Latestarter's ramblings/musings/gripes and grumbles.

It is never easy to loose a life long friend!!

I am so sorry for you.

Mike CHS said:

Joe - you are already partly fixed with LGD's so check out Border Collies. They are as smart as they get and make super pets along with being a work dog.

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First order of business is to get moved and re-settled. Then I really need to concentrate on getting a herd started and get Mel established doing what I bought him to do... LGD work. I'll need to figure out what I'm going to do about a barn since there isn't one, and then setting up cross fencing for pastures. I thankfully already have some goats lined up to get Mel and I started You know who you are Then, since this property is pretty decent sized, and there are coyotes, I need to first get another LGD to team with Mel. I'd love to consider working with @secuono for one of hers but the timing isn't quite right... Kinda the same situation as with you Mike... I don't think I'll have the barn, fencing, and herd for them to be with until spring. She's going to want to have her pups placed by the end of October or so. Maybe if there's one she hasn't placed by next spring, it will work out.

Since there's a very large Pyr rescue organization in TX, I may work with them and see if they have any working dogs in need of a new home and a job...

After that's taken care of, then I'll want/need a couple of "farm dogs" to watch over the home and yard. Really looking for bigger animals in the 70-90 pound range... I like spending most of my income on dog food...

So I have talked with an insurance person down in TX and he's working up a quote for me. He estimates it will be between 1400-1800/yr. I'd figured on 1500, so close. He's also doing a farm and ranch policy which he said is far better coverage than a residential binder and will cover out buildings and animals. He said the binder won't say "farm and ranch" so it shouldn't cause an issue with NFCU. I also talked to the farmer's coop about doing the loan through them. They can do the both properties together as one and still keep them separate the 1 acre home and the rest as AG. The lowest rate they have right now is 3.75%. I asked if I could buy that down, but I think dropping the loan amount a bit with a larger down payment will still keep this do-able. The appraiser for this place is supposed to be here tomorrow morning, so I should know (approximately) what this place is going to net me by the end of the week. Then I'll know what I can and can't do. The coop will go to a DTI of up to 43%.

Makes me tired just reading about it. Hope this all gets lined up for you soon as I am sure it wears on you much more than it does me.

We have our insurance through USAA and you are eligible for them, and includes outbuildings. We don't have a mortgage so I don't know if that makes any difference on the situation.

We are doing a USDA loan thru Farm Services and its 3.00%...no down payment needed.

Hi again. Just a couple of thoughts; Our farm credit in Va is member owned so at the end of the year my son gets a "dividend" check or whatever they call it according to what the company has made in profit. Guess it's a profit sharing check. He often just takes and signs it back as payment on one of the operating loans or something, and now that he has the new mortgage on the 75 acre farm will there will be someplace to put it, although the house on it will be rented and the rent will be paying a portion of the mortgage. Neither one of us wants to live there, it was a good opportunity to buy some land real reasonable as the owner lost his job, won't find another job, and was going to lose it to the bank. Sad, but we helped him all we could and he won't help himself so now it is ours. It's more of an investment than the actual place we want to be. Farm credit also does our insurance on all the farm related stuff...

We use llama's in with our sheep for guardians. They eat what the sheep eat, no added dog food, no worrying about them straying and if you get a decent one, they are awesome guard animals. They will chase and stomp a coyote into the ground, they aren't very effective against the black bear problem we have had in the area but hey.......same basic care as the sheep except that we have hair sheep so the llama's need shearing. We raise white texas dall sheep, like big horns, the males go to a couple of hunting preserves in Pa and they are not pets. We keep the ewes fairly friendly but not like "domestic" sheep. They are very hardy, the biggest problem we have is worms in the moister climate. And foot rot although we are breeding from the more resilient animals all the time. Tried guard dogs but we rent too many pastures and the dogs wouldn't stay and neighbors would feed them and feel sorry for them and they wouldn't stay there to do their job and it just didn't work.

I do realize that I will have to do some kind of rollover with the pension thing so as to not get hit with so much income tax but it can be used as collateral so to speak and if I decide to retire I will have a smaller income too so it might not hurt me the next year. Plus I have a small 401 k that I might just take a disbursement from since they are not earning very much and I sure don't trust the stock market after losing half of it in the 2008 disaster and finally made it all back and changed the way it was invested when we were offered more options. Better to buy land and not pay rent in the end. Hope I haven't bored you to tears...

The thing I found out about 401K's is that ANYTHING you take out is treated as ordinary income. No capital gains. If you and the company jointly put in $50K over time and it is now worth $100K, you would think that $50K would be capital gains but no. I guess they figure if the money put in was pre-tax, the gain is as well.

Found this out when I pulled some to put in the solar array. Federal tax credit of 30%. But it is a credit so you need to owe that much in taxes to get the full 30%. If you can't use the full amount in one year, I think you can carry it forward but I don't know for how many years.

Thus if you can do something useful with the money that generates a tax credit, you can lower your tax hit.

Bruce said:

The thing I found out about 401K's is that ANYTHING you take out is treated as ordinary income. No capital gains. If you and the company jointly put in $50K over time and it is now worth $100K, you would think that $50K would be capital gains but no. I guess they figure if the money put in was pre-tax, the gain is as well.

Found this out when I pulled some to put in the solar array. Federal tax credit of 30%. But it is a credit so you need to owe that much in taxes to get the full 30%. If you can't use the full amount in one year, I think you can carry it forward but I don't know for how many years.

Thus if you can do something useful with the money that generates a tax credit, you can lower your tax hit.

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Hi Bruce; yeah I took out 5,000 a couple of years ago from the 401k to buy some cattle and in 2 years made back that in sales and still have the cows. Had to pay the taxes on it, up front, which was not great, but okay, but after 59 1/2 don't have to pay a penalty. The money wasn't making much and I did alot better with the live cows and selling the calves. They are at least "renewable" if they don't die!!!!!! As for the pension, as soon as our company gets everything in order; we have an investment firm that has been handling it and the guy has been with our company for over 20 years and he gives good advise; I will talk to him one on one and see which is the best way to go. We have been trying to fully fund the pension fund for several years and get out of it due to the gov't bs nowadays and figuring that down the road it might not be there considering the national debt etc....It should be done by the end of this year they hope. Don't trust that social security will be there either in a few more years.....Also don't want to keep too much money in the bank cuz' if it gets bad the gov't might do something like greece did and only allow you to take a token of your own money out a day or the atms might just stop etc. I am not a "sky is falling" type of person, but....don't trust the gov't and it's CRAZY policies anymore... Ever read any of William W Johnstone Invasion USA or other ones about "current" conditions....? Makes you stop and think....

So I contacted the FSA (USDA) about doing the loan through them... No can do. They require that you have a minimum of 3 years documented farm management experience in the past ten years to do the loan. They did tell me that after I purchase the place, they'll give me a loan to buy cattle Gotta get a loan to BUY the place first! Can't do a USDA loan as 80% of the property value has to be in the home (too much land). SO... it looks like I have to bite my nails waiting on NFCU, and if they balk, I will use TX Farm Credit at 3.75% instead.

Do the farm credit loan, get the place bought and then do a refinance after you get situated. Then you will be there, and alot of time farm credit will do a refi with no/minimal closing costs. At this point you need to get there, if the economy crashes you might even do better with costs....and if texas farm credit is member owned then you will get money back as a member....Get it approved, you can back out up until you have the closing...