My brother was a single dad on a very tight budget, now he's the most all-around profitable cook I know. (Yes, it's true that the tightest budgets force the most creativity.)

With only the most basic kitchen appliances, a broken man with an income of $6000 a year managed to:<br><br>- Make well more than $20,000 a year on top of that, while working only 20 hours a week, and spending only 20% of that profit on ingredients. <br><br>- Feed his daughter and himself well enough to pass down cooking traditions that the girl would still love today. <br><br>- Excel as a dad by getting 100% custody of his daughter, which required:<br><br>- A very happy home.<br><br>- No problems with the law. <br><br>- Being prepared for anything. <br><br>- Being extremely organized. <br><br>- Being able to cook anything and adapt to any situation. <br><br>- Cope with the divorce and the impending custody battle without drinking or smoking. <br><br>- Get out and meet people. <br><br>- Have time off on the weekends. <br><br>- Make a lot of money doing it. <br><br>Long story short, he started a cooking and baking business. <br><br>**What he made and how:**<br><br>1. **Fruit preserves.**<br><br>- It didn't take him long to figure out that you can make 16 jars of marmalade from 12 pounds of oranges for the price of a few dollars in sugar. That's 16 jars for $5. <br><br>- The cost of one jar is $0.55, but you can sell it for $7. <br><br>- If you buy a jar of orange marmalade at the store, it's like the person who made it is paying you $6.55 to eat their home made jam. <br><br>- No joke, people will pay that. <br><br>- Most grocery stores have a local buying program, they'll pay $4.50 a jar. Add tax, and now you have your $7. <br><br>- We live on an island, so we have a port. That means people coming and going, and cruise ships. The passengers mostly come from the city. They like to buy local products to go, because they can say they bought it from the people. It's a real thing, even if the product is made on a big scale. But the passengers also want something "authentic." That brings us to the next point.<br><br>2. **Marmalade on toast.**<br><br>- If you sell jam at the store, you have to compete with the store brand. But if you're making sandwiches and selling them on the street, or at the port, or on the beach, then you have no competition at all. <br><br>- Even if you give people free samples at the port, you can still sell your product for $7 a jar. <br><br>- More importantly, now you don't have to compete with other sellers at the port, since you have the sandwiches. Sell those at $2.50 each, and you can easily give away a few jars per week, or put them in gift baskets with other local products. <br><br>- You can also sell those sandwiches at the park and the beach. <br><br>- If you sell 50 sandwiches a week for $2.50 each, and you give 10 away all the time, you still have $125 a week on top of your jam money. <br><br>- If you save that money, it will add up. <br><br>- With a few hundred dollars, you can buy a little oven. <br><br>- If you have an oven, you can make bread. <br><br>- If you want to buy bread, you can pay $3 a loaf. But if you want to buy it from a baker, you can pay $6. <br><br>- Why would you pay twice as much for bread? <br><br>- The obvious answer is that the baker's bread is better. <br><br>- The less obvious answer is that baker's bread is more authentic. <br><br>- The even less obvious answer is that baker's bread doesn't have the added preservative that makes you want to eat a whole loaf. <br><br>- So, if you make bread, you can sell it at the store and at the port. It will cost you about $0.75 to make a loaf, and you can sell it at the store for $5, plus tax. <br><br>- But why make bread if you can make sandwiches? The bread is for the gift baskets. <br><br>4. **Gift Baskets.**<br><br>- You already have the jam and the bread. Throw in some cheese and a bottle of wine, and you have a gift basket. <br><br>- To buy all that, you'll have to pay $11 plus tax, for a total of $14.50. <br><br>- Now you're a real business. <br><br>- People will buy your gift baskets because they're made by the people, and they're authentic. <br><br>- Now you're something special. <br><br>- You have a business, so you need insurance. <br><br>- With insurance, you can move your little bakery to the front of your house. You can build a patio area so you can have a little shop. It's small, but it's yours. <br><br>- You can open it 3 days a week and make a few hundred dollars each time you open, and you can still sell your products at the port and the store. <br><br>- You can sell gift baskets at other local businesses. You can have an agreement with them where you give them a share of your profit and they sell your baskets for you. <br><br>- They'll be happy, because they'll be making money and getting free marmalade sandwiches once in a while. <br><br>- You'll be happy, because you'll have a few hundred dollars extra each week. <br><br>- With a few hundred dollars, you can buy a few big pots and a deep fryer. <br><br>- If you have those, you can make a few hundred empanadas at a time. You can make them as spicy as you want and sell them at the bar. <br><br>5. **Empanadas.** <br><br>- Empanadas are amazing. If you make them yourself, you can control the quality and the price. <br><br>- You can sell them for $4 each and make $2.50 profit, or you can sell them for $1.50 each and make $0.50 profit. <br><br>- Either way, if you sell hundreds of empanadas a week, you'll make thousands of dollars a month. <br><br>- Now you have the insurance and the bakery, and you're selling to the port and the store and the bar and the park. <br><br>- The bar doesn't want empanadas that are too spicy, so you make them just right for the bar. You make them spicier for the park, and you sell them at the port as well. <br><br>- Now you have a big business and you're making a lot of money. <br><br>- With a lot of money, you can buy a lot of things. You can buy a big mixer for the bread, you can buy a big oven, you can buy a bunch of little ovens. <br><br>- Now you can make a lot of different kinds of bread. You can sell that bread and make a living, and you can still sell the empanadas and the marmalade and the jam at the bar and the port and the park. <br><br>- You can hire your friends to help you, and you can hire your daughter to help you too. <br><br>- Now you're an important person in the community. People like you, and you're making a lot of money. <br><br>- You can take the weekends off, and you can spend time with your daughter. <br><br>- You have a big house with a big yard and a patio and a bakery, and you're very happy.<br><br>My brother is a truly happy person, and most of that has to do with his cooking and baking business. People love him and his products, and he loves to make them. He's always coming up with new recipes and flavors and ideas. He's a very creative and determined person, and these qualities have helped him succeed in a very tough situation.