just starting out.

I make dog collars on the side when I'm inspired, and I sell a few on the side also at an online craft store called Etsy. I just started about a month ago. I haven't made nearly back what I've spent on the hobby (so far made about $120 back on about $1500 I've spent), but it's a beginning and it will enable me to keep trying new things and improve my skills and my tools.

My advice to you starting out, is get quality tools from the beginning, because the cheap stuff you get to "try out" won't work and will only frustrate you.

[DoubleC]

Hi Littleblue. Starting a business and doing it right is long hard work. I've been 'starting' mine since last November, and have yet to make my first sales call. But I'm involved with some agencies that are helping me and although that may take more time; it's going to make it a better business in the long run. I have learned to do excel and keep all my expenses on it so I can see the mistakes I DON'T want to make again. I'm doing a business plan with one agency and they wanted product cost basically to the nickle for my business plan. I just finished that last night. I am still doing market analyses for the plan.

If you decide to make it a business you're going to be the book keeper, marketing specialist, shipping dept., ordering dept. research dept. well I guess you get my point. Plus while you're doing all that you need to be making your products for when you're ready to start selling. I guess how profitable this is really up to you. Cheryl

[Mudruck]

Now don't confuse hobby with part time job. I know of a couple of holster makers that have full time jobs and make holsters at night or on the weekends. They work 5 or 6 hours a night and usually all day on saturday. SO this to me is a part time job not a hobby. Basically just have fun if thats your goal, or go make money at it if you want a part time job.

This right there. It started out as a hobby that I wanted to make money....didn't give it enough time to actually make a profit. I was just feeding the hobby. Now, I work my 'day' job until 5pm, come home, quick meal and hang with the famtime and then from about 7pm to some hour of the night I work my part-time job, making leather goods.

Now in what little free time I have I promote my business. Heck, I've hopped out of the truck and handed out business cards to bikers at stoplights. 'Hey! That is a sweet ride! If you're ever looking for custom leather for it, give me a call!' That doesn't make me a nutjob does it?

Starting to quickly approach the point that I have completely paid for my tools, but that would have taken much longer if I would have stuck with it being a 'hobby'. Eventually, I would like to give up workin' for th' man.... but that is still a little ways down the road.

[paradoxbox]

If you want to make money doing this quickly, don't waste your time doing labor intensive highly customized projects. They eat up material, time and are basically just inefficient projects. Once you have high enough skills people will come to you with custom orders and pay you custom prices - until then stick to easy profitable stuff.

Do small projects that can be quickly mass produced. Key tags, dog collars, commuter pass/cell phone cases, etc. Cut out the leather blanks in batches and do a run of them and sell them in several places at once.

Etsy is an OK way to make money once in a while but in my opinion it's basically a waste of time - it's just a place where housewives trade their goods for free and reduce the value of everyone else's work (Sorry to be harsh)

Edited May 21, 2012 by paradoxbox

[SandSquid]

I have various expensive diversions as my wife calls them; woodworking, reloading, home brewing and vinting, now leather-working... Every one of these obsessions started out the same way; I wanted something and was appalled at the quality and price and decided I could make my own for less $ and better quality. Ask my wife about her $2,000 coffee table. My wife has the MBA and tracks every penny for me, I'm just the Military Intel Weenie looking to stay sane between and during deployments. I found that if I'm more worried about turning a profit it is no longer enjoyable for me.

Woodworking, it took 8 years to recoup all the capital investment I made in equipment and material.

Reloading, Forget it! While it cost me 1/4 per bullet versus buying commercial, and my rounds are much more accurate, I shoot 4x as much.

Home Brewing and Vinting again, all my "profits" get consumed, but I can produce what would be a $100. bottle of Amarone for $10. and my back yard looks amazing covered in vines, so my wife stopped bean-counting.

A BIG thing must craft-persons don;t take into account is their time. I had serious issues with this in woodworking. If I'm making something that a customer can go out and buy commercially for $90, and lets say that takes me 10 hours, and $60 in materials & supplies, how do I justify paying myself a meager $10/Hr. and charge them $160 for it? Well, I got over that real quick! After three years my wife showed me the numbers and I found out that if I were to pay myself $1 and hour we would LOOSE money! Good thing I had a full time job already to pay the mortgage. But prices went up! And guess what, customers still commissioned pieces, who'd a thunk it?

Leatherworking, well I'm still getting started down this rat-hole. All because my wife needed a left-handed leather holster for her 1911. A hundred dollars and a pile of scrap later she has one. Now all my cop/mil/gun-nut buddies want me to make them holsters for them, and the summer camp I volunteer at wants me to try and teach leather-working, in addition to archery, to 200+/- kids per week.... Right now, I'm 100% dead set that this will remain a hobby, I do not want to loose my passion for it. My buddies who want holsters can make donations to my Church's Youth Group fund, and I can buy the stuff I need to teach the kids out of that. That is the plan, and it sounds nice and all... OK, so I just dropped a few hundred dollars at Springfield leather and I have only seen $80 come into the fund. Do I care? Not really. That $80 will produce 200+ wrist bands the kids will (hopefully) buy at $5.00 each. Of that $2 will go back into the fund to buy more stuff, and the other $3 will go into the camps' scholarship fund to help inner-city kids from the neighborhood centers to come to camp who would not otherwise have the opportunity to get to go to cam.. totally "worth it" IMO.

Edited May 25, 2012 by SandSquid

[Luke Hatley]

I have various expensive diversions as my wife calls them; woodworking, reloading, home brewing and vinting, now leather-working... Every one of these obsessions started out the same way; I wanted something and was appalled at the quality and price and decided I could make my own for less $ and better quality. Ask my wife about her $2,000 coffee table. My wife has the MBA and tracks every penny for me, I'm just the Military Intel Weenie looking to stay sane between and during deployments. I found that if I'm more worried about turning a profit it is no longer enjoyable for me.

Woodworking, it took 8 years to recoup all the capital investment I made in equipment and material.

Reloading, Forget it! While it cost me 1/4 per bullet versus buying commercial, and my rounds are much more accurate, I shoot 4x as much.

Home Brewing and Vinting again, all my "profits" get consumed, but I can produce what would be a $100. bottle of Amarone for $10. and my back yard looks amazing covered in vines, so my wife stopped bean-counting.

A BIG thing must craft-persons don;t take into account is their time. I had serious issues with this in woodworking. If I'm making something that a customer can go out and buy commercially for $90, and lets say that takes me 10 hours, and $60 in materials & supplies, how do I justify paying myself a meager $10/Hr. and charge them $160 for it? Well, I got over that real quick! After three years my wife showed me the numbers and I found out that if I were to pay myself $1 and hour we would LOOSE money! Good thing I had a full time job already to pay the mortgage. But prices went up! And guess what, customers still commissioned pieces, who'd a thunk it?

Leatherworking, well I'm still getting started down this rat-hole. All because my wife needed a left-handed leather holster for her 1911. A hundred dollars and a pile of scrap later she has one. Now all my cop/mil/gun-nut buddies want me to make them holsters for them, and the summer camp I volunteer at wants me to try and teach leather-working, in addition to archery, to 200+/- kids per week.... Right now, I'm 100% dead set that this will remain a hobby, I do not want to loose my passion for it. My buddies who want holsters can make donations to my Church's Youth Group fund, and I can buy the stuff I need to teach the kids out of that. That is the plan, and it sounds nice and all... OK, so I just dropped a few hundred dollars at Springfield leather and I have only seen $80 come into the fund. Do I care? Not really. That $80 will produce 200+ wrist bands the kids will (hopefully) buy at $5.00 each. Of that $2 will go back into the fund to buy more stuff, and the other $3 will go into the camps' scholarship fund to help inner-city kids from the neighborhood centers to come to camp who would not otherwise have the opportunity to get to go to cam.. totally "worth it" IMO.

[WinterBear]

[SandSquid]

What, NOW?!?!?!

[rugershooter]

Hilarious Sand Squid! Nothing beats "custom made," bullets, wine, and holsters. I would like to answer "Little Blue 12's" question.

When Sand Squid mentioned how much time he spent to craft an item he was correct in his analysis.

However, all "manufacturing companies," start the same, a table, ideas, drawings, tools and a mchine or two. Now, with the aforementioned in mind, I suggest you continually hone your craft, with production in mind. Like. . . how could I cut these patterns in batches, can I glue and press more efficiently, etc. Break down each step, and you will find that the leather crafting (manufacturing) business requires as many processess (steps) as the tanning business, twenty six.

Finally, if you are producing and shipping 5 pieces per day, which you sell for $200.00 each, but your material cost is say $150.00, your only labor worries at this point is to ramp up your personal production to the point where you have enough working capital to hire your first part time worker.

I can write volumes on this trade....But I hope you get the point, Oh one last things.....packaging, I have seen some holster manufacturers "hand craft" (can still be machine sewed and "hand crafted") dump a beautiful holster in a poly bag! Why insult your products and customers at the same time? Would Hermes do this? No, no, no! Invest some time in selecting nice tastful packaging, and see your profits soar even more!!

[St8LineGunsmith]

you have to look at as a hobby that has the potental to make at least enough money to get your inital investment back with but like others have said if you are making a profit it is no longer a hobby it is a job.

it is a talent within its self to be able to make a profit from items you market

I used to know a group of guys who would work 8 hours making saddles then go to a home work shop and make belts bill folds, guitar straps, holsters Bike leather along with other leather goods and and set up booths at flea markets, craft shows and swap meets etc. and make pretty good money on the weekends at least enough to reinvest in their little enterprize to keep it going and to make enough to buy new and better equipment.

they would spend the cold months making leather goods so they would have stock for sale during the summer.

but none of those guys considered what they were doing a hobby.

I would love to just make random things and package what I make then set up a booth when I got enough goods to fill up a couple of tables and see if anything sells

maybe put some stuff up for sale on ETSY or some other on line store.

[Double U Leather]

I'm gonna throw my 2 cents in here. For me, my leatherwork isn't always about the bottom line profit. If I lose focus on why I ever began dabbling in leather in the first place (it was fun), and start worrying about the profit only, I will become a slave to the leather business. And, I've never heard of too many slaves having fun. Don't get me wrong, I want to be able to make money doing what I do. I've invested alot of time in tools, learning the skills, etc. However, if money is my driving force for doing this, I lose the sense of freedom I've fought to maintain my whole life.

That brings me to my next point. I'm blessed? to have been able to be self employed almost my whole life. My "real" job is being a public address announcer at rodeos and horse shows. I've been doing that for 26 years. Prior to becoming an announcer, I rode bulls professionally for 5 years. I have always cherished the freedom to basically do what I want, when I want to do it. That's just the path I took as a young man. Many of my friends from high school took the "career" path, and have done very well for themselves.

I guess the bottom line for me is this...I could give two pinches about being rich. I just want to be able to pay the bills every month. Between my announcing and leather, I'm able to do that. Do I have a retirement plan or alot of stocks and bonds and investments? No. Does an ol' cowboy really need those things? In my opinion, no.

So, for me, the leather business is a source of cash flow when my announcing gigs slow down. I've been able to turn out enough nice products that people from all over the place are ordering from me on a regular basis. That keeps some money rolling through, and when I'm on the road announcing, I give leather customers my turn around time factoring the road into it. All in all, God has blessed me to chase my dreams my whole life.

I'd much rather be happy than rich. Wow...that was a long rant. Sorry folks...LOL

[Havamal]

_{It is very rare that someone can support themselves with the income generated from an artistic “hobby”. My wife is an artist and is considered moderately “successful” by other artists. We do several high end shows each year where there are 100+ artists & craftsmen participating, out of those artists less than 5% are able to make enough to support themselves. The rest either have day jobs or are supported by their spouse.For most people it is not about making money, but rather doing something you enjoy. (But a little extra cash does not hurt!)}

Edited November 6, 2012 by Havamal