My husband made some money yesterday

Those of you who have been following my blog closely will recall our search for a tractor with a cab throughout the summer and fall of 2020.  Cliff sold all his classic tractors and had enough cash laid by to buy a new, or almost new, tractor.  Almost magically, such a tractor appeared on Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist, I don't recall which.  You can read about our acquisition of that tractor HERE.   It was like new, and the price was very reasonable.

There have been no unpleasant surprises with the tractor since we bought it last December.  Cliff used it to dig post-holes, and he mowed with it.  It only had a little over 300 hours on it when we brought it home.  All brand new tractors have re-gen added, a feature which is good for the atmosphere... but everyone hates the feature.  It's awkward and aggravating to use.  Commercial tractor-trucks have the same feature added now; the drivers hate it.  But the like-new tractor we bought was manufactured before re-gen... another plus in its favor.  

I really don't understand this re-gen thing, so I'll give you a brief description I found... maybe you will understand it better than I do: "A forced regen occurs when soot builds up inside the diesel particulate filter (DPF) to the point that the vehicle is no longer operable. When this happens, a driver has to pull over and initiate a self-cleaning process that can take up to 40 minutes — valuable time that could have been spent on the road."

My husband has done enough reading about it on the Internet to know that nobody likes the process, and some have had big problems with it, even to the point of returning a tractor to the dealer and taking a loss on it.  So we scored big-time on that point.  

However, although the tractor was the same as a new one and didn't have the dreaded re-gen, there were some small details about the way it was made that weren't perfect for Cliff.  The cab wasn't very roomy for a big man; the seat wasn't comfortable... those sorts of issues.  The air conditioning was excellent, which was great for his asthma.  But those little built-in issues were there.

Cliff started talking about selling the tractor; he figured with everybody hating re-gen, he might make a little money by selling it for more than he paid.  The first time he mentioned that, I was almost speechless and tried to dissuade him, but he finally convinced me that this particular tractor wasn't perfect for him.  

I put an ad on Facebook Marketplace for him, but told him if he was going to advertise it for sale, he needed to add a couple thousand dollars more to the price than he was planning to.  After all, we didn't have to sell it, and later on, he could go down on the price if need be.  For a while, the ad got no action at all.  Then a few people called, most of them trying to get him to go down on the price without even coming to look at the tractor.  Lately, though, we had a couple of guys who were obviously serious buyers; one of them was very tempted to buy it, and even told Cliff that he had moved money over to buy it, but decided it was a little larger tractor than he needed. 

Yesterday a man bought the tractor, giving my husband a substantial amount to hold it for him until he comes back to get it next week.  We made a lot of money over what we paid for the tractor, and now Cliff can once again pursue his favorite activity:  Searching for a tractor that is just right for him!  Meanwhile, he still has his little John Deere which can do most any task that's needed around here.