How to make a tractor pay for itself?

[Matt in Virginia]

fwiw,
I know of a local retired teacher with an old Ford 8N that charges $100 an hour including driving time from his house. We are talking an OLD tractor and equally old rotary cutter. He has a fairly good list of properties. I would'nt put a new 60 HP Cab tractor and first rate rotary cutter on the market for any less. And yes I'd let it sit in the barn and look pretty rather than working the machine and taking a chance on damage...fwiw

Regards, Matt Garrett
757-581-6270

 

[rboss75]

Looking at buying a 50 or 60 hp tractor with cab. I spent too many days as a kid on a open air tractor in the dust. I really don't need a tractor that much, but I do need it for mowing a couple of commercial acres and I can use the FEL and box blade when building some buildings. I usually build a new building once every 18 months.

I would would be interested in finding a way to make the tractor pay for itself. I have time to mow, but I have found that most of the "commercial" brush hog mowers are using 35 hp tractors and charge about $40 an hour and to be honest, I don't think they can make the tractor pay for itself at that rate.

What are other things that can be done and the going rate for the services?

Thanks

I have a small tractor and equipment business. (Several compact utility tractors with just about every attachment, a mini excavator, a mid size excavator and a skid steer) I do a lot of work for hobby farmers, landscape professionals and homeowners where it is not worth it for them to buy the equipment they need for just a few jobs. Some people have a tractor but not the attachment they may need at the moment.

I never charge by the hour I charge by the day or the by the job. I would not even load a machine on my trailer if I were not making at least $375.00. I generally charge a minimum $600.00 a day for a machine with an operator. Where I live if someone wanted to rent a machine they would pay anywhere between $350 to $450 a day and then you have to pick it up , learn how to use and then return it. That is a lot of down time. My fee includes the machine and a very experienced operator which is worth the money right there.

I started my business as a side thing just to justify having some of the attachments that I purchased for my small hobby farm here in New Jersey. Just like what you are thinking! Well it has been over four years, I have retired from my 30 year law enforcement career and I have more then enough work to keep me busy all the time. I am an LLC, fully licensed and insured. My prices that i charge pay for all of my equipment that I have purchased and I nice amount of spare cash. (So I can buy more stuff)

Now of course my prices reflect living an in high cost of living area. But I'm sure you would be able to adjust the cost to where you are. I always tell people fuel and insurance, it's the cost t of doing business. And I never rent out equipment. You would never make enough money with one machine to cover the cost of equipment rental insurance. Just your liability insurance would put you in the red all year


Hope this helps
Good Luck.

 

[Rmart30]

if he is using it in building construction business it can be written off on taxes is what first comes to mind.

My parents neighbor had someone come in and "fix" his 200 yard long driveway last year. It had a few potholes and a small wash.
Guy came in with a old ford tractor with a ancient box blade and bent up scrape blade. Couple of passes with the scrape, couple more with the box blade, and in under a hour he left with $250 more cash than he came with. He was happy and the driveway owner was happy. Id have gladly done it for that.

Id be happy with some small side jobs every month. That would help a lot on the payment. I wouldn't load it up and haul it anywhere for less than $100 and id price by the job, not by the hour.

 

[Hiltz]

I have a small tractor and equipment business. (Several compact utility tractors with just about every attachment, a mini excavator, a mid size excavator and a skid steer) I do a lot of work for hobby farmers, landscape professionals and homeowners where it is not worth it for them to buy the equipment they need for just a few jobs. Some people have a tractor but not the attachment they may need at the moment.

I never charge by the hour I charge by the day or the by the job. I would not even load a machine on my trailer if I were not making at least $375.00. I generally charge a minimum $600.00 a day for a machine with an operator. Where I live if someone wanted to rent a machine they would pay anywhere between $350 to $450 a day and then you have to pick it up , learn how to use and then return it. That is a lot of down time. My fee includes the machine and a very experienced operator which is worth the money right there.

I started my business as a side thing just to justify having some of the attachments that I purchased for my small hobby farm here in New Jersey. Just like what you are thinking! Well it has been over four years, I have retired from my 30 year law enforcement career and I have more then enough work to keep me busy all the time. I am an LLC, fully licensed and insured. My prices that i charge pay for all of my equipment that I have purchased and I nice amount of spare cash. (So I can buy more stuff)

Now of course my prices reflect living an in high cost of living area. But I'm sure you would be able to adjust the cost to where you are. I always tell people fuel and insurance, it's the cost t of doing business. And I never rent out equipment. You would never make enough money with one machine to cover the cost of equipment rental insurance. Just your liability insurance would put you in the red all year


Hope this helps
Good Luck.

An very intellegent and insightful response. There is actually 2 completely different responses to the original post here. Guys think they can purchase a tractor and implements and charge $40.00 per hour and make money. Its simply not going to happen. Fuel, insurance, your truck, your trailer, repairs. The list goes on and on. If you are doing this for the fun of it only and for something to do in retirement as a way to spend your time then charge $40.00 per hour. If you are doing this as a business venture you better be more in the ball park of the above post.

 

[scaredychicken]

I don't lend out valuable tools or equipment, damage by well meaning friends that want a favour never gets resolved. Best to go with owner / operator idea and contract it. Equipment rental places, charge a lot because there is a lot at stake. Lots of good ideas in this post. All the best.

 

[joshuabardwell]

The insights here are huge. I hope the OP pays close attention. I have been in the same situation, and if you are hoping to buy a tractor, do a couple-few jobs a month, and cover the payment, I don't think that's going to pan out. There are several facets to the problem.

The first, and biggest, IMO, is that the tractor's expenses go beyond just covering the payment every month. Fuel and routine maintenance are two that are often forgotten. But even those may only add up to five or ten dollars an hour. The real thing that I think people forget about is the cost of repairs due to damage in the field. If you are working your tractor on somebody else's property and somebody else's job, the chances of it being damaged go up a lot. You don't know the property, so you are more likely to run into something or drive into a ditch or whatever, and since you're on the clock, you feel pressured to do it expediently, so you may not go as slow as you ought to on unfamiliar ground. It doesn't take but one major repair to wipe out all your profits for a year, if you've been working for "beer money".

The second, is that a person figures, "I have a $400 tractor payment, so at $40 an hour, all I have to do is work ten hours a month, and I'm covered." And yet somehow it doesn't work out that way. Unless you are treating your tractor as a business, you may not be able to even get 10 hours a month, advertising on Craigslist or through word of mouth, or whatever. Month after month rolls by with you not covering the payment, in the mean time.

The third is that a person ends up not accounting for the cost of their own time. You may like mowing fields, and so you figure, whatever, I'll mow a field on Saturday, make some money, and have some nice time in the great outdoors! But by the time you hit the 20th or 30th or 100th hour on the tractor, it gets a little less enjoyable--or at least, it did for me.

Finally, liability. The moment you take a dollar for a job, you become liable for damages in a way that you weren't when you were just working for free. Bush hog throws a rock through somebody's window? Or, god forbid, somebody's head? You better hope to heck you have insurance on your business. And that adds up to another cost (back at point one) that people overlook.

IMO, the guys with a 25-35 HP tractor, charging $40 an hour to mow fields are almost all losing money. Some of them know it and don't care; others don't know it. Some of them just haven't yet had the big repair or "oops" with a customer's property that is going to wipe them out, and are gambling that they won't ever.

In conclusion: if you intend to cover your tractor's payment, then I think you need to think of the situation as a business and treat it as such, even if it's just part-time. If you're working for "beer money" or on-the-side, better to just leave the tractor in the garage and enjoy how pretty it looks.

Oh--and as others have pointed out, if you are going to treat it as a business, then if you make it official, you may be able to get a tax write-off for the payments. But on the other hand, you will be expected to pay taxes on the earnings. Oops. That's another thing back on point one that people forget about.

 

[crazyal]

One thing to remember and inform the customer of is that a 35hp tractor will take about 1 1/2 times as long to do the work of a 50hp. If your brush hogging then a 40hp tractor will have a 6' cutter on the back and will be working hard while a 50hp tractor will pull a 7' cutter with ease in most cases. With a 60hp tractor you could start to look at 12' (maybe even a 15') batwing mower. On large fields you can cut the time down by a lot. Where you're even is during transporting the tractor.

If you can shave a couple hours off 8 hours of mowing (say to 5 hours) then charging $65 vs their $40 would be about even.

 

[fieldman12]

In my opinion for a tractor and 6' bushhog you need $60.00 per hour minimum and it goes up from there when a truck and trailer is involved. Around here money is tight. Most people even when bidding by the job simply wont pay the money anymore. For a smaller job that involves a truck,trailer, tractor, and bush hog if you mention a quote price that is for say $300.00 buck that includes 4 hours of work plus a half hour each way travel they look at you like your out of your mind. I can tell you 10 years ago you could get that money allot easier with residential work. Now to get that same money you need to be doing work for a business. A business will pay it with not any problems. Residential people honestly anymore think you should haul the machine back and forth to there property free of charge and lets not forget you probably drove out there and gave them a quote in the first place for free. Most simply do not care that when you roll in with a newer truck,trailer,tractor, and bush hog you can fairly easily have $60,000 invested.

 

[scaredychicken]

occurs to me that perhaps OP is seeking to save money by doing the work rather than contracting out ? that is my motivation for buying a tractor. if OP can also make a side income from it, all the better, and there may be tax advantages also. whatever the reason, tractors are a great piece of equipment to have, and the skill to operate is invaluable.

 

[sixdogs]

In a way, even if you don't hire them out or charge for sideline work, they sort-of pay for themselves anyway. Work around the home or farm might be done in small amounts and forgotten but we save a lot of $$ doing the work ourselves. Plus, if we weren't hanging around the house doing tractor stuff we might be hanging around the pool hall. So it's got it's therapy aspect, or at least it does for me.