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Economics of Short Term Tractor Purchase

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OldNoffNoBetter
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2003-09-09          63464

I am over fifty (well over) and have been looking at compacts to make my life easier but every time I get almost close enough, I lose some of my income, my Property taxes go even higher... So I don't get it because I figure I will just have to sell out and go to a smaller place where I won't need it..... And so it goes......

The issue is you have the big place and you need a bigger machine to maintain it, because you cannot do the work you could in your forties. But you put off the purchase because you think hey I really should move to a smaller place down in FL or out west. Some place cheaper than where you are now.

And if you are moving someplace smaller you need a big diesel to sell like a whole in the head.

Thanks for listening to my predicament.

So to put my problem in a question form. If you are only thinking of staying someplace that needs a tractor for a couple of years 2-3 max is it financially a bad idea? How can you sell a tractor without taking a real beating, I don't see any tractors for sale around here that aren't tag sales for garden tractors 20 + yrs old and that sounds like a beating.

Thanks for any imput


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Peters
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2003-09-18          64239

The only sure things in life are death and taxes.
I find it interesting as I have moved around 2 countries in NA how the tax structure is different but the amount paid over all is relatively the same.
In MA everyone complained about the price of gas in Canada. Yet, if you added up the road taxes and tolls you paid closer to $2 dollars a gallon vs $1.65 in Canada, with a moderately priced car and minimal use of the toll roads. Rather than having the one tax at the pump, you had a tax when you renewed your tags and another when you travelled on the roads or bridges.
It is the same in income tax free or sales tax free states. No income tax but your property tax is 6K on 150K house.
I think politician stay up nights trying to determine how they can pay less and slip the taxes by the rest of us.
Tax reduction? Pay less federally and increase state or local taxes to make up for the short fall. ....

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DennisCTB
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2003-09-18          64246

I live in New Jersey and we have some of the highest taxes in the country, both income and property. Property taxes in my town are about 2.1% of current market value, not assesed valuation. State taxes are about 3.8% with just about no deductions from gross

I think some of it is due to the fact that:

1)two of the countries largest cities, Phil and NY border it so we get the congestion but not the ratables.
2)Entitlement mentality runs high here
3)you have to go thru NJ to go from DC to Boston etc. We have the highest per capita police state in the country.

This leads me to a radical idea lets create some new states.

The new states will be:
1)Philly Cheese State (PCS)
2)Gotham State (for NYC)

PCS and Gotham will be formed by taking a compass and drawing a 50 mile radius circle around each. This way the ratables and will apply to the surrounding city.

We folks outside the perimeter will bask in the sun of low taxes forever ahhh how sweet.


Dennis ....

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Peters
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2003-09-18          64284

If you buy a used tractor for a good price you should only loose inflation. I have done it twice in the last 7 years. Just make sure you are buying at the right price. ....

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AC5ZO
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2003-09-19          64317

I have put a link on this post that will take you to some information about taxes in various states. It makes perfect sense to want to move to a state that uses your tax money in an efficient manner.

Nobody likes to pay taxes, but it is necessary. The difference in these costs is often a reflection of what the politicians have done with the money that they get from us. You have to be careful not to focus in on a single item like income tax. States and politicians have a way of getting their projects funded whether it is by property taxes, sales taxes, fees or other means.

....


Link:   

Click Here


 
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AC5ZO
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2003-09-19          64326

With respect to your rephrased question about whether it is financially sound to get a tractor for 2-3 years...Let me turn that around for the other perspective.

Can you afford not to have the tractor for two or three years? You can hire out heavy jobs...You can "break your back" doing tough chores...You can work you butt off and not see progress...

Since I have had my CUT, my back feels better, I get things done faster, and I have NO regrets about the purchase. In fact, I moved off of a farm decades ago and did not have a tractor. I got things done. (I think that I reinvented many of the techniques used by the pyramid builders ;-}) There were weekends when I would spend time laid up with a sore back or injured shoulder. Now, if I have heavy work to do, my first instinct is to get the tractor to do the work.

You can buy a used tractor as suggested. You can transport a CUT easily with an automobile hauling trailer. It is not difficult to transport a tractor several hundred miles, so you do not need to limit your search to the local neighborhood. A compact tractor can genuinely make your retirement years more enjoyable and more healthy. ....

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DennisCTB
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2003-09-19          64330

I found this site that compares costs across numerous states. Unquestionably, this site is pitching NC and SC, yet I have heard many good things about the cost of living there. Its also hard to find useful comparatives and this is a type that seems useful.

For me I wonder if the humidity would be unbearable, is it pretty much the same as NJ?

On Dennis
TractorPoint

....


Link:   Carolina Living Cost Comparison

 
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AC5ZO
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2003-09-19          64335

Dennis, I have been in NJ in the summer and I can't imagine NC being that much worse. My wife grew up around Atlanta and it is hotter and just as humid there in GA, but further north is should be OK.

I like the desert. The humidity here now is about 20%. ....

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DennisCTB
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2003-09-19          64339

Mark,
You know when I put Costner with Eddie Murphy as full of themselves, I was thinking has Costner done anything better lately, and I forgot about Open Range. I've heard good things about the film also and wnat to see it.

I do think though that adding a super actor like Robert Duval definitely helped the picture.

Dennis ....

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DennisCTB
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2003-09-19          64340

I was trying to convince my wife that moving to Sedona NM or the higher elevations of Arizona could be great because of the low humidity.

Then she points out how with my skin being so fair that I have gotten some solar keratosis, so she says are you kidding, you cannot live someplace with no cloud or tree cover.

Have you always lived out west?

dennis
....

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AC5ZO
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2003-09-19          64350

Sedona is in Arizona and is very expensive. If you are thinking about Sante Fe NM you might as well move to California. I doubt if there are any tractor dealers in Sedona and I know that there aren'e any in Santa Fe. ;-) I actually prefer Flagstaff a few miles north of Sedona.
There are lots of trees and plenty of shade in Flagstaff. I live between Albuquerque and Santa Fe NM.

re:Sun. The sun here is brutal, but since the humidity is low, you can wear long sleeves to protect from it. Sunblock is also pretty effective. The large brim western hats also have a real purpose, although I have not figured out what to do with the sharp pointed toes on the boots since most beer cans now come with pop tops. Since the humidity is so low, you can dehydrate pretty quickly, so I carry water in the H2 at all times. The normal sun is a lot like the sun that you get at a ski resort, so you have to be careful. The altitude at my house is 5300 ft and in Santa Fe it is over 7000, so the air is thin.

I grew up on a 1000 acre farm in Central Missouri. I became and engineer and have lived near Chicago and in Southern California before settling in New Mexico in 1998.

....

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DennisCTB
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2003-09-19          64356

I have been to Phoenix,Flagstaff and El Paso. Are any of those locations like where you are living?

I drove from LA to Vegas to Flagstaff to Phoenix and San Diego when I got out of college a long time ago in the middle of July. Playing outdoor tennis in Phoenix is a lonely underatking, since few people are so uninfomred as to be playing in 114 degree temps like we were for a SHHHHOOOrtt period of time.

Yes I know that Sedona is expensive, probably too expensive for me right now.

I take it that you chose your current living location based on personal preference, not necessity.

I should probably take the family and kids out west so they could see something different than the east cost. I guess summer would be bad, what is the best time of year to visit? ....

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AC5ZO
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2003-09-19          64359

Flagstaff is the closest to where I live, with the major influence being the altitude. Phoenix and El Paso are both much lower in elevation and much hotter.

I live in the desert with sage brush and a few trees. That is what I like. The Rio Grande flows right through the center of Albuquerque and near Santa Fe. Trees grow up around the river and it is heavily irrigated with ancient irrigation canals for flooding the land. I don't like living in the irrigated area because I don't like the humidity or mosquitoes. My place is in the foothills a few hundred feet higher than Albuquerque, so we see the city lights in the distance at night.

Flagstaff has a lot of trees and is a mountain town with a ski resort. It looks like a lot of other mountain towns but has I-40 running through it. It is between 7000 and 9000 ft. (not exactly sure) It is quite similar to Durango and other towns in Southern Colorado.

The desert area around Las Vegas looks similar to where I live, but since the altitude is so much higher here, it generally only gets to about 95 in the summer and goes down to about 20 in the winter. There are also some trees that will grow naturally here. We don't always get snow in the winter. The humidity runs between 20% and 40% most times. We don't get much rain. 12 inches is a big year. We have only had 4 inches of rain so far this year.

I like the desert for a lot of reasons. Quiet is one of them, but I don't want to be anywhere near a homeowner's association, city council, or other direct controlling authority over my liberty. The desert also has a subtle beauty but you have to slow down to enjoy it. But, if I need a part for the tractor, I can be in ABQ is about a half hour. ....

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Chief
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2003-09-20          64429

AC5ZO,

Your thoughts about home owner's asssociations and the like are right on the mark. Same reason I live out by myself. I even fight zoning. That came up a few years ago and I gave an address to the county commisioners. It got voted down that time but they will be back. Just like the taxers. It is like trying to feed a cocaine addict. Never give them what they want if I have my way. ....

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Peters
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2003-09-20          64435

I am not a big fan of zoning but I am not sure how you prevent the bad neightbour from lowering you property value. For example the man across the road is nice fellow with one main fault, he can not say no.
His wife had her daughter (naturally her and yours from one or two sources) set up a trailer on one side of the house and then one day they decided to move another ramshackle trailer to the other side. Although we are in the country we have a group of nice houses up and down the road.
I figured he might as well have come over and stole the twenty thousand from me as have my property value lowered.
Luckally the wife and the red neck gypsies have moved on so life has become a little more beautiful. ....

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Chief
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2003-09-20          64440

Yeah, we are plaqued by the trailers placed in inappropriate places here also. My solution would not be zoning but a prepaid disposal/recycling bond or fee of say 25% of new retail value. That should pretty well choke them off and make a traditional house more appealing. ....

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AC5ZO
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2003-09-21          64471

My problem with these zoning and homeowners boards is that they all get on the board with an agenda. For example I lived in one place where one board member decided that some of the houses looked shabby and needed to be painted. Out of 1000 houses in the association, they issued "Paint Orders" to 500 of us. You could not get a painter for months.

I moved out of my last house because of the neighbors and the local government. I put up a small amateur radio antenna to do backup emergency communications for the Search and Rescue groups as well as the local governments. In this capacity I am a volunteer for FEMA. The local zoning board said "We love the work that you guys do, but we don't want you to put up an antenna." I lowered the antenna about five feet to meet their 26 ft maximum height and they still kept bothering me, but they could not do anything because I met the letter of the law. This was lower than trees, power poles and other things in the area. But when a neighbor started complaining about the same antenna and the board could do nothing about it, she decided that she would start stacking horse manure on her property directly across from my front door. That was in violation of the law, but the local government would do nothing about it.

When I moved to my new place, I got the permits for the antenna before I even closed escrow on the house. But, what you get on these boards are people with agendas for "no development", improve the neighborhood, change my zoning, crucify my neighbor for his transgressions, and on and on. ....

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Billy
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2003-09-21          64475

Hmmmmm... Just because you don't like trailer houses, doesn't mean someone doesn't have the right to own one.

I think it would be best, if you didn't want the chance of a sorry neighbor, to buy yourself 500 acres and build a house in the middle.

I know a lot of houses around here that are 'dumps'. A lot more houses than trailers.

By the way, I don't own a trailer and never will. I think they are one of the worst investments around (if you buy it to live in).

Billy ....

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Chief
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2003-09-21          64476

Billy, as much as I loath trailer parks and trailers in general; I am a staunch private property rights advocate. I agree that it is their right to do what they wish on their private property. I still have the right not to like it. I live near some trailer parks.

In most cases, people live in trailer because they could not afford anything. They don't want the responsibilities of a traditional house. In most cases, they pay little or no property taxes yet use all the resources the rest of us pay for. They have little and more like no vested interest in anything.

I would like to see something along the lines of how auto parts stores operate when selling major components .......... a core charge to ensure you properly dispose of the old part or pay for not doing that. Trailers typically just sit and deteriorate and never seem to make it to the dump where they belong. Even some houses do this but is much less frequent. Usually a 50% core charge gets the job done. Also, since trailer never appreciate in value, they should be taxed on their new retail value as a minimum and more like a retail plus 5% per year. Traditional home owners must bear this burden. I don't think many would buy trailers if this were the case.

I suspect a lot of my perspective is based on my persceptions from my area; there may be better positive examples elsewhere. ....

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Billy
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2003-09-21          64483

Where I live, a trailer house is put on the property rolls, just like a conventional house.

Here's where everything gets all scewed up, in Oklahoma anyway. Someone can go buy a $50,000 trailer and be living in it as quick as it takes to be delivered and set up. No down payment...no closing cost. Now if the same person wanted to buy a $50,000 conventional home, they would be looking at a month at least. There's the financing, appraisal, servey, abstract update, title search, title insurance, lawyer fees. There's a lot of people that can afford all of those costs.

....

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DennisCTB
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2003-09-22          64524

I hope that all participants will agree that at times even the the best of friends say things in the heat of argument that on later review seem to be more bitter than intended.

This thread has been renamed, and edited to try to keep some of the content that might be helpful to someone considering buying a tractor for short term use.

I think this thread also points out why we need to add the "Private Message" feature. It would also be helpful if we could self moderate ourselves so that if you want to split out a new thread on a tangential topic on politics, yatee yatee ya. that you start a new Thread titled as such.

I left as much of the core content as I could, it is not a job I relish. Appreciate your help in keeping me out of this moderation role.

Hope all of you can agree to work together as friends here on TractorPoint.

Dennis
TractorPoint.com ....

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Chief
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2003-09-22          64526

Dennis and members, I owe you all an apology. I used and demostrated poor judgement when I should have just ignored and walked away. Dennis's job is not an easy one and it was only made more difficult by my actions. It is said that we all fall short and make mistakes and I sure made mine in this case. Again, sorry and it will not happen again. ....

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Murf
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2003-09-22          64527

As part of my 'bail conditions' negotiated between myself & my good lady after last years little ... health problem ... I have agreed to conduct my 'work' during 'business hours' only, with the goal being that if I'm allowed to go back to work in the near future it will be easier to work only 35 - 40 hours per weeks.

Thus my absence here in the evenings and on weekends.

It's working very well, but you guys make it REALLY tough when I miss all the good stuff.....LOL.

I'm glad everyone was able to move on.

Chief ole' buddy, very gracious indeed.

Best of luck. ....

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tracer
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2003-09-30          65137

Oldnoffnobetter
Get the tractor. you will not regret it. They Help and are worth every penny in work done and lets face it they are a truely enjoyable tool. A good tractor turns drudgery into something I want to do. I hope none of the wives read this cause the secret of tractors making work "fun with toys time" is the best reason to get more toys. I digress.
Get you a good Green Toy and have a Blast.
....

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AC5ZO
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2003-09-30          65150

After you have fun doing something with the tractor, it is useful to splash a little water and dust on your face and clothing. Follow that up by collapsing into a comfortable chair and having a cold beer. If you can manage a nap after using the tractor the effect would be complete.

Disclosing these techniques to non CUT users is punishable by having to share your tractor and increasing the size of your "honey do" list. ....

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