OK, here's my take on it. As said, check first to see if there are zoning restrictions. Then if you have the green light, put some thought into what you will need in the way of structures. Think codes again. Water sourcing and Electricals, again think codes. Still want the business? Hopefully you have put some major thought into what the market looks like out there and whether you'll be selling plants at your residence. Next step is contacting your insurance companies. I would not let one person step foot into my business property unless I had that paper saying you'd be covered. Next step is the business license, and yes, don't make the mistake of not keeping records of every purchase and sale, and collecting the appropriate taxes. In Ohio, the Dept of Ag asks you let them know a year in advance if you want a nursery license. They are great and will bend over backwards if you don't have that kind of lead time, but it wouldn't hurt to call them, tell them your plans, and have them send you the literature laying out exactly what your obligations are for the type of stock you want to sell. I worked inside the industry several years before I struck out on my own, so I had the dirty on who the best suppliers were, and what kind of nursery equipment and structures I needed. I also had an inkling of what is expected from a customer and who to target with sales. Agribusiness leaves a lot of attorneys and accountants clueless. It's an whole other ballgame than straight retail sales or manufacturing. There are all sorts of little things you need to know about what is/is not personal property versus real estate. What can be claimed. How tools and structures are amortised. Our accountant, luckily, is comfortable with it. As the others, to save major moolah, and since I am crunching numbers continually with the business, I do all the tax work and just bring him the crunched numbers for his perusal. There are all sorts of filings and forms you'll have to fill out, like unclaimed funds, alien worker information, year end inventories, yadayadayada. It's danged scary at first when you're so ignorant you don't know what questions to ask, or whether you've covered all your bases. But, it all falls into place and most of the agencies involved are more than willing to help you with answers. I took two small business courses, and frankly, their focus was on theory and sales, and they hedged all over the place with specific questions, especially legal ones. LIkewise the score programs. Didn't help one bit. Your county extension often has an advisor for the economic end of agribusiness. Ours does and that's what he's (she's) there for. Use them.

Carol, I found your post a few weeks ago on a search. For some reason, I keep thinking about your questions and the advice you got, and I finally decided to log on and comment. Here are a few comments about your post: 1) You make a good point about being able to get better returns with mutual funds over a MM. 2-3% is very achievable. On the other hand, it is also quite possible to lose 2-3% - or more- with mutual funds. This is the trade-off between risk and reward that is inherent in investing. Typically fixed income investments, such as MM, T-bills, and government bonds are called "risk free" investments. Equities, such as stocks, and stock mutual funds are typically considered to be riskier. In general, the "riskier" the investment, the higher the rate of return. 2) You mentioned investing in a mutual fund. Another aspect of risk/reward is diversification. Again, in general funds that are spread among several different investments are at lower risk (Dont put all your eggs in one basket). Taking this a step further, risk is reduced more by making sure the different investments are sufficiently diverse. Some examples of diversity would be bonds vs. stocks, growth stocks vs. value stocks, US stocks vs. foreign stocks, etc. 3) Everybody has a different risk tolerance. Your husband seems to be very risk averse. You seem to be more risk tolerant. The level of risk is a personal decision that both of you must feel comfortable with. 4) I would like to suggest that you visit a website called www.ifa.com. This is a company of investment advisors that specialize in mutual funds by Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA). IÂm not suggesting you use DFA at this time. What I am suggesting is that you and your husband take the risk survey that IFA has on their website. It is free, and you donÂt have to sign up or give them your E-mail address. The risk survey is about 20 questions. The results give you an idea where you are on the risk taking spectrum. Based on the results, IFA will suggest one of 20 different portfolios that fit in with your risk tolerance. Again, I wouldnÂt necessarily suggest those portfolios for you, but they will give you a general idea of the types of investments that would be consistent with the level of risk you and your husband would like to take. I may make a few people angry, but I need to comment about the advice you have been given: First, the good advice. 1) I agree with much of what jkom51 says in the first reply. Although you probably donÂt need a CFP, it wonÂt hurt as long as you can find a good one. 2) Chisue suggested treasuries and CDs. These can be good alternatives to MM, but you should research the advantages and differences. 3) Great advice f lphacat. American Funds are "load funds". That means when you buy them, a salesman gets a commission, usually about 5.25%. If you invest $400,000, you will LOSE $21,000 immediately. The big problem with this is that there are "no load" funds out there that will do just as good if not better, and you can get them for about $30 per fund. If you have 10 funds, that would be $300 verses $21,000. Too often an advisor who is recommending a load fund has his best interests at heart instead of yours. I wouldnÂt even consider load funds if I were you. 4) Alphacat also suggested DFA funds. He is correct; almost any DFA fund runs rings around American. They are all no load and have much lower annual fees as well. On a $400,000 investment, the difference in ER between DFA and American can run $4000 per year. With compounding, this is about $60,000 over 10 years that you are giving up. 5) The absolute best advice you got was f lphacat when he recommended you go to www.fundadvice.com. Go there and read every article, especially this one (sorry, I canÂt get the link to work, so I just copied the whole address) http://www.fundadvice.com/articles/buy-hold/the-ultimate-buy-and-hold-strategy.html. Paul Merriman gives great advice to folks. He is also a financial advisor who you might want to consider. I think he will work on a percentage of assets or I know he will give advice on a per hour basis (around $200/hr). This may be your best option. For about $400 you can get some really first rate advice on how best to invest. For disclosure purposes, I donÂt invest with Merriman, but I do read his site quite often. Also, for disclosure, all my IRA assets are invested in DFA funds. Now for the bad advice: 1) The average investor has absolutely no business investing in individual stocks. If you put your money in 10 mutual funds you are invested in 10,000 stocks. Now if one of your stocks goes bankrupt, would you rather lose $40,000 ($400,000/10 stocks) or $4 ($400,000/10,000 stocks). This goes back to diversification. You just canÂt minimize the risk enough with individual stocks. 2) DonÂt bother going to Morningstar.com, or Forbes, or Money . Frankly I consider most of what they put out to be financial ography. They are trying to entice and tempt you with the "hot" stock, the " " stock, the investment that will make you filthy rich. But if you go back and look at last yearÂs "hottie" chances are it is a dog this year. For now, read everything you can at fundadvice.com. Another good site is www.diehards.org. That is a forum primarily by index investors. Go there and post the same message you put on this web, and you will get some fantastic advice (much better than I can give you). Just a few more comments. 1) The best portfolio for you and your husband will probably be one that includes MM, bond funds, and stock funds. Again, your risk tolerance will determine the best portfolio for you. 2) One more article at fundadvice.com is this one. http://www.fundadvice.com/portfolio.html Merriman provides several suggested portfolios with different fund families such as Vanguard and Fidelity. Most of these funds are index funds. Some are managed funds, but all are no load with low fees. 3) Many people prefer index funds. These funds track an index such as the S&P 500 or others. They typically have lower fees than managed funds and studies show that managed fund usually underperform index funds over the long term. You can get a good explanation of this at fundadvice.com 4) You asked for a few good funds. Several are listed in the site referenced in #2 above. 5) Good luck with your investment . Jeff

Live Wire Oak & Ideagirl2 & Rockybird have said it best..... Go Legal - but WITH an Attorney driving your ship through "legal waters" - NOT YOU..... I work as an industry expert witness in the Natural Stone Industry, and I can tell you from 26 years of doing what I do, is that you do have a case, but you can very easily derail any chances you have of actually WINNING - if you attempt to do this "DIY" style. You need an attorney to help you on this.... IMEO - You have a contract, and IT governs how your GC gets paid by you, USE the contract language and any clauses or exceptions that would influence what you want to do (retainage & withholding final payment, cancelation of contract, penalties, etc) - to YOUR advantage, however - IF your GC wrote the contract that YOU signed, it's (your contract document) prolly written in HIS favour... :-( You can start this process by re-reading EVERY STINKING WORD of your contract, and start identifying ANY conditions that effect final payment - or penalties that would be visited on either party for "non-performance" as an example. Get with a real live attorney before you do ANYTHING else. Don't go inventing reasons to withhold monies (even if your reasoning is sound and 100% logical - and 1000% ethical) - if it's not LEGAL under the contract agreement that you signed with your GC - YOU CAN'T DO IT AND WIN IN A COURT OF LAW !!! Consult with an attorney that specializes in contract litigation and spend the money for an hour's worth of advice..... it'll be money well spent to help you find a solution to this issue and help you wake up from the nightmare you've been existing in.... The good news here is this: You DO have some Options - but they will ONLY be effective with the skills of an attorney that is better versed in these matters than you are - unless you happen to have a "doctor of jurisprudence" degree laying around in one of your drawers or shelves ! LOL!!!! If you do, then you don't need my advice! HA! Remember this going forward - "What's RIGHT and what's LEGAL are often too completely different things" hth kevin

I guess the key factors here are: -what the kid expresses aptitude and desire to do -what the kid has worked very hard to do his/her part for -the financial ability on the parents' part to contribute to their kids future goals It's one thing to say "college isn't a necessity" when the kid hasn't expressed an interest or aptitude for it and you want to postively affirm the kid and encourage him that he still has options. But it's a totally different statement when the kid has expressed clear desire, aptitude and ability to work and save for college. ***When the parents can afford to help***, in the 2nd scenario, then to say "college is not a necessity" as a rationale for not helping is just plain unsupportive. Simply put, it would be like saying: "You've wasted time and energy the last 4 years of h.s. busting your butt trying to get good grades and save for your part of college expenses because you don't need college and I'm not going to chip in for it. Now, why don't you go ahead and consider all that college prep a waste and just go figure out something else to do with your future. Or, if you still insist on going to silly ol' college, go ahead and waste some more years working full-time and going to class part-time so you can pay for it all yourself." I totally agree with the statement that "college isn't for everyone" (or, more specifically, as in my case, "not everyone's ready for college at 18"), but that can't always be a blanket statement or excuse, and it needs to be said to a child for the right reasons. It has to take into account what the kid has demonstrated (or not) as their life path. At the evry least, if you're going to tell the kid "college isn't a necessity; ergo I'm not chipping in", than at least make sure the kid knows this well in advance so s/he can figure out some other life paths or how the hell s/he's going to pay for it all alone. Again, if it REALLY is the case (and I mean REALLY) that the parents have zero dollars to put towards the kid's college, then yeah, I guess he'll have to find a way to pay it all himself if he wants to go. And to this hypothetical scenario, many parents (bio or step) might say: "so if it CAN be done when the parents have no money to contribute, then why should WE have to pay, just because we can afford to? If he wants it bad enough, he'll find a way to pay the whole thing himself!" But this isn't usually said in families where there has been no divorce. Sometimes, maybe, but not usually. I think it really does become an issue when there's a divorce, and this is how it happens that there is a much more rigid standard and set of expectations for a child of divorce who wants to go to college vs. a child in an 'intact' family ***where the parents can afford to chip in***. (btw, I know all this because I have known countless friends and their college payment situations as well as having worked in a University for the last 12 years. My boyfriend, in addition, works in Admissions and deals with financial aid as aprt of his job.) BELIEVE YOU ME, the VAST MAJORITY of these kids at my University are getting most if not all expenses paid by their (married, never divorced) parents. There are plenty, too, that have part-time jobs to chip in. There are plenty, like me, who are older than college age who work full-time for the university in order to get the free tuition. But there is no student of ***typical college age (18-22)***, to MY knowledge, that is covering it all themselves. At least not here. Other schools/condtions may be different... not claiming to know all the stats in all cases, just what I have observed in relation to the upper-middle-tier state University I work at as well as various others that friends have gone to, more or less comparable. I'm not saying ALL expenses should be covered by parents (I don't believe they should), but just that in my experience, they often are. For whatever reason, a very large number of parents are willing to chip in to (if not cover totally) the bills... So perhaps the more interesting question is why aren't more of them insisting the kids pay for it all themselves? Is it because that isn't very realistic? Or is it because these parents are so excessively indulgent? Or what?