I started out with an old golf cart that only had two gears. It was pretty good at getting around my place, but not very useful for anything. When it finally died, I wanted to replace it with something that had a bed in the back to haul stuff, but didn't think I needed anything more then that. I was willing to spend a couple grand, but didn't want to spend anymore then I had to. Once I started looking, I realized that a couple grand wouldn't buy me anything that I wanted. I never found anything that was used that I wanted to own. Thanks to some comments on here from thread I started on buying a UTV, I started looking at new ones. With financing, it was doable to buy what I wanted. I struggled with paying that much money for something that I considered more of a toy then anything else, but eventually, I bought a brand new Kawasaki 4x4 Trans Mule for $8,000 or maybe a little more. It's proven to be the most used thing on my land, and if it died tomorrow, I would be obsessed with replacing it. We can haul 4 people in it, but when we've had parties, twice that many have squeezed into it. We haul boxes to the burn pile, fishing gear to the pond, run to the mail box, and haul the garbage can to the road with it. Somebody uses it just about every day, it's the only thing that gets used on a daily basis.
Current prices are crazy, but in my opinion, they will just keep going up. Find something you really like, figure out the best way to finance it, and go for it. I took out a five year loan on mine, and paid it off in two years. I like the option of having the smallest payment possible, but then paying more every month.
My parents are in their 80's and they where hauling branches from their yard in it yesterday. This picture is a few years old, but it shows how much they enjoy using it.
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It's also been great for splitting firewood. I haul the splitter to my rounds, and one tank of fuel in the log splitter will fill up the bed.
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I even use it to pull my home made sprayer
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And of course, sometimes it just a lot of fun to play in the mud. This is my wife in one of our fields.
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