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Make Your New Vehicle Work for You

Part of any decision to buy a car, pickup truck, grain truck or semi involves knowing your costs of owning and operating the vehicle after the paint begins to fade. Don Hofstrand of Iowa State University developed a handy spreadsheet for customizing your analysis to the specific vehicle you are considering purchasing or leasing. Both variable and fixed costs are considered while keeping the spreadsheet simple to use and understand. Costs are calculated on a per-mile driven or year-owned basis.

The evaluation tool also allows you to compare different choices for new vehicles as well based on a range of factors. Give it a test drive by downloading it today.

We’re featuring the spreadsheet as our Farm Futures Spreadsheet of the Month. The compact 71 kilobyte spreadsheet should work with Excel 2000, 2002, 2007 or Excel XP. You can download it by clicking on the link below.

Do you have a spreadsheet that’s made a difference on your operation that you’d be willing to share with other readers? Drop us a line at FarmFutures@farmprogress.com with a description of the spreadsheet. We’ll pay $75 if we feature your farmer-written non-commercial program as our Spreadsheet of the Month.

Arlan Suderman is Market Analyst for Farm Futures magazine and FarmFutures.com. He has served on the staff of Farm Progress Cos. since May 2000, providing market analysis and commentary for its family of 18 state and regional publications. His Afternoon Recap provides market analysis on this site each afternoon that the grain trade is open. Suderman also provides real-time market commentary via Twitter at twitter.com/ArlanFF101. Suderman brings a wealth of hands-on experience to the table after completing his Certified Crop Advisor status in 1997 while serving in the Kansas Extension Service.