Tractor Ownership, the true cost

   / Tractor Ownership, the true cost #41  
I come here for fun and a mutual interest in machinery. There's hardly a day that goes by that I don't learn something new, be it here, at my job, or reading on the internet and following links to things I find interesting.
Same here MossRoad. I'm a newbie with tractors and I've already learned a ton here and on another tractor website.
 
   / Tractor Ownership, the true cost #42  
Today we have something called Paralysis by Analysis. Nowhere is this more prevalent than in farming where today every segment of the operation needs to be a science.

Farming defies most business applications because much of the labor is not required, it is merely for convenience. I never needed that access road to farm; we hauled wood and product over that area for the last 200 years just fine, but we can now do it in all 4 seasons and have stopped a lot of soil erosion. The same for fencing, they are installed for my convenience not because my sheep cannot eat green grass, convert it to white wool and red meat without them.

I can just farm, or I can farm better. I can sit on my katoockis and yell at daytime political television all day, or I can go out and improve my farm, but don't tell me I have to calculate in a labor rate for doing the latter because that is not true. If I chose to sit on my rear end and watch TV, I would not have gotten the money for the access road, but then I would have not had to do the work either. The choice was mine and I felt justified in the finished project. Fencing is different, I could let my sheep graze the back forty with no fencing, the dog keeping the coyotes at bay, and then just sell my lamb for a higher profit, but it is not good for my soil to do that.

It is interesting because my degree in accounting comes straight from the bible where over 2000 verses tell us just what we should be doing; staying out of debt, running cars into the 1/4 million mile mark, buying everything in cash. After applying it to my life, I often have to ask my accountants and attorneys why if I am so wrong, I retired at age 42, and them...being much older...are not?

But my point in all this is not to sound like a keyboard-cowboy, but to encourage others to dig into the bible on what it says about finances, research Dave Ramsey information, go to the Compass One website, check out what David Jeremiah has to say about finances...and overall just be in this world and not of this world.
 
   / Tractor Ownership, the true cost
  • Thread Starter
#43  
Digested feedback, indefinite hiatus seems appropriate from rural forum at minimum, who was it that said "how do you really feel"?
 
   / Tractor Ownership, the true cost #44  
I guess I'm one of those guys who has the natural ability to fix, figure out, and repair just about anything. However, I bought a brand new John Deere tractor in January 2014 and have done absolutely nothing to it except change fluids and filters. It's been a great machine and I'm quite pleased I haven't had to work on it.
 
   / Tractor Ownership, the true cost #45  
All my life, I've enjoyed tinkering. If I could buy the tools needed and do a job for what it cost to hire it out, I did. My wife thought I was crazy when I bought my first welder - until she saw what I could do with it. I now own 5 welders, and every one of them has allowed me to make money. I have a dozen rollaway boxes with tools - many older than I - that I have inheirited, bought, picked up off the road, and have been given to me. When we left town and moved to the Sierra Nevada foothills, the toolset expanded some more. The 30 year old 21hp Mitsubishi I bought provided valuable experience and opportunities to fabricate. A year with it gave me a much better idea of what I needed, and scared the wife enough that she suggested a new, modern, safer, more powerful tractor was in order.

OTOH, even though I could have built my shop myself, I hired it out to a contractor. I was paying for three storage units for my tools - leaving me frustrated on all the other projects I needed to do - and it would have taken me months of spare time. Instead, it took two weeks and two trips with a 26' liftgate box truck. Money well spent.
I have "extra duty" work that pays over $60/hr. Two or three days a week, I'll work an extra 6.5hrs. I've been struggling with AFib the last year and a half, and that drains my energy and strength. Until I can get that controlled, I do extra desk work and hire out the projects I can't do. Just bought a Wicked grapple, as the doc says to not lift over 20 lbs. Did all the plumbing myself, but it took me several days at 30-40 minutes/session instead of a three-hour one.
 

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