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.

"Fortunately we never used my income for daily living expenses. We are, however, missing our ability to make capital purchases." If I may be so bold, what did you use your income for? Did you use it to establish college funds for the kids and nest eggs for you and your spouse? That's the smart way of doing it, and I know a few people who have managed to do that, even where I am, in Washington, DC. What amazes me is that I own a townhome in one of the more expensive area of the nation, and I manage it on a single salary. I'll admit that my ex-wife and I bought when the market was low, but after she and I split I kept the house. It was EXTREMELY tight at times, and I'm still carrying too much credit card debt that I'm working on erasing. There were some really tight times when I truly thought I was going to have to either get rid of the house or plunge into the bankruptcy option. Then my job situation changed for the MUCH MUCH better, I'm sitting on nearly $150,000 equity in my home (housing prices in my community have gone NUTS in the last 3 years), I'm socking 23% of my paycheck away into a 401K (the maximum I can go) plus more into other funds, and I'm still keeping ahead on all of my other payments. I use my credit cards too much, there's no doubt about that, but I keep it to a dull roar, and over the past two years have erased about $5,000 of $12,000 in credit card debt and moved much of it to cards that have interest rates at or below 10%. Living within one's means isn't difficult for most people. It takes discipline and EDUCATION on the wise use of credit. That's the kicker. The credit card companies that were approving everyone and their 1-year-old brother (the agressive marketing of revolving credit to college and even high school students should be illegal, or heavily curtailed in my opinion) largely have only themselves to blame for their losses no matter how much they whine about it. They weren't educating people about credit use, and it's hurt a LOT of people. One of the things that I did with Navy Federal was write member educational materials on credit use.

here is my story, what do you think? my little brother from my fathers second marriage needed a car and my dad builds kitchen cabinets for a living and we were thinking up upgrading to a van so he talked us into upgrading our kitchen cabinets in exchange for the car. we started work on the cabinets, I did most of the work except spraying the finish while he worked on other peoples cabinets instead of helping on mine. I drove back and forth a couple times a week 30 miles for just about 4 months to his shop working on the cabinets. My brother is driving the car the whole time. My brother goes off to college and no longer needs the car so my dad wont help me finish the kitchen and says I owe him for the work he did and gives the car back with 20k more miles lots of stains on the seats and a flat tire. We suck it up and sell it on craigslist. He says the work he did do on the cabinets I can just consider even for use of the car. I dont have the cash and things pick up at work and dont have the time either so I let it sit for a year. I save up enough to start work on the cabinets again and he is really hurting for work so I told him I would pay him to finish the cabinets. He is happy and agrees to $15 an hour cash and says It will take about 40 hours labor to finish them and help me hang them if I gut the kitchen myself. When I go to the shop to see how everything is coming along I find out he used about 250-300 board ft of my maple that I paid for on other peoples kitchens and cuts up half of my drawer fronts that were already planed, sanded and routered ready to be stained sprayed and put on. He has no wood to finish my cabinets and I order 200 more board ft of maple. Two weeks later he says I owe him for 70 hours already and he's only about half done with what was left to build. This is what was left- 3 drawers 11 drawer fronts (4 to replace ones I had already made and he cut up) a pantry a file cabinet and one upper cabinet. chair rail stain and finish crown moulding spray 1 lower cabinet Here is what he did get done- 3 drawers Pantry with 5 pullouts which were 1" too wide for the pantry so he just cut one side off and slapped a board on them and glued a small strip of wood on the bottom to make it look like the bottom was dadoed into the side. stained and sprayed the crown moulding, sprayed one lower cabinet I had stained last year, and routered stained and sprayed a board for the chair rail. He cut the sides for the file cabinet 2" too short of what the plan said and now I need more plywood too. made the face frame for the file cabinet that is too short and has to be remade too. He wants to just raise it and put trim around it. I dont like the idea because the top two drawers are only 3" and should be 4" and I want it made to the correct hight and so my chair will fit under the counter that goes on top of it. 8 of the most horrid drawer fronts I have ever seen. I dont know why he even bothered to stain and spray them. I told him they looked horrible and needed to be redone and he told me he would, but said they were the best he could do. (all the ones I had made that he cut up were just fine they didnt chip out on me at all because I was careful and I'm not even a cabinet maker) Christmas was comeing up and I knew he was really tight on money so I paid him $750 for 50 of his hours to start with and he said he was going to keep working on the rest that was 4 weeks ago and he hasnt touched anything for my kitchen since. In the meantime I was off work from christmas through january 10th so I could install the kitchen and get everthing done. Its now the 16th, Im back to work and the kitchen has been ripped apart for almost 2 weeks now because I am doing everything myself because he is busy workin on other peoples kitchens. He said he was going to order the cabinet doors for me two weeks ago and let me know how much they were. I just found out today he didnt even call yet. My wife is due March 14th and I am really hoping I can get everything done before the baby gets here. I dont know what to do and wish I had never started this project, especially with my dad. If it was any other contractor I would have told him where to stick it and went somewhere else, but I'm kinda screwed because nobody else is going to want to finish my mess of a kitchen. I never thought my own dad would do this to me none the less do shoddy work for me. I doubt he would have given that type of work to one of his customers. I dont have anything in writing because I didnt think I needed it with my own dad. here are some pics-

sweeby congrats on bonds issue resolved. how nice of EX! never heard of such tradition wiht T-shirts. my DD's school didn't have that, sounds fun. DD applied to 6 schools and got accepted to 5(6th one was the best choice but they wanted her to write some additional essay and she didn't bother, yeah typical). I cannot believe she finished her 2nd year already. KKNY not to hijack but do you know where DD will go? congrats on her graduation