Farming subsidies should be scrapped.

[Henarar]

I'm sorry but i was trying to point you in the right direction. It good to keep things simple, but they have to be correct and relevant or you will soon find yourself in charge of a failed business.

I was thinking about investment this morning. What % of turn over do people reinvest every year? Do they use the "sub" as a benchmark more or less? Does the sub help you to be more efficient or does it make a business less efficient? ie does the sub investment help pay for capital items that encourages lower cost production?

I was being slightly funny hence the
Though I do more or less run the businss like that
Been working for myself since before I left school and never HAD to borrow money yet
Sub money is raining day money or very long term investment
By that I mean to tide you over if some sort of disaster happens or buying land or things like sheds. OK to pay the rent with it though as if you didn't do that you wouldnt have the sub
If it has to be used for year to year running of the business then the business is not sound
Mostly goes on my pension but what that is is my business

 

[Farmer Roy]

sh!t - I have trouble remembering a time I didn't borrow money . . .

I've been in debt for more than half my life, there is no way I could have started, or continued, farming without borrowed money . . .

I can't get my head around that . . . everyone here has overdrafts, loan repayments, property loans etc etc

 

[Sid]

sh!t - I have trouble remembering a time I didn't borrow money . . .

I've been in debt for more than half my life, there is no way I could have started, or continued, farming without borrowed money . . .

I can't get my head around that . . . everyone here has overdrafts, loan repayments, property loans etc etc

I was being slightly funny hence the
Though I do more or less run the businss like that
Been working for myself since before I left school and never HAD to borrow money yet
Sub money is raining day money or very long term investment
By that I mean to tide you over if some sort of disaster happens or buying land or things like sheds. OK to pay the rent with it though as if you didn't do that you wouldnt have the sub
If it has to be used for year to year running of the business then the business is not sound
Mostly goes on my pension but what that is is my business

Nothing wrong with borrowing money to make money or to buy an appreciating asset. Not borrowing can be as foolish as borrowing!

 

[Henarar]

sh!t - I have trouble remembering a time I didn't borrow money . . .

I've been in debt for more than half my life, there is no way I could have started, or continued, farming without borrowed money . . .

I can't get my head around that . . . everyone here has overdrafts, loan repayments, property loans etc etc

perhaps "everyone" has had a more extravagant lifestyle than me and spent a lot, I don't know but I don't come on here to tell lies

apparently I am doing it all wrong though or so I was told on here, I shouldn't be using my own money and should be borrowed up to the hilt running round expanding doing more and getting less, sweating my assets I think they call it [not sure @farmerclare would like my assets all sweaty]
fine I will ring the bank up and see what I can hang round my neck if that is what it takes to make a farmer of me

 

[Hilly]

budgets easy, don't spend anything you don't have to and get as much money for what you sell as you can
cashflow, if you haven't got it you can't spend it [a good thing sometimes]
p and l , look at the bank statement end of the year



art else you need to know

Exactly, some folk cant have make there life complex for no benefit.

 

[Hilly]

perhaps "everyone" has had a more extravagant lifestyle than me and spent a lot, I don't know but I don't come on here to tell lies

apparently I am doing it all wrong though or so I was told on here, I shouldn't be using my own money and should be borrowed up to the hilt running round expanding doing more and getting less, sweating my assets I think they call it [not sure @farmerclare would like my assets all sweaty]
fine I will ring the bank up and see what I can hang round my neck if that is what it takes to make a farmer of me

Na as you are id say, working for yourself is great, working for a bank not so, especially the way they behave these days.

 

[Sid]

perhaps "everyone" has had a more extravagant lifestyle than me and spent a lot, I don't know but I don't come on here to tell lies

apparently I am doing it all wrong though or so I was told on here, I shouldn't be using my own money and should be borrowed up to the hilt running round expanding doing more and getting less, sweating my assets I think they call it [not sure @farmerclare would like my assets all sweaty]
fine I will ring the bank up and see what I can hang round my neck if that is what it takes to make a farmer of me

Perhaps you could invest your "capital" outside the farm and then use farm assets as leverage to borrow at a favourable rate?

Each to their own but money makes money.

 

[Sid]

My dad never borrowed a penny and never grew or bought any assets.
I have bought land, a house, converted a barn, tripled cow numbers ,lived well and paid it all back. That has given me assets to use to buy another farm with 3 banks vying for my business.

 

[Sid]

My dad never borrowed a penny and never grew or bought any assets.
I have bought land, a house, converted a barn, tripled cow numbers ,lived well and paid it all back. That has given me assets to use to buy another farm with 3 banks vying for my business.

BUT all at rates of sub 8%.
At 18 % different game.

 

[Henarar]

My dad never borrowed a penny and never grew or bought any assets.
I have bought land, a house, converted a barn, tripled cow numbers ,lived well and paid it all back. That has given me assets to use to buy another farm with 3 banks vying for my business.

best of luck to you

 

[Henarar]

was your dad a nice bloke ?

 

[Sid]

was your dad a nice bloke ?

Two points, he is still here, what difference does it make if he is nice or not??

 

[Henarar]

Two points, he is still here, what difference does it make if he is nice or not??

was he happy with his farming

 

[Sid]

was he happy with his farming

Being happy is different than being nice.

Yes he was happy. But he's even happier now he can sit back and we can support two families on the farm

 

[Henarar]

My dad never borrowed a penny and never grew or bought any assets.
I have bought land, a house, converted a barn, tripled cow numbers ,lived well and paid it all back. That has given me assets to use to buy another farm with 3 banks vying for my business.

perhaps some of us like to leave something for someone else to run a business on
why bigger why not better ?
that's what I like to do, make the best of what I have and by the best I don't mean produce as much as I can
just cos I don't farm half of Somerset and am not that bothered if I farm any more acres don't mean to say I have given up

a mate of mine is working on a farm at the moment and he said the farmer is going from 1800 milking cows and enough followers to keep the numbers up to 2800, when he told me this the only question I could think to ask was "why" and I would ask the farmer the same thing if I spoke to him
tbh I can't think of much worse and I did say that apart from turning round and selling it I wouldn't want it as a gift

 

[Henarar]

Being happy is different than being nice.

Yes he was happy. But he's even happier now he can sit back and we can support two families on the farm

that's good

 

[Red Fred]

I found the opposite (to Sid), dad borrowed sensibly in his earlier years to expand, as he saw it, but he failed to factor in his own mortality, and kept struggling up to the end rather than involve the family. The upshot was that when he passed on, at around the age I'm at now, we discovered that his borrowing had spiralled in his last year or two, and it took a heck of a long time to get things back on an even keel. This has made me rather debt averse having been on the receiving end of the bank's impatience, and I haven't borrowed since, after taking on the next door tenancy after dad died. As I don't have any kids, I'm quite happy this way and want for nothing more than a cottage in rural Dorset for Mrs Fred and I when we retire, and hopefully a reasonable standard of living. If that makes me an idiot, then so be it.

 

[7610 super q]

Each to their own. Spent 25 years with an overdraft, 3 tractors and car on finance,and a mortgage ( 16% for some of the time).
Once in debt, I could never get out of it. Sometimes, for brief periods, out of O/D, but always back in. It took a drastic solution to leave all that behind, and I would never borrow money again.
Piece of mind for me means a lot.

 

[Sid]

perhaps some of us like to leave something for someone else to run a business on
why bigger why not better ?
that's what I like to do, make the best of what I have and by the best I don't mean produce as much as I can
just cos I don't farm half of Somerset and am not that bothered if I farm any more acres don't mean to say I have given up

a mate of mine is working on a farm at the moment and he said the farmer is going from 1800 milking cows and enough followers to keep the numbers up to 2800, when he told me this the only question I could think to ask was "why" and I would ask the farmer the same thing if I spoke to him
tbh I can't think of much worse and I did say that apart from turning round and selling it I wouldn't want it as a gift

I didn't say bigger is better , but suffice to say i can't say I would still be farming if we hadn't of grown.
You have to speculate to accumulate, the more you speculate the more you can accumulate/lose.

Doing something better can bring bigger rewards than expanstion. I could have piled all my investment into the business,rented land had 10 employees but not been happy. If your happy with your lot then so be it @Henarar and good luck to you but having money sat in the bank devaluing is madness. Make it work for you which is what you are doing.

 

[Sid]

One size does not fit all.