What to Do, What to Do…Well, Let’s Drive!

During the past several weeks, I’ve been contemplating what I will do to earn a living as my extended sabbatical slowly comes to an end. I’ve already extended my planned one year of leisure to fourteen months and am planning more “leisure-time” activities before the sabbatical ends. Despite my appreciation for my time off, I really will soon need to find a source of income that will coincide with a source of enjoyment and fulfillment. As I contemplate my work life future, I am exploring quite a number of possibilities.

My explorations of potential options have taken me down some interesting pathways. The three areas of interest that I have been exploring most seriously have been these: 1) food-related businesses; 2) businesses providing resources for seniors and the elderly; and 3) a public show involving real estate.

The food-related businesses I have been considering have included 1) creating and selling a line of salsas and sauces, which would involve contracting with a co-packaging company for production; 2) creating and selling a line of foods geared toward people with very specific medically necessary diets (e.g., renal diets, low roughage diets, etc.); 3) developing an easy-to-use resource for people who are on such medically necessary diets to help them find sources of foods and recipes, etc. they can use; and 4) creating and selling either ethnic food products (or recipes for them) that retain the wonderful flavors of ethnic foods while reducing their reliance on not-so-healthy ingredients (e.g., alternatives to high-calorie and high-carbohydrate ingredients).

I have not yet fleshed out the ideas for resources for seniors and the elderly.  It occurs to me that one of the best resources in these areas is my experience (though not elderly, I am a “senior” and have encountered a lot of issues unique to that status).  Then again, I have found that there are literally thousands of resources “out there” that may make yet another one I might create redundant.  But I sense there may be too much “out there” that is not easily accessed; perhaps my niche would be to bring order to a somewhat voluminous mass of near chaos.

The seeds of the concept for a public real estate show sprouted from the detritus of some tried-and-failed shows I came across while surfing the internet.  The story of how the idea began to gel is too long and boring to relate here, but the concept is essentially this: bring together the sellers/renters/leasers/developers of residential real estate of all kinds with prospective buyers, all in one place.  The sellers, et al, would be expected to bring valuable information about their communities and developments and homes that would educate prospective buyers about all aspects surrounding the real estate acquisition decision.  So, instead of buyers traipsing all over creation to find the right community, home, neighborhood, etc., they would learn the essentials of areas that most closely fit their ideals.  Then, they would narrow the field further by examining the residential options in those areas and only then would they make physical visits.  Conceptually, I like it.  Practically, I don’t know if it will work.  More assessment is needed.

Yet another few ideas have arisen of late, one of the most intriguing of which is the possibility of buying a new-on-the-market, but old, abandoned church in a town about sixty miles north of Dallas, investing in rehabbing it.  The purchase price for the property is a pittance, only about $50,000, but the cost to make it habitable would be at least $100,000.  But that investment of time and energy would yield a residence/residences or commercial property that has about 3,700 square feet of space.  A key consideration is that the property is in a small town that it not necessarily an economic powerhouse.  Would this rehabbed church contribute in some way to an economic resurgence of the town?  I don’t know.  The idea has enormous appeal to me, though.

But before I do these things, my wife and I have decided to take another road trip.  We’ll skirt along the southern U.S. (Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama) into Florida, where we will visit friends on the west coast of the state.  Then, we’ll continue south and visit the Florida keys.  More on that as our plans develop.