SW Financial Literacy
I sent this question to X (Twitter) and received some insightful responses. Enjoy!
If you could go back and start farming all over again… What is the One Thing you would do different in the first 5 years?
Buy a 10 acre tract on a main road away from houses that had 3 phase electricity to build grain storage facility. This property could then be operational, sold or leased and be of value to multiple growers. -@rickmurdockagc
For my first 5 years, I should have bought all the land I could have bit off. It’s doubled in value locally since that time. -@Joe_Webel
Get into custom work sooner. I focus more on marketing and finances. -@Jones6807
In a follow-up to Jones6807 I asked for tips on picking up custom work. His response: Find the market and push it hard. Cold calls, flyers, Facebook page. We do a lot of land rolling and park our rollers all over the country through out the winter/early spring with our name and number on them. Custom work takes a commitment.
Spend less time worrying about “making it” and more time enjoying each step of the process. -@GarthGatson
Grow smarter, do a better job with less. It’s okay to give up unprofitable land. -@MattHintz3
Don’t have many regrets on first 5 years of farming. Can’t pick just one. Take some accounting and ag financial mgmt classes (didn’t take ages in university). Take personality testing with my farm partners so we would better understand each other and how we communicate. -@RonKrahn
Start a YouTube page. -@gdtwinkie
Life is full of should’ve, would’ve and could’ves. We all live in the moment. We do the best we can in that moment, and if we look back we stray off the path instead of going straight ahead. We can’t do anything about the past so we must live in, and enjoy the moment. -@DonHartman12
Stayed at my full time job and focused on buying land instead of renting. -@yenterfarms
Started in 1980, not many options. Probably number one would be not listen to neighbors and experts because they were leading us to mono farming and getting rid of livestock. -@wholefarminsure
Had a neighbor come over and asked if we were interested in buying 1/4 and renting the rest. Didn’t think could handle it all at the moment, should of taken the chance. -@BryanBiegs
1). Work for someone besides family for a few years. 2). Buy that rented farm I turned down. -@KelseyFran68335
Have a great week!
Grant
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