He Never Missed a Payment — The Bank Still Cut Him Off (Ep. 355)

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome back to the podcast. Thank you very much for being here. All right, today, John and I are gonna talk about kind of what we've been seeing in meetings in the ag industry, in general. Ag. Egg.

You know. Yeah, you're not —

Whatever, you guys. You guys, don't make fun of me. It's how we pronounce it. Everybody, when I don't say agriculture, people think I'm talking about chicken eggs.

Yeah, chickens. Well, I don't know if you wanna talk about this, but we gotta talk about how you guys pronounce karaoke. 'Cause it's karaoke, not karaoke.

Yeah, I now pronounce it karaoke, but —

You said karaoke one day. I thought it was like an Asian cuisine.

Yes. John didn't know what I was talking about. Which brings up the topic of our client-only conference. So we're gonna have a client-only summit. We do that every three years. So if you're a client, you got an email — save the date. January of '27, we are going to Chandler, Arizona, and we are going to have our client summit there.

I'm super excited because Coffey Anderson is going to speak. If you guys don't know Coffey Anderson, you should. He is a country music singer, and he's done it all himself. I don't know what that's called when they, like, publish their own record and stuff. Like, he's self-published like I am. Self-produced. But he's a singer. But his wife just recently passed away from cancer. He's got three little kids. They've been fighting that for years and years while he's built his career. She was a professional hip hop dancer. So he's got a super cool story that he's gonna share, very inspirational.

So Coffey is coming, and then I'm trying to get some other big YouTube or some other big social media people there. But if you're a client — only clients get to come. So if you're not a client, I'm sorry. But if you're a client — yeah, no karaoke for you. But we are doing some karaoke because we've got some singing clients, so that'll be fun.

But I was talking about karaoke, and I literally didn't know — everybody started making fun of me 'cause I said karaoke. And I did not know it was pronounced karaoke, because that is not how anybody I know ever pronounces it.

Yeah, it's a North Dakota thing.

Apparently. Apparently there are a couple ways to pronounce it, one correctly and one incorrectly.

Yeah. I guess you can debate on which one's which.

Yeah. So, anyway, let's talk a little bit about kind of what we've been seeing in client meetings and that kind of stuff. Just — and it'll give you guys a good idea of just the vast majority of people that we work with.

Yeah, even this week I had a meeting with a younger couple. They lived in the South somewhere where, up until last year, they were kind of farming with his wife's side of the family and trying to take that over in the end. But they kept running into trouble with the father-in-law. Just, like, was uncooperative, and he was being very blunt, like, "I'm not going to let you take over."

Do you know how old the father-in-law was?

I think he was, like, the low 60s, so I mean he wasn't —

Oh, so he's pretty young.

Yeah, he wasn't, like, ready to retire immediately. But, like, there just wasn't much opportunity there for them. And even though they were obviously close to family and, you know, it probably was a great family setup, they decided to move, like, an hour or so away to another state, and they found a guy. I don't know how they found him. He never did get around to that. But they found a gentleman that had a pretty large cattle operation for the South. You know, usually it's a little bit smaller down there just with their smaller parcels, but he had a pretty good sized cattle operation, and then he was gonna help this young man start a fencing business, or, like, take over his fencing business, to kind of create some outside money.

But that guy had kids even, and he was still gonna help this couple I met with — 'cause his kids didn't want it. Yeah, his kids had no interest in it. So he wasn't exactly sure what that was gonna look like down the road, 'cause they're still very new in this agreement. But he's letting them lease land and try to grow, at least. So it was just a cool situation, though, where they found a guy probably online that wanted some help, and they were willing to leave the family.

How far away did they move?

It was about an hour, hour and a half, to the south.

Oh, so not too bad.

No, they're still pretty close to family.

Was there tension in the family 'cause they left?

I think a little bit, but not too bad. I mean, they probably didn't love it, but they were still talking.

That's a hard situation. 'Cause Dad's not even — he's barely 60. So you can't expect him to leave or hand it over. Maybe expecting some kind of plan or conversation around it would be good. But if you can't have a conversation around it, then what's just gonna happen later? We're just gonna get more and more stubborn.

In that case, it actually was, like, very beneficial that he was being so blunt about it. 'Cause, I mean, he could have strung him out for a decade. "Hey, I'm 70 now. You're 40."

But he told them, "You don't have any opportunity here."

Yeah, he wasn't gonna help them much. They could have struggled and tried to find stuff, but it was pretty hard to find opportunity in that area unless he was gonna help them. So that's why they left.

Yeah. Well, and what's cool about that story, in addition to the conversation being had — they got to make that decision — is that there are people out there willing to help. I just came across a lady, I don't even remember what the name of it is, but she just launched a business where she's connecting — like, she's got a website so farmers can find help.

Did you see her on TikTok? Yeah, I've seen her videos as well.

A blonde lady?

Yep.

She just did this. Do you remember the name of it?

No, but I saw her idea, and she's just trying to —

Yeah, I'm gonna watch her 'cause it's brand new. So I kinda wanna watch her, and then eventually I thought it would be cool to have her on. But there are websites that will kinda match people, or at least websites that will show people who's out there needing help. And you gotta vet those people, but I hear stories about that.

I bet in the last year I've had two or three clients that have gone to take over for somebody who's got kids, but the kids don't want anything to do with it, but they're young people. And the last one I had, he said, "Well, we're basically…" It was a neighbor kid situation. But the guy who he's taking over from actually divorced his wife because she got mad, 'cause she wanted her kids to have it. And that was their second marriage, and he was like, "No, we're not having any of it. Your kids don't deserve any of this. These neighbors have been renting from us for generations, and I'm gonna make sure that they get it." But they said, "And we also inherited taking care of him."

Well, they got a little more than they bargained for maybe there.

But ultimately, like, you kinda do. Even this couple of yours, you know? When they get old, their kids aren't there. So you're actually signing up as the person that's gonna probably take them to some doctor's appointments, and check on them every day, and maybe go clean their house or whatever.

The, it, they had a cool setup. They were actually in Virginia, and so they lived on an old plantation.

Oh, very cool.

And so it was very — I mean, I was, like, nerding out. I love history, so I was like, "Oh my gosh," looking around, because he's like, "Yeah, they still have, like, the old slave quarters on the building. They use it as, like, a storage shed nowadays."

Oh my gosh.

And you can see all the little buildings and stuff.

They could totally make money off of that.

Well, they're trying to graze around it. They don't need it to be in an Airbnb or something.

Well, not an Airbnb, but just, like, to let people come and tour and kind of see it.

Yeah, there were other plantations in the area.

Or create some kind of social media around it would be very cool.

Yeah, but the —

John, you. Come on. Come on, John.

I know that's kind of a thing there, but the guy lived on a plantation next door, so I mean, I think they were all kind of right in the area. So they probably do have to help take care of him when he gets older, unless he moves to town or something.

Well, I mean, that's just gonna be part of it because you're the one there. The kids aren't. And there's nothing wrong with that. I don't feel like there's anything wrong with that. You're getting an opportunity. And that is just part of what comes with the opportunity. But it's also an opportunity to build a relationship with the kids. So when mom and dad are gone, now you have that relationship with the kids. 'Cause how many people rent land and don't know the kids at all? Like, zero communication. Well, now when the kids get it, you don't even know. It's a crapshoot. You're in the dark. Are they gonna sell it? Are they not? You haven't built a relationship.

Yeah, they might — you might not be their first call just 'cause they don't know you.

Right. Yeah. What else you seeing?

I also had a meeting with some mid to late 60s people the other day. They lived in town, so they really weren't farming much, but they were involved in real estate.

Do they farm at all?

He grew up on a farm, and the guy had worked in the farming industry up until COVID, and then I think he worked for, like, an auction website or something.

So it proves you don't need to be a farmer to visit with us.

Correct.

'Cause we have people of all shapes and colors.

Yeah, he just saw Farming Without the Bank. He grew up on a farm, thought it was cool. So, but yeah, they had like 12 or 13 rooms or units, whatever you wanna call it, with triplexes, duplexes — 13 doors. And their situation, they didn't have a ton of actual cash flow created by that, because they were dumping it all back into the buildings to fix them up. Water heater goes out, like, type of stuff, and just general repairs. So it was just interesting. Like, they have all these assets, but they're really not creating cash flow, they're creating equity that they can't touch without consequence.

So any cash flow they have is going back in because we're in maintenance stage.

Yes.

Kinda like a hog barn. It's all paid for, but now we gotta fix it.

Yeah, there's always stuff to do. They're getting closer to a point where —

Did they have enough cash flow at that age to put it through the policy first, and then borrow against it for water heaters, and paint, and new doors, and windows, and those sort of things?

They probably could've if they really wanted to. They did have enough.

Well, at that age though, we're looking at a premium. If you wanna do infinite banking, we're looking at a premium of $20,000 a year.

Yeah. They had enough to do it if they wanted. They did happen to have some IRA money sitting there, like $300,000 roughly, that they wanted to kind of use to get it moved over, 'cause they were getting to the age where they have to take it either way. So that's kind of what they were gonna use first, to keep plowing the other money back into real estate for now. But, yeah, I guess they really only have a short window here to do it too.

But here's an example. There's a couple things here, though. One, we're in our early 60s, and we've only saved $300,000 because the majority of our money went into rental property. Which there's nothing wrong with, but the rental properties are still not creating enough cash flow for them to live comfortably. Because they didn't have jobs.

He did not have a full-time job, other than he was basically doing all the maintenance and a lot of the repair work on the real estate. His wife did have a job in the real estate world as well.

So the cash flow in the rental properties was not enough to provide enough income. They've got a little bit of savings, but it's a real indicator of — to me, it speaks volumes for real estate. Like, everybody loves real estate, and I like real estate to an extent as well, but that money is not that liquid.

Correct.

And there are people that think, and people that I know that think, "Oh my gosh, I'm gonna buy these properties, and I'm gonna build all this equity, and I don't need that life insurance policy because I can do the same thing with a HELOC. I can go borrow against the equity on my land, or my rental properties, or whatever it is that you're building equity in." Well, you can only borrow against it if the bank is going to say, "Oh, yes, you can make that payment, and I will let you borrow the equity."

Which in their case even, they had one house that they'd inherited, so it was paid off, but then they had to go get a HELOC on that just for operating, to, like, go fix other buildings up. So that would've been their best cash flowing property, but they had to go access that equity.

Which is why it's there. But in order to access it, they had to ask permission. They had to show bank statements. They had to do all of these things — right — that they could have just filled out a form online. Had they known about infinite banking 20, 30 years ago, they would have had access to that same money.

Yeah. He was one of the people, too, where he had money in an investment, but he was like, "This has done me no good in the last 30 years." Yeah, I'm glad I have it now, but still would have rather had a pool of money I could have accessed my entire working life. Like, when he went through job changes, it would have helped him then. It would have been helpful.

So, like, the client in our last podcast, the client I talked about that is in his 70s that is now taking money out of his 401(k) or IRA and living on it and realizing this is not the best tool.

Yep.

Yours is also 60-some years old realizing this was not the best tool.

Yeah, exactly. And again, not mad they have it, 'cause at least it's something, but it's like, what good did this do me my whole adult life, basically.

Right. Because they can take it out, and it's gone, but their rental properties are creating cash flow. It's just that they're having to repair them. And they're in an unfortunate situation in their 60s where they don't have enough of the cash flow. You know, it'd be interesting to hear more of the story of, like, when did they start and all that kind of stuff, but moral of the story here is equity is not liquid without going to the bank.

That's what I kind of was thinking the whole meeting. I'm like, man, on paper, he looks good, but you can't eat your net worth, and that's not paying his bills, you know? Like, again, I was also thinking, well, you've got all these buildings and assets, whatever. Like, what's the point of having those if you're struggling on the side? Like, go sell one and create some cash flow.

Or figure out how to create cash flow outside of selling one. Because I get the importance of the cash flow from that piece of real estate, and if he sells it, he'll probably have capital gains 'cause he never lived in it, right? So he's looking at it from that aspect. But how else can we create cash flow? And you and I talked about this a little bit before we started recording, and he could barely get on Zoom. So you're like, "Mary Jo" — 'cause I was spitting out ideas, like, yeah, start a YouTube channel.

Yeah.

Well, I don't know. I hope it works. However, it's an attitude thing, right? Anything that you do, any business you run — Nelson said, "Infinite banking requires imagination, reason, and logic," right? It is the exact same thing with any business. You need imagination, reason, and logic. If you cannot imagine how you're gonna market yourself, how you're gonna market your business, what can we do to create cash flow?

And I know, like, I probably do more of that in meetings than you do, with giving people ideas. 'Cause I am just an idea —

You're just full of ideas.

Yeah. I am an idea generator.

To a fault.

Yeah. That doesn't mean they're all good, but I've got them.

An idea's an idea.

Yeah. So it was interesting because you had said that this gentleman also met with two other IBC practitioners before they came to us. Well, one is an IBC practitioner, the other one has been —

In our realm.

Yeah. He does cash value life insurance stuff. He's just not a practitioner. But they didn't have any suggestions.

Well, his exact quote was, he said, "The whole time I was talking to them, I felt like they wanted me to be 40 and have a great job." And I was like, "Hey, I'm not saying that's not ideal, but we sell policies to people your age all the time. It's not impossible." I mean, they're a little more rigid. You know, when you're that age, there isn't as much flexibility, but you can still get a policy and it'll still be very helpful.

Yeah. But it's just that attitude. But there's also, like for me, when I meet with those people, there's also me generating ideas. Because when I look at people in their 70s, they might not have the physical ability to go do something, but they have the mental — they have the knowledge of how to do things that the younger generation doesn't have. And if we don't start sharing that knowledge — like, I have said this a million times, a millennial and a Gen Z-er needs to be best friends with the boomer. Because they know the computer side of it. The boomer has the knowledge, and the knowledge of the boomer needs to be put on the interwebs so that people can go search it.

Like, how many young people want to build a shelf or something and they don't know how to do that? They're going to have to go to a YouTube video to do that. Well, who created the YouTube video? The old guy. 'Cause he's the one that knows how to do it, you know? He could've started a YouTube channel.

He just needed somebody to do all the editing and recording for him.

Exactly. Like, you got some grandkids, you got some kids, and nobody says you can't learn it. Nelson was 88, and Nelson used to go, "You know how to YouTube?" And he would search everything on YouTube, at 88 years old. Nelson knew how to send emails at 88. He knew how to do a Zoom at 88. He didn't stop learning.

Yeah. That's one thing I definitely would give this guy credit for, is he was eager to learn about ideas. And, like, another thing, he had a good setup for his kids. You know, all his kids lived close by to him, so you could tell family was important. Which — he didn't have any life insurance that was gonna be around more. He had a term policy that was expiring in a year. So when I did end up showing him how much death benefit that his kids would get down the road — 'cause another thing is, he said his family lives to be 100, so he had some time left in him. So I was like, "That's gonna be quite a bit of money that your family trusts would get, and then what can your kids go do with that?" That's gonna be a big influx for them.

Right. 'Cause they're gonna inherit the rental properties with a step up in basis.

He already had all that stuff set up in a great way.

Good for him.

Yeah, he's just missing the life insurance piece to kind of be the kicker.

And a little extra cash flow, 'cause life changed, and their income changed from the outside a little bit. But it is a testament to kind of what we do in our meetings. It's not a 20-minute meeting. We don't just look and go, "Oh, do you have money to put in the policy? No? Well, we don't have anything to do with you." Like, we have that hour and a half. We talk a lot.

Well, I think I ended up talking to him for two and a half hours almost. By the time we got done with everything.

Sometimes I go two hours.

Yep. Well, he was at the end of the day.

Oh, so you went a little over.

My voice hurt by the end, I was talking so much.

Yeah, but we spend that time with people because we want to make sure we're giving you ideas, and we're explaining everything the way we can, and not just, "Oh, you're old." Like, how fast can I create this transaction?

Yeah. I mean, that was the vibe he was getting.

From the others.

From the other people that he'd talked with.

Unfortunate.

Yeah, it's unfortunate.

Yeah. Well, we're making friends.

Yeah.

We're in the business of making friends. And the cash flow thing, the liquidity of money, and the fact that as you get older you really need to think about, where are we going to be? What if something happened and we couldn't work? But how can we make money?

I've been listening to this new podcast — it's not a new podcast, but it's new to me — it's called The Koerner Office. It's K-O-E-R-N-E-R, The Koerner Office. And he interviews people all the time about just crazy things that are making money, buying and selling things off of Facebook Marketplace.

Yeah, lawnmowers, you were saying. Flipping lawnmowers.

Yeah. He just interviewed some guy that makes over a million dollars a year flipping lawnmowers, and he doesn't fix them. He just finds really good deals, and then he turns around and sells it. And the one thing that's really good about that podcast is you can't be on it unless you give away your secrets.

Got it.

So you have to tell everybody the good and the bad, and I still am left with some questions. However, it's a really good podcast. Yesterday I heard him talking about how you can rent totes for moving. So people are moving, and they don't wanna spend the money on totes, so you can just start a tote rental company.

Oh, wow. I would not have thought of that.

Which might be Mary Jo's next thing.

You're gonna have to build a shed to house all your totes.

Yeah. We got room. It's okay. We got room.

Well, don't make Scott give up his room in his shed.

But we got plenty of room in the barn. So yeah, there are just so many things that you can do. And the other thing I like about this podcast is that everything he does is on the cheap, so nothing is like, oh, you need $100,000. Like, he would prefer if he could start every business with $0, so the least amount of money you can spend. So it really gives people a good idea of like — okay, I'm 78 years old, but I can start a tote rental company, right? I got a garage. Put your car outside, and put your totes inside for a while, and then increase your way up.

But I listen to those podcasts so that when I am talking to people, I have ideas for them of how can we create more cash flow, what can we do. So there's a million ways to do it. This morning, some lady is making a million dollars a year — I think she was making a million dollars a year. She's making, like, $100,000 a month, taking people's pictures, stamping them on a magnet, and then they can hang that picture on their fridge.

Oh, wow. I wouldn't have thought of that.

She's, like, going to weddings and making these magnets with people's pictures on them. Crazy. I mean, I'm not buying one.

The more crazy — amount of money to be made through something like that.

It's a little craft. I don't want it on my fridge. 'Cause my fridge, I don't want any pictures. Like, I got two of them right now, and I should probably take them down, 'cause I like everything clean. But yeah, like it's — there are just so many opportunities, and people think, "Well, I just can't."

Yeah.

No, you can.

Yeah, there is always an idea out there to think of. Sometimes you just need a podcast or a business mentor or somebody to give you that advice.

Yep. That's why I like TikTok.

Yep. Yeah, TikTok — I use Twitter a lot for that. There's all sorts of ways to find it.

Yep. Any other client stuff?

I did have another one that kind of goes back to paying cash for things and, like, paying down debt early to a bank. This one was probably a month or two ago now, but this guy had been back in to renew his line of credit for this upcoming year, and he'd already, in the last few years, kind of downsized his rented acres a little bit and restructured a little. And he had a separate trucking company that was pretty profitable, so he was taking money and cash from that business and paying down his, like, termed out loans extra every year.

Went to renew his line of credit, and the bank was like, "We're gonna do this year, and if you don't have X amount of dollars of cash on you by this time next year, we are not gonna give you one for next year." And he was like, "What the heck? I paid you more money than that additionally."

To get my loans paid off early.

Yes. Just in the last year. "So you have all my cash." And they were like, "We don't care. We want you to have that much by this time next year." So I mean, in theory, it really shouldn't be a problem for him to come up with that, but it's, like, a perfect example of he gave his liquidity away to the bank for nothing. It didn't lower his payments. It shortened the duration of the loans, so he saves a little bit of interest, but what good does that do him now? Nothing. And if he would've run that money through policies instead, he would've already been to a position where he didn't need the line of credit.

And he would've — or he would've just had the cash value that if he needed to pay something off, he could've paid it off. But he would've had the liquidity. So when we talk about liquidity, control, guarantees — liquidity, control, guarantees, uninterrupted compound interest. You can't get that anywhere else.

No.

And so this is just like the other guy you talked to. All of his equity is sitting in those houses. This guy has a bunch of equity in trailers and trucks and whatever he was paying off. And what good is that when they only care about how much cash do you have? Because you don't have enough cash right now that if you didn't have loads, or if you didn't have income coming in, how are you gonna pay us our line of credit?

Yeah. Right.

Well, his farm wouldn't be profitable at all without the trucking supporting it right now.

And we have a concern of banks pulling back right now. And this is another example of he has paid everything, right? He's never been late on a payment. He's actually early on payments, and the banks right now still do not care. Because he farms, and they are running scared.

But people think they do. You like think that you're getting extra credit points —

Because you pay something.

By paying loans back faster. They don't care.

Nope. We show an example — in the calculators that I have, and I don't do it all the time, but I do when I do presentations — an example of a 30-year mortgage versus a 15-year mortgage and how much further ahead you would be. Just do the 30-year mortgage, take the difference, put it into a whole life insurance policy for the next 15 years, and in 15 years you will have the cash value to pay that house off if you want, with the bank.

Yeah.

But what you're doing when you're making early payments is you're giving the bank your money, and then when you want to expand your operation, or you want to start a new business, or you want to go buy real estate, you can't do that, because all your equity is sitting in your land.

Yeah. Liquidity is a game changer for anything, and you can't get that in many investments or assets.

No.

So.

Like, even for me — I didn't want —

I actually warmed my feet up down there, so I don't mind that.

I don't know if you guys can see, but you probably can't see — the dog is making sure she is touching John.

Yeah.

Even for me, I had land that I really had to make a hard decision on last year. Do I wanna pay that off, or do I want to keep my liquid money for other opportunities, right? And my loan was going from 4 to 7%, so I just paid it off, and I borrowed from my cash value. Paid the bank. However, now if I want to buy land, I need to use that land as collateral if I don't have enough money for a down payment on other land.

Correct.

And so it's a really hard call. But when you have a vehicle or you have cattle or whatever, interest rate doesn't always matter.

Oh, yeah.

Some people are like, "Oh, it's an 8% interest rate. I wanna get rid of it." But do you? Do you?

Some scenarios, yeah. But there's always a scenario where you do not.

It depends on the situation, and that is why when people call us to say, "Should I pay this loan off?" We're like, "Well, I don't know. Let's talk about what else you have going on."

I'm gonna need the whole story.

Exactly. Because it's a what-if situation. It's not a cut and dry, "It's 8%, I'm paying it off."

I was listening to Myron Golden, and he's a great — do you ever listen to him?

I've heard — I think you've sent a podcast from him, maybe a clip.

Oh, okay. Yeah, I love Myron Golden. So he was talking about how he'll pay 20% interest on something, and I thought, "Oh my God. That is horrible advice." You know? And he said, "Why wouldn't I pay 20% interest on money if…" And I think he was talking about a credit card. He's like, "Why wouldn't I pay 20% interest on a credit card when I can go make 40% on whatever it is I'm using that money for?"

Yeah.

And I thought, "Oh my gosh, duh." Like, it doesn't matter. We used to say that, right? Why not borrow it at 2 if I can go make 6? But when interest rates went to 8, our brains switched, or when we have a credit card interest of 20, our brains switch and go, "Oh, too high. There's a limit. 5% is the limit. If I can borrow it under five, I'm okay. Anything over five, I gotta get that paid off."

Yeah.

Do you? What are you using the money for? Because if you can use the money to start a business and make more, and we know we're gonna make more, or we can buy cattle and we know we're gonna make more right now doing sell-buy marketing or something — what does it matter? If we know we can make more than what we're paying and we don't have to go back, then why are we paying it off?

Yeah. If that interest isn't dead weight, you know, if it's creating cash flow or an asset for you, then it makes sense. That lady with the magnets — maybe she started out with a credit card loan or something.

She actually — well, she probably did.

Now she made it all the way to her turn.

She probably did. Yeah. Because her story is actually pretty crazy. Like, her husband was working two jobs. She couldn't work. She was super sick after she had their child, and they literally had no money, and so she started with $1,000.

Okay. Well, if they didn't have any money, then it probably was a credit card. Yeah. Well, she's definitely got — she'd be paying 20% on that one, and she's doing pretty good.

Yep. And when we're talking to people, there's just a lot of things we need to know because all these things matter, right?

Yeah. Like I said, we kind of just want the whole story. You know, I'm not gonna just give you a piece of advice off of just a part of it. You know? We're gonna have a conversation and talk through it.

But people — I also think this is important for you guys to understand. I'm here doing the podcast by myself most of the time, and I'm saying things, and some people think I'm full of shit. And that I don't know what I'm talking about, right? 'Cause they're like, "Well, whatever, lady. What do you know?" But you're meeting with as many people as I am in a year. So what did we meet with last year? 200 and —

Oh, it was like —

Well, between the two of us it was 400 exactly.

Oh, really?

Our numbers were exactly 400. I just added them up the other day. So exactly 400 people one-on-one in a year, and ironically, the stories are almost exactly the same. We are not seeing anything different when we talk and compare stories. "Yep. I've seen that. I've seen that. I've seen that." So when I'm talking about what we see in agriculture and what's happening, I'm not full of shit.

No, it's real stuff.

It's what we're seeing. You know? And so getting outside of our county — and we're not just seeing agriculture, we're seeing everything. The guy that has the rental properties, like, we see those people. Because they used to farm, or they used to be in agriculture, or they wanna be in agriculture, we're still gonna see those people.

Yeah, real estate, HVAC, plumbing. Yeah. I mean, we meet people for that.

I talked to a guy — I'm excited about this. I talked to a guy last week that has vending machines.

Oh, nice. I mean, just snacks, or was it something unique?

Yeah, like all vending machines. Not only do they have vending machines in several states, but they sell vending machines.

Oh, really?

So I'm not gonna say who it is or what it is, 'cause I gotta vet these people first, so I'm not sending anybody down some scammer's rabbit trail, you know? But I wanna see — 'cause I think it would be interesting to talk to somebody with vending machines, and how is that industry doing? What does that look like? I have a client that his son started a little business with a vending machine, and it's going very well.

I've seen some people on TikTok that their high schooler has vending machines, and they were making pretty good money for a high school kid.

Well, you can't believe everything on TikTok, so you gotta vet —

Well, they were showing the cash. You could see the piles.

Yeah. You gotta vet these people. You know, do they go to the bank and get the cash and stuff in the machine? They could have traded. I mean, I don't know.

It looked legit, but there might've been some cuts in there.

Yeah. Some people make things look easier than they are, which is why I like The Koerner Office, 'cause he talks about, like, how hard things are. And it's not just that easy. And he wants, like, real numbers.

But anyway, so I talked to that guy that has a vending machine business, but he wants to do hydroponics.

Oh.

And he's never farmed. He's got grants that he's getting from another guy in the ag industry that writes grants for new farmers. And so I was like, "Oh, well that's cool. So then I've got that person to talk to." Right? So there's just — we talk to such a wide variety of people, but most of them are in agriculture. And within agriculture we are seeing the same thing. Banks are pulling back. Ranchers are making some money right now, so they gotta be smart about how they spend it. Farmers are struggling.

True. I think one industry that's doing pretty well is trucking.

Yeah, you said that last night.

Yeah, I've seen it personally just meeting with people, but I also keep up with it on Twitter. I mean, even with the recent rise in fuel even, like, though there's been a big pullback in capacity of drivers, you know, there's a lot of undocumented truck drivers out there. So as they get off the road, you know, it makes demand for real truckers go up, and so they're doing pretty well.

And they can charge more.

Yeah. They can charge whatever they want. They can charge adequately —

What they're worth, not just barely getting by.

Well, how good should the trucking industry have been the last few years here, but wasn't, because of oversupply of truckers.

Yeah, which is just not safe in general. The truckers that I talk to, the stories I hear of undocumented truckers and just how unsafe it is. I mean, I think you would almost rather have an autonomous vehicle driving down the road than some of these people that are fucking the deal.

I prefer my truckers to be able to speak English.

Or read English. So they know where they're going.

Yeah. Yeah. It's a problem.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you've gotta know where you're going. Or even — like, I have a client that's over in the mountains, and he said that there are kids… There's another business opportunity if you're in the mountains. These truckers don't know how to put chains on.

Oh.

And they don't speak English. So he said he used to stop and help 'em, and he's like, "I'm not stopping anymore." And so there are high school kids that sit at the bottom of the mountain, and they'll put chains on, and they'll charge these guys to put their chains on, and then there's kids on the other side of the mountain that'll take 'em off.

I'm sure it's easy — I mean, once you get good at it, I'm sure it takes you a very short amount of time to do that, and you can make 50 bucks in 15 minutes.

Well, they don't know how to put chains on, so they're either gonna end up in the ditch or pay you what you want.

Well, a lot of times they have to.

You basically have a captive audience. Like, where are they going? Waiting for the roads to clear?

Yeah.

They have to get over the mountain.

Some of them probably don't even have the chains that they're supposed to, so they could sell 'em a set of chains.

Yeah. He did say that. They go and also pick 'em up out of ditches, because some people just throw 'em in the ditch.

Then they probably resell 'em.

Yeah. That industry is an animal all on its own. It's pretty interesting. I talked to a lady that does the DOT stuff for them. Oh my goodness.

Yeah, it's a ton of paperwork.

Holy. Like, you better have somebody that knows what they're doing, because if they don't, oh my God.

Yep.

I did talk to someone a few weeks ago that — this was exciting — they had 3,000 sheep.

Oof.

And I have never talked to anybody with that many sheep. So I had a lot of questions. Like, how do you keep them from getting eaten? Is somebody staying out there with them at night? Where do they go at night? Do they all come in and sleep at night? Like, what? I had so many questions about sheep. And then he also sheared sheep, and I don't remember what his number was, like 10,000 sheep or something a year he's shearing.

Oh, that's a lot of work.

Like, it was an astronomical amount of money.

So his back hurts.

It was pretty crazy. But yeah, so I learned a lot about sheep.

Yep, it is weird to see that many, but they probably had a whole slew of livestock guardian dogs is my guess.

Well, they also have shepherds.

Oh, really?

Yeah. So they were doing it the old way. So they hire people, H-2A workers, and they're shepherds, and they will sleep outside with the sheep. And if you graze them correctly during the day, John, they will all come in at night and sleep.

Really? I didn't know that.

I know.

Interesting.

And if you lose some, you just lose some. I guess it's not that big of a deal. To coyotes or whatever. But yeah, they do have the dogs as well. But I was like, "Do you provide them a camper, a tent? Like, they're moving all the time. How does that work?" And I don't remember his answer to that, but I had a lot of questions.

Yeah, I'm sure they have something.

I had a lot of questions about sheep. 'Cause it's fun to learn about other industries.

Well, it's just something you don't see a ton of anymore on a mass scale.

Right. Well, and sheep are worth money now, so more people are running them, but they're not the easiest creatures in the world to handle.

Correct. Yeah, they're kind of a bearcat too.

Yeah. All right. Well, that was fun. That was just us talking about what we're seeing. Just yapping. And you guys get to hear that. And I do think it's important for you to understand that we are working with just so many different kinds of people. You don't have to currently farm. You know, if you want to farm, we have ideas of what other people are doing and how they're doing it and all that kind of stuff.

What we don't know is where they're getting money. Okay? I can say go to FSA, whatever, but we don't do loans.

Yeah, not.

You have to do your own loan with your own money. But some people will be like, "Hey, do you give loans for X, Y, and Z?" I'm not a lender.

That's always funny when you get that confusion though. You'll get, every once in a while, like, they think that we're actually giving away money.

Yeah. I wish I could personally lend.

Yeah, I wish I could.

But then I'm gonna have some questions like the bank does. But anyway, you guys know the routine. You can email either one of us, maryjo@withoutthebank.com or john@withoutthebank.com. Grab a copy of either book, get all the books, read the books, schedule an appointment with us, and then we're happy to help you kind of strategize on how to get started. No pressure, just an hour-and-a-half meeting and seeing what you guys got going on. All right, you have a fantastic rest of your day.