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What Women in Agriculture Need to Know About Personal Finance

Barbara O'Neill

Summary

This 30-minute workshop will provide a brief overview of five key personal finance topics that need to be addressed by farm family women, especially those who rely solely on farm earnings as their source of income and lack any off-farm employer income and benefit plans. Like many small business owners, farmers must often manage an irregular income with “peaks and valleys” related to factors such as climate and weather. They are also responsible for paying estimated self-employment taxes and securing and funding their own health insurance and retirement savings plans. The workshop will begin with an overview of womens’ unique financial needs. The five key topics to be covered in this workshop include 1. budgeting on an irregular income, 2. tax avoidance (minimization) strategies, 3. health, disability, and long-term care insurance, 4. retirement savings plans, and 5. estate and farm succession planning. More specifically, workshop content will include how to develop a personal cash flow calendar, types of small business tax-deferred savings plans, health insurance in the post-Affordable Care Act era, and estate plan check-up questions. The workshop will conclude with a discussion of five available Cooperative Extension resources for educators to use with, or recommend to, farm families including the eXtension Investing for Farm Families home study course (http://www.extension.org/pages/23204/investing-for-farm-families#.Uq8zeE2A2M8), Later Life Farming: Creating a Retirement Paycheck (http://laterlifefarming.rutgers.edu/), Take Charge of Family Farm Finances (http://www.familyfarmfinances.net/), Who Will Get Grandpa’s Farm? (https://ag.purdue.edu/programs/areyouprepared/grandpafarm/Pages/Default.aspx), and Money Talk: A Financial Guide for Women (http://palspublishing.cals.cornell.edu/nra_order.taf?_function=detail&pr_id=19&_UserReference=390EA92CF91370F352AF368A).

Details

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