05/05/2024
I guess I'm ready to address the elephant in the room. Grab a seat, get something to drink, buckle up because this is going to be a long one.
I'm sure by now in our small community the rumors are starting to circulate. Yes, it is true, I am getting out of the Firewood business. This was a decision I have been battling with for a few years. As my firewood business continued to grow, my heart was telling me there was another way.
If I may shed a little light into my personal life. I got into the firewood business purely out of a need. In 2013, Rhonda Dickey and I had just started dating. My daughters Hailey Dickey and Liberty Dickey had just moved in with me and we were living in a little fixer upper rent house outside of Cutler. I had been working for my landlady as a handy man but to be honest about 30% of my work required crawling through swamps under trailers looking for water leaks and fix them only to get home and get a shower to be called and told its leaking again. About 40% of my income was mowing grass for her at her farm and rental properties. And then well the rest of my income was whatever I could scrape together doing odd jobs and also my link card and welfare money. Winter came and the grass wasn't going to need mowed anymore so my boss suggested that I go out and cut her some wood on her property and I could give her enough to keep her supplied and use her log splitter and 4 wheeler to get the wood and split the wood and could sell it for profit. All I had was ambition. No saw ,no truck ,nothing but a plan. My dad gave me a little saw he had and I borrowed my boss lady's equipment. Oh yeah, forgot to mention it was in Rockwood Illinois. As in Turkey Bluffs. Hardest money I had ever made in my life and I practically gave the stuff away. Had a short term like 3 week business partner in the beginning but thats a story hardly worth telling. But anyways thats how it all started. I feel most of y'all pretty much have been up to speed of how it has been going through the years. The wood business taught me a lot about business, integrity, honesty, hard work, perseverance, reliability, relationships.....
It started as a side hustle but became my main thing for the 1st few years. But I hit a fork in the road. Wasn't making enough money. Didn't have enough equipment to make it fast enough to keep up with the demand. And wasn't making any money at all. My bills was always late. We was always behind on rent. I needed help and fast. My phone was ringing of the hook but wasn't making any money. Couldn't afford to keep my junk equipment running and cant keep up with orders. Nothing made sense. My wife suggested we pray about it. ........ deep breaths. ... So she prayed for someone to invest in me. Not my credit score. Not my reputation just me. Welll..... He delivered.. I don't want to dig to deep into my friends personal life as of respect for his wishes to not be on Facebook. But that person was there for me. And most of you who have had the pleasure of doing business with us have met my friend and business partner. I ended up going back to working a full time job and had firewood as a side hustle.. later in life I got a better paying job but still sold firewood on the side. It was a great side business. Lots of great lessons I've learned in this business sense 2013. I have made some lifelong friends that started out as customers. Y'all know who you are and I love all of you. Fast foward to 2021. On purely a fluke we had an old john boat for sale or trade and a dude on marketplace was willing to trade me two riding lawnmowers and a trailer to haul them on for a boat that I had only paid $500 for. Wasn't something I needed but figured in the spring when people got tax money I'll hock em and should turn that into 1000-1500 bucks. So all winter as I split wood I stared at those mowers sitting on that trailer and realized this guy traded me his job for leisure. He said he was getting out of Lawncare and wanted a boat to go fishing and was happy to trade a job for a boat. It actually made a lot of sense. But my thoughts were why did his Lawncare business fail him? It was clear. He didn't have the right tools for the job. He had non efficient old tractor style lawnmowers on a janky looking trailer. If I would hire this guy I would expect it to be cheap. If he had professional looking equipment that can obviously do a good efficient job he probably would have been able to make more money and work less. But instead worked more and made less. The firewood business will teach you how to work smart. Every time you handle a stick of Firewood you make less money. This guys whole system was broken. I thought man, I can afford a good zero turn. I could use that trailer until I can buy a nicer one. I could make money in the summer with grass and firewood and the winter and eventually quit my job. I told Rhonda my plan and she was NOT IMPRESSED!!! I believe her words were YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE 3 JOBS NOW. WHEN WILL YOU BE HERE!!! She had a valid point but if I could just get the customers maybe by next year I could loose the coal mine job and do grass in the summer and wood in the winter. Seems logical. What you probably don't know is that even though the majority of your firewood sales is seasonal the work continues year round. You have to have product to sell when its time to sell and you gotta make hay when the sun is shining. If you understand the analogy. Turns out the Lawncare business does have almost year round services. But I had to check out in the fall because it was time to sell wood. The thing no one talks about in the Firewood business is if you want to get to the level you are making a living it will take a lot of money in equipment to do it efficiently and be able to walk at the end of each day. When I say a lot of money, go look at the prices of things like of everything built heavy duty in the realms of pick up trucks, logging equipment, tractors, loaders, skid steers, not to mention commercial log processing equipment, chainsaws dump trailers. You can see how the spending never really seems to end. And the wood will sell. It never gets wasted if stored properly. But the only question is when? The banks don't care if you have had a bad month. You agreed to the terms of the loan and you should honor your agreement. Allow me to stop right here because I feel some folks may be thinking I'm going out of business rather than GETTING out of business. I have never missed any payments on my equipment. I honor my obligations.
But now to the elephant over In the corner. Why am I getting out of Firewood? Its actually very simple. Math.... If running a business has tought me anything, its that numbers don't lie. Math is math. And here is the basic math.
Lawncare business =
almost zero debt.
Can see returns on most investments within 3-12 months.
Don't require heavy duty equipment = less $
You do the work and get payed NOW
You can predict the income just by counting how many mowing weeks you have in a season. Then can offer a variety of fall winter and spring services
Firewood Business =
50k of debt
2k a month overhead regardless of income
Pain all the time.
Unpredictable income (u don't know when you will sell it)
I have no regrets. I wouldn't be finding my success in Lawncare if I hadn't learned the business lessons of the Firewood business. Im turning 40 this year. All my kids are move out. Its me, Rhonda and Dixie. I don't have to grind so hard to survive. To be honest the second I said out loud " I'm selling the firewood business " it was like a mountain was lifted of my back. This has been the most freeing and liberating transitions of my life. Its funny. Several years ago before I got myself into massive debt I remember sitting in a Dave Ramsey Financial peice university class at church and he said... " You ever been sitting in the chairs in the lobby of a bank waiting to ask the loan manager for a loan you know you will likely be denied on?" he continued, Do you ever notice how nice those chairs are? Do you know why they are so nice?... because you keep giving them all your money?. Years later I found myself sitting in those chairs outside my local bank manages office waiting to ask to borrow money and Dave Ramseys voice popped in my head. I must admit im those times I felt a bit of shame. Debt is necessary sometimes in business. But it sucks. Id really been thinking on this lately as I look at the massive amount of debt the firewood business carries. Yes I'm making the payments just fine but I don't get to keep much if any for myself. I actually felt like I worked for the banks. I would tell people that sometimes when they would ask what I do. Because i felt it was true. I work to give the banks all my money. The Lawncare business didn't seem to have that problem. I can go buy a new mower and find a account that will pay off a mower on one season.
So its funny how God works sometimes. Last week after I had made the decision to sell the business I started listing some of my equipment for sale. One item of wich is a commercial log splitter that I actually owe some money on yet at the bank. No worries, I owe much less than its worth and plan to go straight to the bank and pay it off as soon as its sold. But anyways I get a call from the bank. My gut tells me this
isn't good. Maybe they think I'm selling it and skipping out on the loan. So I quickly answer and to my surprise its the manager congratulating me on my Lawncare business growing and was actually kind of happy to hear I was getting out of Firewood. He also wanted me to come give him a qoute to do some work on the hedges at the bank. Fast foward to last Friday. I just finished up doing the job the bank had hired me to do. I wanted to go in and thank him for his business and have him walk with me to inspect my work and make sure he was happy with it. I found he had someone in his office so I made myself comfortable in those nice comfy chairs outside his office. Dave Ramseys voice was in my head. I was thinking about how this one decision I've made is going to get me out of massive debt in the next few weeks. I will have money in the bank. Several loans and debts I have already been able to make go away in the matter of days. Im sitting in that comfy chair thinking people like me has worked hard paying for chairs like this. No disrespect to the banks. Its business. We need them and they need us. But I realized no more!! I got to start keeping money for myself. I can't help anyone if im giving away all of the money to banks. About that time, my friend and local bank manager, comes out of his office seeing me admire the quality of this chair I'm sitting in smiles and says " those are some comfy chairs huh? " without missing a beat I said " Yeah I've worked so hard to buy them for you." He laughed, I laughed, but we both understood exactly what I was saying. So there it is. I hope no customers are feeling abandoned and I have a sea of eager firewood suppliers asking for your info. So if you need firewood, for now anyways, reach out and I will do my best to connect you with the right supplier. Thank you for all the support this community has given Plum Creek Firewood And Mulch. I hope to continue to work with many of you as Plum Creek Lawncare. Love y'all. That's my story and I'm stickin' with it. God Bless and See yall around town.
