Smoka's Ramblings

The second part of the 6 part series titled My quest for extra income will revovle around our sign business. First, let me give a brief history on how the sign business came about, then I will go into a bit more detail on how it makes us extra income.

Follow up:

About 8 years ago, my brother-in-law raced stock cars at a local track. When we found out he was paying over 300+ dollars for two door numbers and a roof number, I made the following statement: I could do it cheaper if I had the equipment. You see, I knew the sign making equipment was fairly cheap if you got a deal on a starter package. How did I know this? Well, I used to work on the west coast for a company that sold, installed, and trained customers on sign making equipment and programs. So, my father-in-law said he'd put up the money for the equipment if I cut a major deal lettering the stock car at cost. I agreed and our sign business was born.

Now, there is a fee to get started. You need a computer, which we had, a plotter which the father-in-law bought in a bundled package for 3000 dollars, and the sing making software. Luckily, the software was in the bundle with the plotter. I swear, the software is one of the costliest pieces to the puzzle. Well, I won't get started on that as I just find it totally insane what they charge for software. Oh well, people are obviously paying it since they've been in business for years.

We figured that since the equipment was in place and all was working that we might as well open a business out of the home for sign making. Word spread fairly quickly to other race car drivers and we did odd jobs here and there. Some might be 20 dollars, some coming in at over 1000 dollars. Over the years we have added to the equipment we use to make signs and graphics, but with the same principle: Do it cheap enough as to not gouge the customer, but still enough to cover costs of current equipment, taxes, and a little bit for time.

We haven't gotten rich with the business, but there have been times the extra income has come in handy. I would say 99% of the profits have gone to supplies and upgrades. We have expanded our offerings from just vinyl graphics and basic signs to now being able to print on vinyl for more robust signs/graphics, to tshirts, mugs, mousepads, and the newest edition: engraved necklaces and keychains. The tshirt portion we have expanded upon and have a website for people to order premade designs. It's in the infancy stages but the hits are increasing, which means profits will increase in due time.

We don't advertise beyond our name in the yellow pages. Maybe we are spreading ourselves too thin with all we do around here, but we have made it comfortable enough to live decent, and we put in hard work to get to this point.

So, there you have it. A sign business as an extra income, not the sole income. In the next section I will discuss our online gaming adventures as a stumbled upon source of extra income.