looking for out side help on what to do…

[PeytonM]

I’m going to admit this is getting a little more personal than I like to get online but I’m really lost with what to do.

I went threw school for welding and I finished up all my classes last year and learned a lot, I don’t want to brag or boast but I could lay down so wicked tig welds. I went to work for a large farmer in WI. I did a lot of heavy carbon welding. I welded with mainly stick on a portable welder in the back of a truck and I also learned a lot about big rig trucks. I knew some about them but I learned a lot more from working on them when the welding side of things was slow. I left there cause of 2 reasons. 1) was pay, I didn’t get OT and they didn’t have benefits 2) I got tired of people questioning my ability as a welder and if I knew what I was doing. I was the only one that went to any type of school what so ever, not saying that you cant know what your doing when you don’t go to school, but I don’t weld things I know I wouldn’t be happy with. I don’t do cobble jobs. I fix things once, I fix things right and I fix things to last. not get by for a while cause  it just makes things twice as hard to repair later on.

I now have a job at a large stainless place. they build process systems for food beverage ag. and medical.  a lot of the jobs are not being able to talk about them due to client’s needs. I love my job. I enjoy every minute I’m there, the part where I’m not happy is its a hour and a half drive one way from home to work. I just got another team for pulling and the mare is going to foal on may 9th. I don’t get to harness and drive them like I’d want.  I’ve came to two different ideas.

1) from the pulling club and people I know I found one guy that has a place that is a little shack, not very big, I can have horses there, I need to feed them at own expense and he wants 400 a month and I have to pay my own heat. It is a 45 min. drive down back roads that are rough, and dirt roads.

2) I have a aunt that lives about 45 min’s away close to a main 4 lane highway with horses, I haven’t ran it by her but I thought of buying a horse trailer with living quarters I’ve found a 07 Sundowner Sunlite 727 for 22K full living quarters. I would just part at her place and give her money for electrical and water everything else I would be ok with. so say it cost me 150 to have it parked there payments on the trailer is 267 so I’m 417 a month.

I would really like to buy the trailer. I take home a little over 1700 a month working no over time and after this next week we will start OT and I’ll have close to 2300 take home I’m thinking. I don’t like to put my money in to something that I will never get it back from. I guess I feel I’d have 400 a month at a place and I’m not going to gain anything from it, I’m not going to build from that. where as with a trailer I would still have a payment but at the same time it would be mine and I wouldn’t have a need to replace it because its alum. and it would have living quarts, and I could fit my team and much more in to the trailer I’m looking at.  I know I have to have insurance on the trailer but I did some looking on line and it seems like its only a few hundred for a years worth.

 

I guess I want to see what your thoughts are. Now days things are kind of hard to start off cause it takes so much money at the start of things up. In all honesty I like to look at where I want to be in 5 years, right now I want to work my current job for about 5 years and just farm on the side, I have 3 feeder pigs I will harvest this fall to fill my freezer and my parents plant a VERY large garden with totoes, in the past they have give away enough tatters to fill the back of a small pick up ( ranger,s10) with a 6 ft box and still had enough for them self all winter and my 3 sisters and 1 brother. I want to farm to make enough food to live off the land and slowly just farm for a living and maybe even log and build horse stuff ( eveners, forcarts ect.)

 

Thanks for your help. Just want to know what other people have done in the past they may have been a mistake they’ve learned from or something they did that wasn’t a mistake that worked out for them.

 

Peyton

[j.l.holt]

Two things you said I can relate to. Might help and give some insite.  I worked for 30yrs as a farrier. And still here people who know nothing question what i say or what I do.  I have heard everything from my friend has done this for 5yr to I  was married to  a farrier.  Good for you all.  Is a lady married to a brain surgeon qualified to give talks on surgery?  The point is most people just don’t know what it takes to do a specialty job. They are to lazy to do it there selves so they hire you ,,then think that gives them the right to question you.  That whole thought will never go away, only you can go away from it.

Now as far as working for the welding shop people.  They pay well? Have insurance? Have work?  When I was working. I had to go everyday and make a job. No back up,no benefits. If I did not find and do work.no eat.  You get the picture.  There is a lot to be said for working a public job.  I like nights off and any other day I wanted as well.  you might talk them into working 12-14 hr. days and get more time in a row off, still keeping your benefits.  Or the last thing to think about is the fact that right now might not be the right time of your life to have horses and so many irons in the fire.

[sickle hocks]

hi peyton..

i’m not saying i know anything, but i have made a lot of the mistakes that can be made and tried living lots of different ways, so i’ll throw in my two bits

the hour and a half commute each way is no good for the long term, i think you’re dead right about that.  i like that you’re thinking creatively about how to live the way you want to live and not just doing what the world expects of you.

i just hate seeing a guy get in a bunch of debt.  i know that you need to get started though.  i like the trailer idea.  i think trying not to throw money away on rent is a good idea.  those fancy horse trailers with the living quarters are really made for the rich horse people market, and they are priced accordingly.  I bet you could spend a third of that money and get yourself an old travel trailer to live in and an old stock trailer to move the horses..you’re a little less mobile as you’ll have to make two trips, but it doesn’t sound like you want to live on the road anyway.  You could build a little shade or porch around  the  living trailer and have the stock trailer free if you wanted to take the horses somewhere, and you can always sleep in a tent or the back of the truck if your taking the horses out for a weekend…fifteen grand less debt is an awful lot closer to freedom and i don’t think you’d be giving up that much value, put the cash towards the next step…..

family can get strained by this sort of thing so you’re aunt would have to really be on board with the idea…i’d give her a bit of rent money to help her out, and i’d try to be super helpful around her place, maybe fix things up and help with projects

but that’s just the way i might see it….good luck..

 

[Does’ Leap]

Hi Peyton:

My feedback is along the same lines as Sickle Hocks.  A 3 hour, round-trip commute is a long hall.  Current milage rates (which are supposed to include gas as well as depreciation) are about $.56/mile.  If you are going 160 miles, it is costing your close to $90/day.  Cutting down the commute will pay big dividends.

I also suggest keeping debt as low as possible.  Build a cabin on skids (that you could sell eventually) or buy a cheap trailer.  A simple lean-to would work for the horses.  I lived in a yurt for 2 years while a saved for a down payment on my land and lived in it for another 3 while I built the infrastructure on my farm.

Good luck.

George

[PeytonM]

Thanks for the replys I understand what you mean about debt. The trailer im looking at is a 3h ssundowner sunlite 727, listed at 22k. I would have a payment of rroughly 275 a month on it, I understand the idea of the camper or little shack on skids. But I haul my horses alot, im getting in to the pulling side of things so it would also be used on weekends at pulls to stay in, I own a 81 ww 18 stck trailer I would sell for down payment.

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