Make your living with your tractor?

[cowboydoc]

Egon,
You bet that is big time money there. Heck those big new combines are $250,000 just by themselves. New round baler to do custom work is 30k plus, tractor to do it is $75k plus. So you weren't wrong just that there is a smaller side to it as well.

 

[Green Acres Homestead]

I am semi retired and make money with my tractor. I blow snow in the winter, cut firewood, do landscaping, dig out stumps work on ATV trails. I have a lot of years experience logging and fixing drainage problems etc. I have a very versatile machine which is an Kubota L4740. It is a brut and can do a lot of work but is still consider a compact. I spend 30 years in information system being stressed out and let me tell you that playing around with a tractor is way ahead of working your but off under loads of stress everyday. Even thou I am not making near the money I was in information systems the life style is a welcoming change. Here is a video of a job I was doing grubbing a couple of acres. I have several other videos on my channel on the jobs i do to make money. Hope this helps

 

[Tractorable]

16 year old thread

 

[Piston]

16 year old thread

What's your point?

 

[CincyFlyer]

16 year old thread

This is exactly the sort of thread that needs to be updated every few years, as the economy changes.

 

[cphilip]

I don't "make a living" with mine. But I recently changed tractors and sizes partly resulting in the ability to offset some costs by using mine on job sites from time to time. Ill be writing some of that off.

I retired some years back and started doing consulting/1099 work part time. I work perhaps 90-100 days a years. More than I really wanted to but it pays well.

I had a 5030 Ford with FEL but it was just too big for me to make mobile and really too big for much of anything I do around this 9 acres and adjoining 10 that I let hay get cut off of. I mostly just manage mine for Game and such. So I traded it in and got a compact and in the process of downsizing implements and changing directions as far as use. Going away from farming to more land management.

But I do this consulting work and project management for an Environmental company and a nearby large University. I'm the guy that responds first to something as I am located close by. And I've had a need a few times for some sort of mobile loader and so by switching to a Compact and getting a trailer I can take and use it because I am quickest and closest. I don't have to always bring a skid steer or mini ex from 50 miles away for small stuff. Ive used it now twice for that sort of thing. Just taking some old boards with lead based paint on them out of a hay loft once and then smoothing and grading some lake frontage that we tore up a little with a large excavator tracks. I can then charge off $325 a day which is not much but it helps offset some costs. I get paid of course while doing that. The jobs rarely take more than a hour or two that I use it on. Plus loading and unloading this is maybe a half a day while I'm already getting paid an hourly rate and a daily rate for my truck too. So it is making money with it. And is a tax advantage for offset of income for purchasing it, the trailer and implements as well as things like chains binders etc can all be fractionally written off against the income.

 

[Green Acres Homestead]

I've did a bit of work on an ATV trail a few weeks ago. One of the important things to make the fix more permanent was to get the water of the road. Here is a quick and dirty video regard the ATV trail work. One of my buddies is 82 years old and outworks most of the guys half his age. Incredible. Anyway here is.

Hack to keep your trails, driveway or road in good repair. - YouTube