JJ, I don't know if I should post or not - financial issues have become HUGE here in the last 2 years and this is a big can of worms!

We have always handled our finances as one - no mine or yours. It is not a power issue with us. That is not to say we never argue about money - we do, but only because we sometimes have different ideas about how to handle things that come up, not because one has a need to be right.

We have always been ok financially - not rich, not poor – and we are not extravagant spenders. I drove my 1993 Honda to 175,000 miles and my 2002 model will go just as long or longer. We built a modest home in 1989.

Two years ago when we sold our dairy herd (we continue to raise cash crops and beef), the credit union where we had been doing business loans for 25 years, tried to destroy us.

The head loan officer destroyed us on paper (devalued assets to the tune of $400,000) and proceeded to do everything in his power to put us out of business. Even though we had never defaulted on a loan, he started handling our accounts as though we were the worst risk that ever walked through the doors. He put all our business loans on our credit reports with bad information, and without notifying us of these reports as the law requires.

This was in the spring, at planting time, and we were unable to get financed at another bank in time to put the crop in so were forced to stay there that year. We hired a consultant who turned out to do more damage than good because he went to the banks for us and discussed the "B" word (bankruptcy) regards our operation, rather than correcting the false information on the credit union's balance sheet. We didn't know this until later.

Rather than a conventional operating loan for the farm season, we had to give him a list of expenses every two weeks. Each time, he would short us by thousands of dollars making sure all of our payments were late creating more bad information on the credit report. Also each time, all four of us had to go in and sign a whole new set of loan papers.

We prepared new balance sheets every few weeks. Between the numbers he misrepresented and continuous inventory changes, even WE didn’t know what we had by summer’s end.

The credit union made us a whole month late getting into the field, and that did major damage to the final yields of our crops that year. I tried to get the cr. union president to mediate with the loan dept. but he was too lazy or too stupid to look into it. He told me they took the actions they did to "protect our members"! Apparently our 25 years there weren't enough to rate "member status".

Our son farms with us so he and his wife have experienced it all right along with us. We are now financed with Farm Credit Services and that hasn't been much better. The ND banks are way behind the rest of the world in ag. financing issues. At this time, dairy farmers are selling their operations in other states, and moving here where their dollar goes farther. They are getting financing from their home state banks, NOT North Dakota banks! Our banks are doing more to put us out of business than keep us solvent.

As to investing and stocks, we have now spent all but a few thousand dollars that we'd saved for retirement. We are fighting for survival, which is where "Farming by the Yard" comes in. It is my way of trying to make us independent of the banks. I want so badly to walk in there and say, "Here's your money - GOOD BYE!" The only decent banker I have met in the last 2 years is the one who believes in Farming by the Yard and gave me an unsecured startup loan.

Credit cards are another nightmare. Through all of this we have not been able to pay off the two cards we have been forced to use for misc. expenses. Credit card banks thrive on fees and high interest rates charged to people like us.

Ag. businesses (seed, fertilizer etc. sales) can make mistakes that destroy hundreds of acres of crops, and we still have to pay them. If we don’t, they will file liens on our crops, further complicating things. One ag supplier sold us bad seed and then destroyed other growing crops by not spraying properly. We held back money for damages and he filed a lien filled with misinformation and beyond the time limit provided by state law. It cost us $1200 in legal fees to apply to the courts for a release of lien. He withdrew the lien the day before the judge was to look at our brief. By the time the lien was off the county list, the damage had been done with other local businesses and our financing was delayed, making us late to the field for yet another spring. He is still sending us bills and we will be spending more on legal fees before we are through with him.

We have NEVER defaulted on a loan. My husband has more integrity in his little finger than all of these bankers put together. We honor our commitments and are getting slammed from every direction. We are now wondering why we bothered to pay everything. Our credit reflects the same damage as if we had simply not paid our bills.

Our daughter died in 1994 so on the personal side we’ve been dealing with that loss. In 1997 a load of bad feed made all our dairy cows sick and we pretty much lost the herd and gradually built it back up. We sued the feed company and after 3 years of litigation, settled out of court and ended up with about 20% of our losses. Also in 1997, a railroad crew welding on the tracks started a grass fire that destroyed 2 of our pastures, cracked the block on our tractor that our son used cultivating around the fire to try to keep it from our home and barns and burned across the cemetery where our daughter is buried, killing all of the trees there. It took a year of negotiating before the railroad paid us and they never did pay the $15,000 damage to the tractor.

We have never been negative people but are finding it more and more difficult to find a reason to keep trying. We try to concentrate on the joys provided by our sons, their wife/fiancé and beautiful granddaughter.

I look around and see other people with much bigger problems than mine. I remember my dad who lived with the devastation of polio all of his life and never became a “victim” by living with a positive, smiling spirit. What right do I have to give up when he endured so much to provide for me?

So, JJ, are you sorry you asked? Thanks for providing me with a vent!

jo