Edit: and there are no "open source" tools. You have to buy them, and good ones are not cheap.
Edit: and there are no "open source" tools. You have to buy them, and good ones are not cheap.
I should add that all the people I know who are earning really good money in the trades put in some years, established a solid personal reputation in the area, and then started their own businesses.
Also, in the US (at least west appalachia, but it might be all of north america), it seems that the logging/milling industry has incestuous relationships with the building industry, and it seems to be pretty hard to find cheap wood from clearcuts if you're an independant. The person who hosted me and my familly for two weeks in WV used wood he logged himself for his home and dependencies (he was 70 btw), but even for a contract he got he couldn't use the wood from the nearby mill and imported it from Ohio/Canada. And it was in 2018 so there weren't as many pressure on wood availability as post-covid or right now.