September 26, 2025 • 12 mins
After a brief hiatus due to illness, I return to discuss my career pivot and new entrepreneurial plans. I'm scaling back my work at Metro Trading Association to pursue substitute teaching and explore starting a cottage food business.
• Transitioning to part-time work at MTA due to changing economic landscape
• Starting substitute teaching as a stable career option amidst AI advancements
• Planning to launch a cottage food business under Michigan's $25,000 sales cap
• Exploring food business ideas with low overhead and high profit margins
• Considering the example of a successful but mediocre BBQ vendor at a campground
• Evaluating multiple income streams for better work-life balance
Visit the Renaissance Festival for their final weekend! Metro Trading Association members can get tickets on trade.
Thanks for listening to The Trading Post Podcast!
Find all our important links— https://linktr.ee/traderstu
This episode of The Trading Post is proudly sponsored by Press X 2 Play Games, Metro Trading Association, and the Michigan Renaissance Festival. Exciting news—I’m featured as The Trader at the Trading Post in Press X 2 Play’s upcoming video game! Learn more about Press X 2 Play at pressx2play.games, discover how Metro Trading Association helps businesses grow through barter and trade, and explore the magic of the Michigan Renaissance Festival.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:02):
Hello and welcome to the Trading Post Podcast, where
we unlock the secrets ofbusiness-to-business trade, dive
into powerful networkingstrategies, and share my
exciting journey of using apodcast to market my business
instead of relying on SEO.
I'm your host, Trader Stew.
(00:24):
Okay, Ever the I'm always apessimist, but I guess let's be
optimistic here.
Had to take the last week and ahalf off because had this stupid
cough.
I kidnapped rid of my wholefamily's sick with something.
I don't know if it's like aCOVID virus, a cold, a head
cold, a upper respiratoryinfection, according to AI.
This is going around the MetroDetroit area as an upper
(00:46):
respiratory.
Before that, my kids had hand,foot, and mouth and dodged that
bullet.
It's been it's been a roughmonth, so I'm gonna see what we
can do here.
I have an issue with trying totalk and not coughing, so please
uh I got a cough mall, a coughdrop in my mouth right now so I
can actually talk withouthacking into the mic.
(01:06):
And as you know, I try and notedit these videos these these
podcasts at all or minimally, oryou know, maybe in the beginning
and end, but that's about it.
I don't I don't overtly edit.
I try and keep it real withy'all, especially in the avent
in the age of AI.
I'd like to keep it legit.
So, yeah, if I cough in the miclike that, sorry about that.
(01:29):
Uh, we'll see what we can do.
So, welcome back to the TradingPost Podcast.
I'm your host, Trader Stu, and Iam thrilled to have back this
short pause last week.
Oh man, I can't I don't know.
All right, so let's just dothis.
This is gonna be a quick one.
So I want to thank my sponsorsreal quick.
And the reason why I wanted toget a podcast out is this is the
(01:50):
last week in the RenaissanceFestival here in Michigan.
And if you haven't checked itout yet, check it out because it
is fun and they have the lasthoorah, as they call it, at the
Michigan Renaissance RenaissanceFestival.
If you're a Metro TradingAssociation uh member, of
course, you can get your ticketson trade and enjoy the day.
And then also, of course, MetroTrading Association.
(02:12):
I appreciate them.
And then Quantum Indoor Mediaand bringing hyperlocal
advertising via indoor digitalbillboards, and of course, press
X to play, creators of theimmersive video game experience,
which I will be in.
I guess my voice is recorded inthe video game, which is getting
launched here, and I think theysaid they got a new demo, a demo
coming out.
I think I'm in the demo.
I can't wait to see it.
(02:34):
Anyway, and you haven't checkedout my great partners yet?
Take a moment and see what theyoffer.
They're uh key players in my uhin my situation here.
So let's get to the show.
All right, I wanted to talkabout a couple of things that's
been in my head, and I Iactually talked to the dealer
day before yesterday at MetroTrading Association, and I am
(02:56):
gonna take a step down and gohalftime or part-time or
something.
With the advent of the AIrevolution, I believe there are
gonna be five jobs that areleft.
And I'm not gonna join themedical crew, and even nurses
are getting replaced by therobots, but I digress about
(03:16):
that.
We have a long way beforesurgeries and things like that
are gonna be replaced by robots.
But one of them that I can doright now, as a matter of fact,
is the education system.
And I never thought I would be ateacher.
Not that I'm gonna be a teacher,I'm gonna be a substitute
teacher.
But when I got out of the AirForce, they were doing a troops
to teachers program, and thathas been defunded.
(03:38):
But the problem with thatsystem, that that that program
was they're putting troops inthe inner city schools, and
where I live, it it would beMetro Detroit, or no, downtown
Detroit, or in Detroit.
And I'm not I'm not dealing withthat.
So I didn't do the uh troops ofteachers program.
So instead, I'm gonnasubstitute, take a half a pay
(04:02):
cut because they don't pay muchof anything, and but I can work
when I want, how I want, get allthe weekends off.
You cover you get summers off,of course, all your little
holidays you forget about, youknow, that kids get off that are
inconvenient for parents.
I get those off now too.
And yeah, so I'm gonna try it onmy I got training next week,
(04:23):
next month, and and uh we'regonna try that.
I don't know how well it'll dobecause I don't know if I like
other kids besides mine, but Ithink I'll be a fun sub.
I think I'll be a fun sub.
And we'll go from there, butyeah, I don't know.
And if that doesn't work out,there's other things to do.
But holy crap, there is ahelicopter, dude, like below
(04:44):
roof line of this two-storybuilding.
I'm sorry, I got I wow, he'sright at the power lines, dude.
Any rate, that was cool.
I think it came off from thehello hospital next door.
So that's what I'm gonna do.
Why is because I just just youknow, for COIA for my family.
I want to get into the systemnow while they're still open.
(05:08):
And by the way, there's a ton ofopening.
If you want to be a substituteteacher, if you can fog a
mirror, I think basically.
And in Michigan, I think youhave to have a two-year degree
at minimum, uh, and then you canget in.
But so I have an associate'sdegree in aviation operations
from the Air University, whichis the CCAF, Community College
of the Air Force, which I justhappened to get because I had
enough credits uh from flying inall my schools.
(05:29):
I did, and I did a couple ofclasses at Bigger College
anyway.
So yeah, I got that, I got luckythere.
And we'll yeah, we'll go fromthere.
And so what I'm gonna do afterthat is this podcast.
I'm gonna do a section about Iwant to do a Michigan cottage
food law job, or not job, butopen up a business.
And I want to see and competewith myself is see if I can
(05:54):
actually make the$25,000 annualsales cap, which I don't know if
I disclosed this before or not,but my wife and I were doing
homegrown like microgreens, andthere was a different law.
There's a different law forfarmers as there are for like
the cottage food law.
So with that, we just had tokeep everything cut as naturally
(06:15):
as possible and couldn't grindnothing up, and that was part of
the law of you know growingproduce.
So, but this one I'm gonna findsomething that's uh low
overhead, high profit, and seehow fast or if I can even get to
the$25,000 sales cap.
And I guess there was talks ofMichigan trying to make it to
(06:36):
$50,000 or$100,000.
At one time I think it was$100,000 back when we were doing
this a few years ago, and thenthat didn't go through.
Then I think they lowered it to$50 or$40,000 now.
That didn't go through becausereally it's$25,000 gross, which
is not a lot of money, even forlike maybe I don't know, if
you're a stay-at-home mom orwhatever like that, you're
making an extra$25 grand.
But the problem is it's gross,so not net.
(07:00):
So if you're following theprogram or the math, and you
usually triple if you have ahigh quality product, maybe
quadruple your overhead.
So let's just say you know,you're at six times three, seven
times see, seven times four istwenty-eight, six times three is
eighteen thousand.
(07:20):
So set, yeah.
So let's just say you're atseven.
So you have seven thousanddollars, because uh that's
twenty-eight thousand.
Yeah, let's just let's just gowith that, or even six times
four.
If you do a quarter of if youfour multiply your your four
times, you're at six thousanddollars in overhead to make
twenty-five grand.
(07:41):
This is what that's the math I'mtrying to do.
So six times four istwenty-four.
Seven, if you do three, then yougot seven, roughly seven times
three is you know, you're gonnabe three thousand over.
So, but all I'm saying is isthat three to four times is what
you're gonna charge.
So you are not making that muchmoney by the time it's all done
and said, not really, you know,and that's the whole point.
(08:03):
I that's not meant to make aliving off of.
I think the whole program isdesigned to see if you have
actually in a market to whereyou can actually sell your
product and then upgrade fromthere, form a I think you still
have to have an LLC with thecollege food law, and then
either way, then scale up yourbusiness from there before you
buy oh, maybe like a brick andmortar mortar store or hire
(08:26):
employees or buy biggerequipment, commercial kitchen,
all that stuff.
I think it's just a beta test tosee if you can do it, you know.
So, anyway, that's what I planon doing.
I'd love to open a littlebarbecue stand or something like
that, and a trailer, and thatway I can still work when I
want.
There's a guy who does hisbarbecue and a food truck at a
(08:49):
campground that we go to andit's just there permanently at
the campground.
He only works I think it'sThursday, Friday, Saturday,
Sunday.
And then he shuts down for thewhole winter, of course.
The fall, they close down, andthen he goes to Florida and just
chills and comes back and make,you know.
And I hate to say it becausebarbecue is not even that good,
(09:10):
like it's not really good.
He's got, I think he said ahickory smoker, that's what it's
called.
Not good, it doesn't tastesmoky.
You know, everything's just kindof smothered in barbecue sauce.
The brisket's okay, but it'sgood.
I mean, it's good enough, right?
Because he's the only one intown, literally, that's doing a
(09:32):
food other than what you'remaking at your own camp, or the
campground has burgers, dogs,and pizza.
So if you want something a bitbetter than that, you know, he's
got elephant ears and funnelcakes, whatever like that, too.
You know what I mean?
So he and he's got lemonade.
Uh, you know, he it's it's agood stand.
I'm not I'm not I'm not dockinghim.
All I'm saying is that it's notawesome.
(09:53):
It's not great, it's mediocrebarbecue at best.
But he's killing it, dude.
He's killing it.
So that's yeah, that's kind ofwhat I'm looking at, maybe doing
and going from there because Iwould love to get some more cash
flow.
One thing I missed about being abartender was that I always had
cash on me.
And with the economy, the wayit's going, and the way they're
(10:14):
see, the other thing is too,we're getting away from a
cashless society or getting,we're going we're going towards
a cashless society, which Idon't know, get it while you
can, maybe, any rate.
Um, that's kind of what I'mlooking at doing.
And uh going down, maybe workingfour days a week.
Maybe I work like Mondays andWednesdays here at MTA, and then
(10:35):
I substitute teach likeTuesdays, Thursdays, and then I
get Friday, Saturday, Sundayoff.
When I say off, I mean byworking my own business, you
know, because if I'm doing liketortillas or whatever like that,
you know, you gotta do somethinglike a bread.
I'm not doing bread, everyonedoes bread, but tortillas or
cornbread or something likethat, and just like sell it.
There's a lady that used to doit next to us, and she made
(10:57):
these short bread cookies, soldout, dude.
Sold out every weekend withinhours, and like they weren't
cheap.
I think it was eight dollars forlike a like six or eight pack or
something like that of thesetiny little cookies and killed
it, dude.
Made so much money.
They she always had a line, andyeah, anyway.
(11:21):
I don't know if she ever scaledup or not, but you know, the
they they were good.
So I'm gonna do something likethat.
What else?
Let me talk about I made somenotes here.
It's been so long, god, a weekand a half is a long time not to
do something, and then youforget what the heck, you know.
And I had a whole script writtenout here, and I hate reading
from the script, but I was justlike, well, I don't know how
(11:41):
much I got left in me to likeactually think.
So now I'm just I hate thescript, so now I'm just kind of
reading as I'm talking here andseeing if I want to hit else
anything else up.
But I think I hit everything.
That's it.
I don't want to keep talking asa talk.
Check out the uh RenaissanceFestival, and yeah, we hit it.
(12:02):
We're all done.
See you next week.
I got more to talk about and begood or be good at it.
Hello and welcome to the Trading Post Podcast, where
we unlock the secrets ofbusiness-to-business trade, dive
into powerful networkingstrategies, and share my
exciting journey of using apodcast to market my business
instead of relying on SEO.
I'm your host, Trader Stew.
(00:24):
Okay, Ever the I'm always apessimist, but I guess let's be
optimistic here.
Had to take the last week and ahalf off because had this stupid
cough.
I kidnapped rid of my wholefamily's sick with something.
I don't know if it's like aCOVID virus, a cold, a head
cold, a upper respiratoryinfection, according to AI.
This is going around the MetroDetroit area as an upper
(00:46):
respiratory.
Before that, my kids had hand,foot, and mouth and dodged that
bullet.
It's been it's been a roughmonth, so I'm gonna see what we
can do here.
I have an issue with trying totalk and not coughing, so please
uh I got a cough mall, a coughdrop in my mouth right now so I
can actually talk withouthacking into the mic.
(01:06):
And as you know, I try and notedit these videos these these
podcasts at all or minimally, oryou know, maybe in the beginning
and end, but that's about it.
I don't I don't overtly edit.
I try and keep it real withy'all, especially in the avent
in the age of AI.
I'd like to keep it legit.
So, yeah, if I cough in the miclike that, sorry about that.
(01:29):
Uh, we'll see what we can do.
So, welcome back to the TradingPost Podcast.
I'm your host, Trader Stu, and Iam thrilled to have back this
short pause last week.
Oh man, I can't I don't know.
All right, so let's just dothis.
This is gonna be a quick one.
So I want to thank my sponsorsreal quick.
And the reason why I wanted toget a podcast out is this is the
(01:50):
last week in the RenaissanceFestival here in Michigan.
And if you haven't checked itout yet, check it out because it
is fun and they have the lasthoorah, as they call it, at the
Michigan Renaissance RenaissanceFestival.
If you're a Metro TradingAssociation uh member, of
course, you can get your ticketson trade and enjoy the day.
And then also, of course, MetroTrading Association.
(02:12):
I appreciate them.
And then Quantum Indoor Mediaand bringing hyperlocal
advertising via indoor digitalbillboards, and of course, press
X to play, creators of theimmersive video game experience,
which I will be in.
I guess my voice is recorded inthe video game, which is getting
launched here, and I think theysaid they got a new demo, a demo
coming out.
I think I'm in the demo.
I can't wait to see it.
(02:34):
Anyway, and you haven't checkedout my great partners yet?
Take a moment and see what theyoffer.
They're uh key players in my uhin my situation here.
So let's get to the show.
All right, I wanted to talkabout a couple of things that's
been in my head, and I Iactually talked to the dealer
day before yesterday at MetroTrading Association, and I am
(02:56):
gonna take a step down and gohalftime or part-time or
something.
With the advent of the AIrevolution, I believe there are
gonna be five jobs that areleft.
And I'm not gonna join themedical crew, and even nurses
are getting replaced by therobots, but I digress about
(03:16):
that.
We have a long way beforesurgeries and things like that
are gonna be replaced by robots.
But one of them that I can doright now, as a matter of fact,
is the education system.
And I never thought I would be ateacher.
Not that I'm gonna be a teacher,I'm gonna be a substitute
teacher.
But when I got out of the AirForce, they were doing a troops
to teachers program, and thathas been defunded.
(03:38):
But the problem with thatsystem, that that that program
was they're putting troops inthe inner city schools, and
where I live, it it would beMetro Detroit, or no, downtown
Detroit, or in Detroit.
And I'm not I'm not dealing withthat.
So I didn't do the uh troops ofteachers program.
So instead, I'm gonnasubstitute, take a half a pay
(04:02):
cut because they don't pay muchof anything, and but I can work
when I want, how I want, get allthe weekends off.
You cover you get summers off,of course, all your little
holidays you forget about, youknow, that kids get off that are
inconvenient for parents.
I get those off now too.
And yeah, so I'm gonna try it onmy I got training next week,
(04:23):
next month, and and uh we'regonna try that.
I don't know how well it'll dobecause I don't know if I like
other kids besides mine, but Ithink I'll be a fun sub.
I think I'll be a fun sub.
And we'll go from there, butyeah, I don't know.
And if that doesn't work out,there's other things to do.
But holy crap, there is ahelicopter, dude, like below
(04:44):
roof line of this two-storybuilding.
I'm sorry, I got I wow, he'sright at the power lines, dude.
Any rate, that was cool.
I think it came off from thehello hospital next door.
So that's what I'm gonna do.
Why is because I just just youknow, for COIA for my family.
I want to get into the systemnow while they're still open.
(05:08):
And by the way, there's a ton ofopening.
If you want to be a substituteteacher, if you can fog a
mirror, I think basically.
And in Michigan, I think youhave to have a two-year degree
at minimum, uh, and then you canget in.
But so I have an associate'sdegree in aviation operations
from the Air University, whichis the CCAF, Community College
of the Air Force, which I justhappened to get because I had
enough credits uh from flying inall my schools.
(05:29):
I did, and I did a couple ofclasses at Bigger College
anyway.
So yeah, I got that, I got luckythere.
And we'll yeah, we'll go fromthere.
And so what I'm gonna do afterthat is this podcast.
I'm gonna do a section about Iwant to do a Michigan cottage
food law job, or not job, butopen up a business.
And I want to see and competewith myself is see if I can
(05:54):
actually make the$25,000 annualsales cap, which I don't know if
I disclosed this before or not,but my wife and I were doing
homegrown like microgreens, andthere was a different law.
There's a different law forfarmers as there are for like
the cottage food law.
So with that, we just had tokeep everything cut as naturally
(06:15):
as possible and couldn't grindnothing up, and that was part of
the law of you know growingproduce.
So, but this one I'm gonna findsomething that's uh low
overhead, high profit, and seehow fast or if I can even get to
the$25,000 sales cap.
And I guess there was talks ofMichigan trying to make it to
(06:36):
$50,000 or$100,000.
At one time I think it was$100,000 back when we were doing
this a few years ago, and thenthat didn't go through.
Then I think they lowered it to$50 or$40,000 now.
That didn't go through becausereally it's$25,000 gross, which
is not a lot of money, even forlike maybe I don't know, if
you're a stay-at-home mom orwhatever like that, you're
making an extra$25 grand.
But the problem is it's gross,so not net.
(07:00):
So if you're following theprogram or the math, and you
usually triple if you have ahigh quality product, maybe
quadruple your overhead.
So let's just say you know,you're at six times three, seven
times see, seven times four istwenty-eight, six times three is
eighteen thousand.
(07:20):
So set, yeah.
So let's just say you're atseven.
So you have seven thousanddollars, because uh that's
twenty-eight thousand.
Yeah, let's just let's just gowith that, or even six times
four.
If you do a quarter of if youfour multiply your your four
times, you're at six thousanddollars in overhead to make
twenty-five grand.
(07:41):
This is what that's the math I'mtrying to do.
So six times four istwenty-four.
Seven, if you do three, then yougot seven, roughly seven times
three is you know, you're gonnabe three thousand over.
So, but all I'm saying is isthat three to four times is what
you're gonna charge.
So you are not making that muchmoney by the time it's all done
and said, not really, you know,and that's the whole point.
(08:03):
I that's not meant to make aliving off of.
I think the whole program isdesigned to see if you have
actually in a market to whereyou can actually sell your
product and then upgrade fromthere, form a I think you still
have to have an LLC with thecollege food law, and then
either way, then scale up yourbusiness from there before you
buy oh, maybe like a brick andmortar mortar store or hire
(08:26):
employees or buy biggerequipment, commercial kitchen,
all that stuff.
I think it's just a beta test tosee if you can do it, you know.
So, anyway, that's what I planon doing.
I'd love to open a littlebarbecue stand or something like
that, and a trailer, and thatway I can still work when I
want.
There's a guy who does hisbarbecue and a food truck at a
(08:49):
campground that we go to andit's just there permanently at
the campground.
He only works I think it'sThursday, Friday, Saturday,
Sunday.
And then he shuts down for thewhole winter, of course.
The fall, they close down, andthen he goes to Florida and just
chills and comes back and make,you know.
And I hate to say it becausebarbecue is not even that good,
(09:10):
like it's not really good.
He's got, I think he said ahickory smoker, that's what it's
called.
Not good, it doesn't tastesmoky.
You know, everything's just kindof smothered in barbecue sauce.
The brisket's okay, but it'sgood.
I mean, it's good enough, right?
Because he's the only one intown, literally, that's doing a
(09:32):
food other than what you'remaking at your own camp, or the
campground has burgers, dogs,and pizza.
So if you want something a bitbetter than that, you know, he's
got elephant ears and funnelcakes, whatever like that, too.
You know what I mean?
So he and he's got lemonade.
Uh, you know, he it's it's agood stand.
I'm not I'm not I'm not dockinghim.
All I'm saying is that it's notawesome.
(09:53):
It's not great, it's mediocrebarbecue at best.
But he's killing it, dude.
He's killing it.
So that's yeah, that's kind ofwhat I'm looking at, maybe doing
and going from there because Iwould love to get some more cash
flow.
One thing I missed about being abartender was that I always had
cash on me.
And with the economy, the wayit's going, and the way they're
(10:14):
see, the other thing is too,we're getting away from a
cashless society or getting,we're going we're going towards
a cashless society, which Idon't know, get it while you
can, maybe, any rate.
Um, that's kind of what I'mlooking at doing.
And uh going down, maybe workingfour days a week.
Maybe I work like Mondays andWednesdays here at MTA, and then
(10:35):
I substitute teach likeTuesdays, Thursdays, and then I
get Friday, Saturday, Sundayoff.
When I say off, I mean byworking my own business, you
know, because if I'm doing liketortillas or whatever like that,
you know, you gotta do somethinglike a bread.
I'm not doing bread, everyonedoes bread, but tortillas or
cornbread or something likethat, and just like sell it.
There's a lady that used to doit next to us, and she made
(10:57):
these short bread cookies, soldout, dude.
Sold out every weekend withinhours, and like they weren't
cheap.
I think it was eight dollars forlike a like six or eight pack or
something like that of thesetiny little cookies and killed
it, dude.
Made so much money.
They she always had a line, andyeah, anyway.
(11:21):
I don't know if she ever scaledup or not, but you know, the
they they were good.
So I'm gonna do something likethat.
What else?
Let me talk about I made somenotes here.
It's been so long, god, a weekand a half is a long time not to
do something, and then youforget what the heck, you know.
And I had a whole script writtenout here, and I hate reading
from the script, but I was justlike, well, I don't know how
(11:41):
much I got left in me to likeactually think.
So now I'm just I hate thescript, so now I'm just kind of
reading as I'm talking here andseeing if I want to hit else
anything else up.
But I think I hit everything.
That's it.
I don't want to keep talking asa talk.
Check out the uh RenaissanceFestival, and yeah, we hit it.
(12:02):
We're all done.
See you next week.
I got more to talk about and begood or be good at it.
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