The purpose of this exercise is to learn how to calculate ownership costs and operating costs for a harvesting machine and compare them to the cost of custom hiring the same operation.

You can have your crops harvested by a custom operator or you can buy your own combine to harvest them yourself. To make this decision you must calculate the ownership and operating costs for the combine and then compare them to the cost of custom hiring. Assume the combine will be used on 500 corn acres and 500 soybean acres (1,000 acres total). Use the following information to evaluate this decision:

New list price of combine	$161,000
Purchase cost of combine (10% discount from list price)	$145,000
Salvage value (29% of list price after 8 years)	$46,690
Ownership life of combine in years	8
Interest rate	6.1%
Diesel fuel price per gallon	$ 3.20
Labor cost per hour	$20.00
Custom combining rate per acre	$32.00
Combine hours required per acre for harvesting, average of corn and soybeans	0.30 hours/acre

Ownership Costs (per year)

Estimate the average ownership costs associated with the combine over the 8 years you will own it. The costs of owning a combine include depreciation, interest, insurance and housing. Show your work. Round to the nearest dollar.

a. Depreciation, using the straight-line method and the purchase price $____________

1. Interest on average value of combine (first calculate the average of $____________
2. purchase cost and salvage value)

c. Insurance and housing (use 1% of average value of the combine) $_____________

d. Total ownership costs $_____________

e. Total ownership costs per acreon 1,000 acres $____________/acre