FICO to incorporate buy-now-pay-later loans into credit scores

Your phrase "having to travel" is painting with a very broad brush.

There are naturally huge variations in transit time depending on where you live in a metropolis, where you are going, and how you are getting there.

I can walk 15 minutes to a coffee shop and grocery store, drive 20 minutes to a Walmart, and take a train 35 minutes to the office.

All are very convenient and the latter two require transportation.

> Where do you get the idea that farm work is a necessary condition to realize an income from farm land? Most farmers (in the legal sense) don't farm their own land, they have other farmers work it through sharecropping/rental agreements.

Even if you aren't doing the hard labor, you have to want to manage that kind of business. Most people evidently prefer not to, and instead like urban jobs. The last 150 years of urbanization isn't a fluke.

Not to make it sound like a competition, but I can do it in 5 not living in a city. Why does it take so long in a place that should be optimized for keeping everything close by?

> drive 20 minutes to a Walmart

I can be to two different Walmarts given 20 minutes. That is also an unusually long time for a heavily populated area. Are you actually living in a rural area with a train and I misunderstood?

> and take a train 35 minutes to the office.

Okay. You got me there. I don't have a train in my backyard. It would take me 20 minutes to get to the station.

But, to be fair, when I lived in a big city downtown it also took me 20 minutes to get to the station, so perhaps your situation of having a train sitting right outside your door waiting on you is a bit unusual?

That said, perhaps you have included, say, 20 minutes to get to the station, and a few minutes waiting on the train. But in that case is the 5-10 minutes of actual train time really that advantageous? In this scenario you're almost at your destination before you even get on the train. Presumably this isn't what you meant.

> you have to want to manage that kind of business.

You'd have to report your income to the government. What else is there?

The onus will be on the farmer working the land to do everything else. I know that well, because I'm one of those farmers. The industry is much too competitive to think you can make the landowner do anything.

I can walk to 3 different ones in 5 minutes - I live in an actual city - but I was trying not to make it about showing off my housing privilege. Note I said "a coffeeshop", not "the nearest coffeeshop".

> I can be to two different Walmarts given 20 minutes. That is also an unusually long time for a heavily populated area. Are you actually living in a rural area with a train and I misunderstood?

Big dense city, "urban residential", not a suburb. 10 feet between my house and my neighbor's. So Walmart is not "nearby" because those tend to be in lower-middle income suburbs. However, 2 Targets & a Costco are a 10-15 minute drive away.

> But, to be fair, when I lived in a big city downtown it also took me 20 minutes to get to the station, so perhaps your situation of having a train sitting right outside your door waiting on you is a bit unusual?

> That said, perhaps you have included, say, 20 minutes to get to the station, and a few minutes waiting on the train.

5 minutes walk to the station. 20 minutes on the train. 10 minute walk to the office. If I time it right, no waiting for the train.

> > you have to want to manage that kind of business.

> You'd have to report your income to the government. What else is there?

I get that you don't do any actual physical labor, but don't you have to negotiate deals with labor suppliers (or laborers), seed/fertilizer suppliers, check on the quality of work and the condition of the land, facilities, and equipment?

If you hire people to do that all for you, then what's the ROI? It's hard to imagine that small-hold farming is as easy (and has similar returns) as buying an indexed fund, otherwise everyone would be dumping their capital into it.

But hey, maybe after reading this comment thread, everyone will!

Well, I personally do the physical labor (if you call riding around in an air conditioned tractor physical labor). You are right that the landowner doesn't.

> but don't you have to negotiate deals with labor suppliers (or laborers), seed/fertilizer suppliers, check on the quality of work and the condition of the land, facilities, and equipment?

That's on me, not the landowner. Why would the landowner do any of those things? Again, their only job is to count the money.

> then what's the ROI?

For me, mostly the fun. I enjoy it. I do also make pretty tidy financial profit doing it, which is admittedly a great bonus, but I expect I would still do it even if that weren't the case. Not everything in life has to be about money. Sometimes it's okay to bask in the pleasure of a hobby.

> It's hard to imagine that small-hold farming is as easy (and has similar returns) as buying an indexed fund

An index fund will, on average, provide greater returns than renting out your land, albeit with greater risk as greater returns expect. You wouldn't move to the country as some kind of get rich quick scheme.

But, if you've somehow already forgotten what we're talking about, when you are already living in the country for whatever reasons life has found you there, the land provides an income that offsets the cost of the necessary transportation.