Spreadsheets

It is funny how lovely you can make predictions with working spreadsheets. You know, if everything goes perfect and I make XXX pounds of cheese a week, I can pay all of my bills and make $50,000/year in YEAR ONE!!!!!!

Right.

I love to get these spreadsheets to people. They play with them. They get excited. "I've decided to sell commodity style cheddar for $10/#, because I think I'll make $100,000 right off...waaahaaahoooooooo"

The reality is that forages have to come in and the four year old needs watching and the heifers broke through the fence again and the pigs broke through the gate and the farmers market was rained out for two weekends in a row... Well, not all true, but that could have happened.

The Farmland Viability grants are due on the 20th or so. Grants are not the end all of succeeding in a business. If you depend on a grant to get into or stay in a farming business (or any for that matter) you are not proposing a sustainable project. What would happen if you didn't get it? Many don't. Does that mean that you are out of business? How can you prove that you will not be out of business after the end of the grant cycle?

I got one last year. Didn't really need it. Wrote it to write one for myself. Kind of a shits and giggles kind of thing. Now I have to cashflow my cost share and actually do this stuff. Also it is a reimbursement kind of thing. Hence writting business plans and those spreadsheets and writing more grants for others. Have to cash flow my business plan and my grant now...

Man, I should be making cheese today. If I make 90 batches of Gouda this year, I can make $35,000...