The people in it to make a living spend the winter building equipment and doing maintainance setting up pollination contracts fixing their own trucks. They take the larger portion of their income moving the bees onto crops for a fee, perhaps as many as 6.Tree fruits, small fruits, melons, cukes, pumpkins, seed crops up and down the coast or elevations. Might even make a few bucks selling nucs and queens, or at least producing some for their own. The honey is a byproduct that can be sold. So is the cappings wax. You paid full bust out retail for all of your supplies. If you bought 500 or a 1000 of anything the price is a bit lower. Right now you are paying for an education in beekeeping. After a wile you might just build your own supers, make a few splits with swarm cells, trade honey for lumber,etc.

I bought my land-- 18 acres woods/5 tillable-- 6 years ago for $2,000/acre. Land around me is now going as high as $6,000/acre. As I noted in another post, I don't regret the 5% interest I paid to obtain this ground when every other investment opportunity has dried up miserably. At my bank the other day, I noticed a 3 mo CD would bring a pathetic 1/4%. I think I'll just invest in my farm. Unbelievably, the sport of deer hunting here has also driven up the price of what was once cheap land. "Junk ground" which has a history of producing big deer sells for almost as much as good farmland, and people always seem to want more land for recreation. Eventually, you'll see taxes changing drastically on what truly is considered "farmland."

Hi Jockewing, Along with the others, my condolences for you & your family with your Grandmother's passing. Some basic rules of thumb for your financial management; A) "Reserves rule" and you want to initially have, at minimum, safe & liquid funds set aside in an account that cannot lose money to the markets, equal to no less than 6 months of your total costs of living (and preferrably 12 months,) B) I suggest your "longterm goal" to be to grow your investments to the eventual point where they can throw off enough passive cashflow (without eating into the principal) to cover 100% of your living expenses. This, of course, is the definition of "Financial Freedom." C) As long as your after-tax interest costs on leverage (loans, mortgage, etc.) remain less than your after-tax average rate of growth on investments, leave the leverage principal alone, and direct every additional discretionary dollar you can into your growth accounts. D) Yes, you will want to build a "risk/reward pyramid" distribution of your newly acquired assets to fit your stage and profile in life (which considers far more than merely your age... but family status & plans, career/educational status & plans, likely longevity (family history,) personal financial attitude, and other factors.) All of this, properly done, will likely require the oversight of a good planner... and even then you're going to see significant differences in planning styles, so its a good idea to take your time to interview various planners (and I suggest from various different "financial cultures." Talk with securities-oriented planners, insurance-oriented planners, legal/tax-oriented planners... get a rounded exposure.) REGARDING YOUR NEW 2nd HOME: Renting it out is more than simply "renting it out." It is more than simply "taking tax-advantaged cashflow" from your held appreciating asset. Doing so is a decision to enter into the business of being a landlord. It is crucial to understand the gravitas of this, as a decision. (Personally I love the business of being a landlord, for so MANY reasons... but as an Advisor myself, I know too many individuals who never realized it is a business, and have financially suffered because of that.) NOW... regarding cleaning up your credit. Contrary to the advice above, DO NOT try to go it via any generic "rules of thumb." You *DEFINITELY* want the guidance of someone who understands how to read the reason codes of your current tri-merge credit report, and translate them into priorities and actions to be applied. The people who can generally guide you on this the best are mortgage brokers (even if you are not going to do a refi.) The "clean your credit" businesses are more often than not a scam. Retail bank loan officers generally don't know or care about the intricacies of credit improvement. CFPs, CPAs, Attorneys, etc. are virtually *always* clueless about how the credit bureaus report their specifics, and how to use the reports as an action plan. Your standard individual Mortgage Broker will be far more likely to dig in & help you work through your plan (even if it takes 2, 3, even 6 months) to get your credit in shape to get a great refinance... and they'll usually do it for no charge (just your honor of doing your refinance with them when (and if) you actually refinance.) Kind of a service "loss leader" for them. To recap; RESERVES RULE! Everything else *AFTER* you've locked-out sufficient reserves. SAFETY FIRST! Get the "guaranteed money" foundation of your risk/reward pyramid in place #1. SHOP PROFESSIONALS (not investments.) Be sure to shop differing "financial cultures." Hope that's helpful! Dave Donhoff Leverage Planner

Ok, I had a long post almost set and my battery died. And I have to sleep. Here's a reply to a similar question, my appologies it's not 100% tailored to this post. "Ok, first things first. You need to decide roughly how much risk you are willing to take. This would be based on your age/closeness to retirement, what percentage of your savings this money represents, your risk tolerance, etc. Then you have to decide if this is as good time to jump in. You don't have to wait for an ideal time, but if you think we are due for another "adjustment" in the economy in the next year or less, you would want to wait for the adjustment to occur then get in. If you think we are going to continue to head upward, then by all means the sooner the better. Now this is not on a day to day or even week to week basis, but overall trending. Nobody knows the answer to this, this is where even the most conservative investors have to gamble, especially when investing a lump sum. When you buy a little at a time, like paycheck deferral, you get "dollar cost averaging" where you are buying shares regularly as the price goes up and down, so some shares you own you bought a lot cheap and some you paid more for a few. If you just want to toss the money in someplace relatively safe-ish and leave it there, the Vanguard Total Market Index is a great choice. Leave it there for a while while you educate yourself on financial matters. You don't need to agree with them, but listen to Ric Edelman, Bob Brinker, or Dave Ramsey on the radio for a while. Listen to the way they think about things, the lingo, the thought processes. You will pick up a lot. At the very least, you will know enough to ask good questions if you seek professional assistance, what to look for in professional assistance, and much more. If this money is all your savings, I'd keep at least $1k easily accessible in a bank as an emergency fund, for actual emergencies. Then most advocate for 3-6 months living expenses in a safe investment. Then anything left you can take enough risk to grow and invest somewhere based on your risk tolerance." -----the important points here are to not rush into anything. Your not losing ground, so either leave things alone for a little longer or dump the gains into a Vangaurd total market index while you figure something else out. Spend time listening to the people mentioned above. You will pick up a ton of stuff. Maybe enough to pick some funds on your own, but certainly enough to understand most of what an advisor will tell you and ask good questions. And definitely see an independent fee for service advisor. This is a serious chunk of change, and you need to make sure you understand the tax stuff a bit as well as make sure you avoid any hidden penalties, or loopholes, or whatever else might be a problem. Sadly, regular people trying to be smart and save their money get hit with a lot of obstacles.