starting over, congratulations on the book writing! i hope and pray it provides you with the financial security you need.

we, too, are in a big crunch when it comes to retirement. when we sold our dairy herd 2 years ago, the loan officer at our credit union tried to put us out of business altogether. we still raise cash crops and cattle. we are still trying to recover from the damage he did. add that to the fact that the overall atmosphere in farming has become very discouraging for the average family farmer. expenses have skyrocketed while prices for what we produce continue to fall.

we also absorbed a lot of my father-in-law's expenses while trying to get him out of the farm and covered our son's debts trying to get him into farming. talk about the sandwich generation!

my inlaws refused to do any forward planning in regards to the farm so now we have to deal with sister-in-law, too. we had to take out expensive life insurance on my inlaws to enable us to keep the farm in the family for our sons to continue to work. all of this could have been avoided if they had done the planning they should have done 20 years ago.

it is so frustrating to have worked very hard for so many years and now we feel like we're starting over. i am starting a web based business, dh is selling bull semen and we are constantly searching for another way to make a buck.

i know we are not alone, that these problems are found everywhere but that doesn't take away the frustration of it all.