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Stop dragging him down

July 8th, 2008 at 05:41 am

That is what I need to do. I like to / have to pour over our finances, and especially this past weekend, everything was about "how are we going to pay the credit card?" It was due on Sunday, and has like $7000 on it now. I put $128 on it Saturday from the kicking around account, just so I wouldn't miss the minimum payment, and then on Sunday I balanced the checkbooks and came up with $1500 to put on it. We have $2000 in our "extra hidden" savings account. I don't want to touch that money for any reason, but maybe I should. We have $1000 extra in the farm/bills account right now. I have about $300 for the next two weeks in the kicking around check book, but that doesn't include the $90 I spent on gas this morning. I'll have to get gas again on Thursday and next Monday before I get paid again in about two weeks, so that is about all the money right there. We also used all the diesel in the 600 gallon tank, so we need to replenish that somehow.

The wheat should be cut any day now, but it rained again up there, so I don't know when it will be cut. I swathed a lot this weekend, but that won't be for cash...that will be for bales we need for this winter. Or we can sell it. But no money coming in from there for quite a while. The crop insurance check will be for ~$2600, but we have to make a land payment of $2500 at the first of August.

DH had a terrible time this weekend. For some reason the fuel pump went out of our tractor on Thursday, which we just had someone go through for $900 a month ago, and he hasn't been able to get that off and to the mechanic again. So, we are renting a tractor by the hour. He was baling and my brother-in-law (my sister's husband, not his brother) happened to stop by while he had a bale in the baler. He stopped and talked to him for like an hour, and when DH tried to start up again, something went wrong with the hydrolic pressure and he couldn't get the bale to start turning again. Couldn't get it out for some reason either. So he had to take a roller out and dig the hay out by hand and then couldn't get the roller back in. Worked for about 2 hours getting it unslugged. I had to stop swathing and come help him put it back together.

He started baling again, and got that patch done. Went to another patch, and he hit a ditch. The hitch pin came out of the baler and the baler came off the tractor and slid down into a ditch. Not like a ditch beside a road. A little one, but it sure messed us up. Anyway, it pulled the wires from the back of the tractor and broke the wire harness, and he couldn't get the baler out of the ditch. We borrowed a tractor with a loader on it, because ours was 10 miles north of there, and got it out. But we couldn't fix the wiring harness. So there was a bale stuck in there and there was a chance of rain last night. Not good.

On top of that, the air conditioner has been broken for 2 weeks up at the north house. I haven't called anyone on it because when I am there for the past two weeks, he said it wasn't too hot and we are only there at night. But it was REALLY hot this weekend. I think I may have been on the way to heat stroke on Sunday, but I finally got enough fluid in me. So it was hot and muggy and just icky all weekend.

He is out in the hot sun all day and working his patooty off and is frustrated because things keep breaking, things don't go as we think they should, and I keep reminding him that he isn't bringing in enough money. He planted about 600 acres for our farmer friend in June, and I wanted him to ask him for that money (ok, I've been nagging him about it for a few weeks). But he finally explained to me that we owe him for water hauling (we just have to pay for the gas in the truck, but still), water we used this winter for the cows, him spraying our beans, him fertilizing our beans, two bulls and one cow we bought off him. I was like, holy cow, let's not bring it up...we may owe him money!

He also planted for his dad, and I swathed for him. But he had paid one of our parts bills for ~$1000 and our work will pay for that, but again, no cash flow.

Poor guy. I guess I am a bit morbid about checking out the spreadsheet and want him to look at it with me. But I think I'm just reminding him of the things that are going wrong.

I keep saying, once the south house sells things will get better. If we can get what we are asking, we will clear about $23,000. So, that will cover most of our bank payments for the next 6 months. Here are our big payments coming up:
- $2500 for land payment August 1.
- $1200 line of credit August 1.
- $6300 pasture rent in October
- $4700 tractor/baler payment November 1
- $1039 insurance payment November 11
- $9900 land payment in December 1
- $6000 cattle loan payment in April 1

I'll also have about $1000 from not paying this mortgage and utilities I won't have to spend every month. That will help too. I was paying for dish network here at the south house, but canceled that last week. I have to have DSL for work purposes (at both houses), my cell phone doesn't work at the south house, so I have to have a land line, I have to keep the house cool so the people looking at it don't stroke out before deciding to buy. I don't know where to cut.

So, we just have to figure out a way to handle operating (and living) expenses until we can sell the house, beans, milo and calves. If that darn wheat would be cut, I wouldn't be so stressed out and in turn bugging the crap out of him. I am sorry honey!

1 Responses to “Stop dragging him down”

  1. miclason Says:
    1215540908

    ...all that and you guys are still sane??...I admire you...I'd be jumping around going: woo-hoo-hoo-hoo like Daffy Duck!
    ((hugs))

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