Surviving on minimum wage - Tips from a handyman
Published:Sunday | May 23, 2010 | 12:00 AM
Anthony Ennis of Mount Peto in Hanover has been employed for what he describes as "more years than me can remember" as a part-time janitor at a local primary school, where his hourly paid wages may fall below the minimum wage of $4,070, depending on what is required of him on a fortnightly basis.
The father of eight, who is still financing schooling for six of them, says that he relies greatly on income from his half-acre farm in the same district, where each square is dedicated to crops, including sweet potatoes and corn.
He also has a vending stall that sells sweets, biscuits and bag juice at the school, from which he makes approximately $6,000 weekly.
The stall also features fruits in season.
On Tuesdays, and other mornings of his choice, Ennis hits the streets of Montego Bay where he enters the office of doctors, pharmacists, hairdressers and other professionals, who have no time to go to the market, with combo-packs of seasonings.
His product packs include sweet pepper, hot peppers, scallion, onions, tomatoes, red peas, thyme and garlic. Each retails for $250.
Ennis tells Sunday Business that the food is from his own farm as well as from purchases made from other vendors.
On his own farm, he grows corn, sweet potatoes, beans, sweet pepper, callaloo and sugar cane. From those cash crops, and produced purchased elsewhere, he can make as much as $20,000 weekly.
"You can't lose out of farming," he says.
His enterprise also provides employment for others, and from his weekly earnings, Ennis says he pays out about $10,000 for job work given to two men to clean and fork his half-acre property, and to acquire weedkillers and other farm inputs.
Pumpkin and sweetpotato, he said, are best-sellers, with prices starting at $50 per pound when the crop is plentiful, and peaking at $150 when the product is scarce on the streets of Montego Bay.
In the coming months, he is planning to inter-crop fast-bearing orange and June plum trees on his farm.
The trees for planting cost around $250 each, from which Ennis says he should begin earning additional income around mid-2011.