Hello guys!
So my wife and I have been talking a lot and she warmed up to the fact that we may be able to buy our first piece of equipment next summer/fall perhaps. We own 100+ acres of timber land and also have long driveways that we currently pay to get cleaned.
I’ve been wanting a tractor ever since I moved to the country from the city. Here’s our situation.
Hopefully with my OT money from work, selling a little bit of saw logs to our local mill and the extra money my wife can make after taking care of our kids, we plan to buy a tractor. Unfortunately we don’t make a lot of money and we are planning on building our off grid homestead for the summer of 2020, it’ll probably come down to a couple options.
1- Find a decent old tractor hopefully locally with a loader and snowblower, then go to the bank to ask for a loan for the difference in what we saved and the price of tractor.
2- Same idea, with our saved money, go to our local tractor dealers and finance a new tractor with a down payment of what ever we save.
I’m leaning towards option 1 for mainly one reason, because I don’t think we can afford paying monthly for a new tractor once we mortgage for the house. That being said, back to the old tractor. That’s 100% fine with. Then, can we afford a bigger tractor knowing we also have to pay per month to pay the small loan? If not, that goes to a small no cab tractor. Or a homemade cab.
Are they good tractors for firewood/homesteading? I know it gets the job done most of the time, but I’m trying to see what’s more cost effective for us. We live in northern Canada and it gets very cold and very windy. If we end up getting a smaller no cab (like the old Masseys/International), how much do homemade cabs generally cost to make? Does it involve welding or simply drilling
So I guess what this comes down to is, realistically we could probably buy cash a small no cab tractor. Probably not a larger one. Maybe not be able to pay the loan once we build our house either. Should we wait out possibly another winter and try saving more to pay cash a larger one the summer we build? Or would a good no cab tractor (I’d make a homemade one if it doesn’t have one already) handle and do everything we need with ease? Haul some firewood/tree lengths. Maybe haul a small load of logs to our local mill. Snow blow 500 meters of trail in the woods, etc. How many HP’s should I be looking for? Minimum?
Also, if you could post pictures and stories of your smaller no cab or homemade cab tractors, that would be awesome. The more I wrote this post, the more I kinda want a smaller tractor with a homemade cab if it cuts the price in half (10-15k larger tractor / 5-8k smaller tractor)
Edit: just checked prices on Kijiji, yeah, most bigger tractors are 8-15k and smaller ones are 5-10. So really, it’ll all depend how much we can save and how much we have to loan for the difference.
I guess I’m chatty today..
Thanks a million!
So my wife and I have been talking a lot and she warmed up to the fact that we may be able to buy our first piece of equipment next summer/fall perhaps. We own 100+ acres of timber land and also have long driveways that we currently pay to get cleaned.
I’ve been wanting a tractor ever since I moved to the country from the city. Here’s our situation.
Hopefully with my OT money from work, selling a little bit of saw logs to our local mill and the extra money my wife can make after taking care of our kids, we plan to buy a tractor. Unfortunately we don’t make a lot of money and we are planning on building our off grid homestead for the summer of 2020, it’ll probably come down to a couple options.
1- Find a decent old tractor hopefully locally with a loader and snowblower, then go to the bank to ask for a loan for the difference in what we saved and the price of tractor.
2- Same idea, with our saved money, go to our local tractor dealers and finance a new tractor with a down payment of what ever we save.
I’m leaning towards option 1 for mainly one reason, because I don’t think we can afford paying monthly for a new tractor once we mortgage for the house. That being said, back to the old tractor. That’s 100% fine with. Then, can we afford a bigger tractor knowing we also have to pay per month to pay the small loan? If not, that goes to a small no cab tractor. Or a homemade cab.
Are they good tractors for firewood/homesteading? I know it gets the job done most of the time, but I’m trying to see what’s more cost effective for us. We live in northern Canada and it gets very cold and very windy. If we end up getting a smaller no cab (like the old Masseys/International), how much do homemade cabs generally cost to make? Does it involve welding or simply drilling
So I guess what this comes down to is, realistically we could probably buy cash a small no cab tractor. Probably not a larger one. Maybe not be able to pay the loan once we build our house either. Should we wait out possibly another winter and try saving more to pay cash a larger one the summer we build? Or would a good no cab tractor (I’d make a homemade one if it doesn’t have one already) handle and do everything we need with ease? Haul some firewood/tree lengths. Maybe haul a small load of logs to our local mill. Snow blow 500 meters of trail in the woods, etc. How many HP’s should I be looking for? Minimum?
Also, if you could post pictures and stories of your smaller no cab or homemade cab tractors, that would be awesome. The more I wrote this post, the more I kinda want a smaller tractor with a homemade cab if it cuts the price in half (10-15k larger tractor / 5-8k smaller tractor)
Edit: just checked prices on Kijiji, yeah, most bigger tractors are 8-15k and smaller ones are 5-10. So really, it’ll all depend how much we can save and how much we have to loan for the difference.
I guess I’m chatty today..
Thanks a million!