Debt and horses?

[fordtraktor]

I have had horses with all different debt loads. Mortgage, large student loans from law school, etc. it is a balance depending on where we were in life. I have always had and supported a horse since I was 15 and am generally pretty financially conservative — but horses are and always have been my passion so I have scrimped and worked long hours as needed to keep them in my life.

but I am older now and…drum roll please…we paid off the mortgage on our farm this month!!! WE ARE DEBT FREE!!! First time since I started law school I have zero debt.

I have 3 horses and board 4 more, which mostly offsets the cost of my personal horses.

Now to start saving for the new vehicles we will need in a few years…there is always something to anticipate. Also have been saving for college since my kids were born, and retirement of course.

If if I had to board I don’t think I could justify more than one horse, maybe a retiree.

i put all expenses on my CC but pay it off each month, for the miles. But you can only do that if you are COMMITTED to paying it off in full all the time. The interest rates are insane on most.

[x-halt-salute]

@horsepoor

We have a mortgage but are only three years away from it being paid off (woohoo!). No car loans at present as we drive ours til they die, but we may have to replace one soon and that will probably involve a loan. Credit cards get paid off each month. I feel pretty comfortable with my current number of horses (3) and where we are financially.

You are way too financially responsible to deserve your username. :lol:

[Mango20]

I am currently debt-free! I was lucky enough to have my parents pay for college so didn’t start out with loans. I have had car loans over the years, but never really built up a credit card balance. I just paid off my mortgage a couple of months ago, and my car and truck are both paid off. HOWEVER, I have a kid who will start college next year and have several big ticket items looming at my 20 year old house.

[clanter]

some of my friends have asked about all the money we have spent on our herd of kids horses, yes it has been tens of thousands of dollars, so many it might be hitting a couple hundred thousand if not three hundred thousand

But… without the horses I would not have bought the land (with mineral rights) to keep them on which was found to have at least three pockets of natural gas and a pool of oil under it. The drilling rights signing bonus was a hunk of change, the royalty checks have been nice and ow we have developers who want the land as it is the center piece of several tracks, we are talking about tens of dollars per square foot …

And the kids had fun, learned a lot about life and we have a tackroom, spare bedroom and garage full of tack

[kiwichick]

Yes i think most of us would have debt and horses.
i have a few realestate propertiesso my mortgage is eye-wateringly huge.
I bought a brand new truck to haul my trailer, after getting badly burnt with a second hand affordable one that i had a significant ‘ppe’ workup on, i doubt i will buy out of warranty again.

I have CC for energencies and its got a nomonal balance on it. I also try and live frugally everywhere in my life that isnt horse related.
I buy young horses and produce my own and buy quality gear that i try and keep.

There have been a couple tough points where i have thought i might need out of horses, but have always got through.

[tbchick84]

I’m currently on an up swing. Just the mortgage and one horse. My car and truck are both older than dirt, so debt is on the horizon. I’m trying to save up for the replacements so it’s not too big of a financial hit.

[CHT]

We are debt free, but I would say that most of my clients have at least a mortgage, and possibly student loans and/or car payments. At least one also has credit card debt, but I don’t feel any of them are in bad shape.

When I rode at a high level barn, and few people went into serious debts to buy fancy horses for their kids (second mortgages), and I don’t think I would be comfortable knowing clients went into that kind of debt to buy a horse, but I guess they were adults making their own decisions, it would just be outside my comfort zone as a trainer.

[Palm_Beach]

I have a small mortgage on my farm and a 0% interest car loan with less than 2 years to pay. We use credit cards for rewards/points and pay them off every month. We have been very disciplined about saving, and I have forced myself to be content showing at the mainly local level with an occasional big show a couple times a year. What has really helped me has been owning race horses, since I bring them to the farm regularly for r&r which let me write off a lot of expenses that most people cannot.

[exvet]

Own 3 and have a mortgage.

[2DogsFarm]

I am far more Grasshopper than Ant :rolleyes:
But I have managed to make it work.
When I was working fulltime priorities were:
#1- mortgage
#2 - board for 2 horses @ pricy & not-so pricy barns over 15yrs. Household expenses were shared by DH (who had his own business) & neither of us carried a heap of CC debt.

Widowed, I spent the bulk of the large sale price - Timing is Everything: sold just before the Bubble deflated - of our 2-flat in the city to buy & build my farmette. House on 5ac, I added a barn, fencing & indoor.

Working 4DW @ a 33% cut in salary I managed to carry the farm mortgage-free for several years, then refi’d, twice & finally last year went for a reverse mortgage.
Presently I would need to repay 1/3 of appraised value if I sold.
I have a single CC with a low interest rate (6%) & relatively low limit < works for me.

Both vehicles: daily drive & tow vehicle are PIF, as is the trailer.
Neither is new, but not overly aged & in good shape {knock wood}

Currently 3 horses at home - had 2 for the first 13yrs here, added the mini almost 2 years ago.

[RileysMom]

I have a modest amount of student loan debt and had to make a decision: do I want to spend the next 3-5 years hacking away at it and not buying a horse or do I want to pay $525 a month in debt payments for now, take much longer to pay it off, and buy a horse. I have enough earning power that I chose what is an annoying but manageable payment in order to not put what is a big part of my life on hold. Bought horse. Horse costs a fortune. Don’t care!

[skipollo]

@RileysMom

I have a modest amount of student loan debt and had to make a decision: do I want to spend the next 3-5 years hacking away at it and not buying a horse or do I want to pay $525 a month in debt payments for now, take much longer to pay it off, and buy a horse. I have enough earning power that I chose what is an annoying but manageable payment in order to not put what is a big part of my life on hold. Bought horse. Horse costs a fortune. Don’t care!

Same! I was in the same boat. I graduated, older horse retired and had minimal costs. I could’ve taken a hiatus from ownership and riding to chop away at my student loans, but I decided riding and ownership (and my happiness) were more important to me even if it set me back in paying off student debt. I ended up finding my heart horse, so I don’t regret it one bit.

[WildLittleWren]

We own our home free and clear (mortgage is paid off), 2 of our vehicles are paid off (one is a super expensive van, which we paid cash for to avoid costly monthly payments). The third is a car we owe less than 15k on now, and we try to double payments whenever possible. My horse trailer is free and clear.

We have a few credit cards with balances, but they total up to less than 3k. We don’t have much savings after the purchase of the van, but we are slowly building our savings account back up. We put every extra cent we have leftover each month in our savings account.

ETA: I usually have 2 horses. My mare, and whatever project horse someone has currently suckered me into. I board at a very inexpensive self care barn. We hope to bring them home when we get the additional property cleared and fenced. But that is most likely a year or two in the future.

[pony4me]

Back when we still had a mortgage, I had a horse but was not showing. After the house was paid off I got a nice hunter and showed until he retired. Now we have three retired horses, but no car loans and no home loan. I don’t know if I’d do it differently if I had a chance for a do-over.

[joiedevie99]

Yes, we intentionally have good debt. Our mortgage is at a much lower interest rate than we earn on the money we have invested. We would net lose money if we took the money out of investments to pay down the mortgage faster.

Our cars are leased because it works for us, and its easier than buying/selling every few years.

Student loans are paid off. Credit cards are paid in full every month.

[puzzle]

CCs (from major vet bills) are nearly paid off, 5 months later.
Have less than 10K on the car loan.
No student loans.
Owe my folks some money, though.
Still own a horse (had two, one died and generated a large part of those vet bills in the process…).
It’s doable, just requires budgeting.

[luvmyhackney]

I am almost debt free again. My credit card will be paid off in 3 months. I had to put dental work on it until I could cash in a CD. Credit card has 0% interes, so not a huge deal. I don’t have any vehicle payments, and I am renting as I’m not sure how long I’ll be in the NoVa area and its so friggin expensive to buy and taxes. Sweet baby jesus the taxes around here are insane. I have one pony and will hopefully talk my husband into purchasing a small farm here in NoVa and will expand our ownership to include 2 more horses, goats, and chickens.

[One_Two_Three]

Just a mortgage for debt, here. No car loans, no credit car debt, no student loans. Still horse poor :D:lol: But I work at the barn to offset that as much as possible

[GreyHntr]

I have about 20k in debt, for various big things. However, an unfortunate circumstance will end in me getting about 18-20k back and I’ll just use that to pay it off. Bittersweet.

I also have about $100 (only!) in credit card debt, only because I just paid it off…I’m sure christmas will up that significantly.

Unfortunately, however, my one horse I own will be going to the vet and receiving some diagnostic after an injury, in the next couple weeks. So I’ll be debt free for about 5 seconds. Sigh.

[Halt_Near_X]

I had debt (credit card, truck, student loans) while I had my horse. I had a solid financial plan and was on track for paying off the debt while paying for all my horse/riding expenses.

And then I had some health issues that changed my situation. Everything could have worked out ok, or it could have been the start of a bad downward spiral. There were some other factors involved in the decision, but I quickly realized selling my horse was the only responsible option. I did pull him off the market a few times to try to make it work, but it only made the situation worse.

I won’t necessarily wait until I am completely debt free before I buy again, but I won’t buy until the commercial debt and student loans are paid off. If I hadn’t had those debts to deal with, I probably could have kept him.