The topic has rolled fairly far onto page 2 but I wanted to express my thoughts since I was not here yesterday. Develop other interests. Sounds simple enough but I've seen many times where even an understood split leads to festering of emotions and more than rarely violence. For some farming is so deep into the blood there is not a day that goes by without thinking about it. Give yourself a day off from thinking about it just like you might about cutting the lawn one day as opposed to another. Be open to a partnership that might get your own interests off the ground sooner. Now that you have experience in dealing with others on a business level let those instincts govern such decisions and don't be afraid to ask for an outside opinion. Outsiders (ones who you know and trust) can see the landscape clearly and with less of a bias. Be emotionally OK with the notion that your last opportunity might be your only opportunity. I don't know your circumstances so anything is possible for you but for many their best chance for farming is often to join the family business. What the future holds is anybody's guess but for the present the cost of entry is prohibitive in most cases. Back during the 1980's and 1990's guys could shave off some of the cost by going into the hill country around here and buy a farm that might just produce medium quality forage but at the same time not require an extensive lineup of equipment. That opportunity has been pretty well lost to the Amish and Mennonites buying anything that they can get a bale of hay off of. I think that at some point things will readjust to the economic realities of farming to allow more newcomers but it is hard to say how soon that might be. There have been concrete examples from the past such as after WWI and during the 1980's where land prices reset to be more in step with productivity and profitability. Just a few thoughts. Best of luck, Brown Swiss.