Regina/ 14 miles South of Moose Jaw Saskatchewan | Kind of a loaded question:
1. There's "new" and "new to me" equipment.... Have bought 2 "new" pieces of equipment since we've been farming - in both cases it was a machine we couldn't find used, and our operation needed (new series of rock picker in the 1980's, and this year a tandem disk that wasn't available in the size/shape we needed)
2. Always looking for "new to me" equipment - justification is that it will in some form either improve the timeliness/quality of fieldwork.....believe that does increase (maintain?) our income
3. Accountant always stresses "only buy what you absolutely need" - never buy for assumed tax rationale....sometimes I need that lecture 'cause shiny iron sure looks nice....
4. Have also heard the speech more than once that one of the biggest errors on the business side that farmers in our area make is being over-capitalized in terms of their investment vs cash-flow....
I'd estimate 60% of our repairs have to be farmed out vs done ourselves - that being said, we're looking only at buying "new to me" - at a price that allows for repairs, and still feeling that we have a reasonable investment....
As others have said in the past, its good that there's enough being bought new to make a reasonable used market of 10-20 yr old used machines to keep all of us going....
FWIW
Doug W. |
Would you income increase if you didn't buy new equipment?
