How they make their living?

It might seem that the Amish community lives isolated and produce their onw goods for living and that can be true for the more conservative churches, but not for all of them.

As the Tourist guides explained us, the Amish are involved in the market more that we might think at first.

There are 3 things they are well considered for and actually make money of: farming, growing gardens and building furniture.

They are consider the best farmers as they took special care of their animals and respect the nature behind this at the same time they evolve to a certain level where some techniques are being mechanized for a proper process of those goods. For instance, they may have up to 30 caws in a farm, they milk the caws twice a day, 5.30 am and 5.30 pm, with a diesel powered engine which helps them get the job done in about an hour while pasteurizing the milk for future selling to big companies who do the marketing. As farmers they get paid twice a month and that gives them more than enough to maintain the farm running, animals in shape and money for the family to live fully.

Amish are also known as good gardeners, in every local market is easy to find a vegetable Amish shop, that is where locals get their best products and a good deal. An Amish kid is expected to help at home since very stages, by the age of 13, after they finish school they may as well help on the vegetable shop at the market. An interesting thing for us was to discover that even Amish are not allowed to smoke, they also grow tobacco in large fields they then sell to big brands such as Phillip Morris, who the produce and sell to the big market.
They might be conservatives, but surely smart people!

Furniture building is also very important for their living. Amish build pretty much everything they need so they learn how to do it very young an due to the small population they end up having so many goods they won't consume. Some of the families have a furniture store where you can see all kinds of wooden work displayed at the front door. They are expensive though, so they make a lot of money out of that as well.

Apart from this 3 thing, they also find their way of living by sewing, cooking, making soup, buggy riding and all other random crafts they then sell to all tourist coming over to meet them.

That gave us an idea of how productive Amish people are, they are on the market, even though they like to be self-sufficient within their own community and they still know how to make money. Stay tunned for details on how they spend their money, which products and brands they consume and why.

Questions or comments are welcome!

Best,

Paloma, Antonio & Estef