Thoughts about heating fuel for my home.

[ericm979]

For me the tractor's primary jobs aren't firewood related. I'd have them anyhow. That means the aid they provide for firewood is "free".

 

[Ashful]

Me thinks the long lay back oeriod should be assigned to the hobby of equipment here. Not to the heating itself.

It is the tractors etc. that stretch things here. But you'd likely have bought those anyway, even if you hadn't heated with wood ...?

yes, at least partly true. I’d have a tractor, just for snow, mulch, and other small chores. But it would likely be $25k cheaper and much older than the one I bought to frequently lift logs. Heck, my 1965 Cub Cadet 123 worked pretty well for all of those jobs, aside from moving big wood.

But I’m also not being fair in accounting of the budget, because as a homeowner who generally cares well for his stuff, I’ve never sold a tractor for much less than I paid for it. Thank you inflation, for nearly balancing depreciation. Someday, I’ll sell my rig for about what I paid for it, so I should really only count the loss due to inflation. In that sense, I’ll be way ahead if I sell before I die. 😀

Bottom line, even if I burned the equipment, I’d bet I’ll still a little ahead in pure dollars after a planned 20 years. But not nearly enough to make a financial justification for the time, and that was my point, although poorly stated. There are non-financial reasons for doing this, not the least of which is that an hour outside moving firewood does my mind and body more good than another hour at my desk.

 

[Isaac Carlson]

Yeah, don’t ask me about the year I pre-payed 1000 gallons of oil at $3.25, and then watched it drop below $2.25. Was that 2015?

The economics have changed quite a bit, since then.

Here, if we prepay, we get the prepay price even if it goes up, and if it goes down we get that price. It's just a prepaid amount unless the price goes up, then it's insurance against a price increase. We don't prepay,