Commodity options are some of the most important tools in hedging, especially once you get to grain above and beyond your insurance guarantee.

Most farmers understand what that means: you’re insured for a certain percentage of your crop that you’ve proven over the past 10 years for each commodity you farm. What you can’t insure, you’ll want to use options on, or something similar.

Today, we’re going to march through some of the most important, fundamental concepts related to options.

Sometimes, you shouldn’t invest in your farm.

A lot of times, when commodity prices and incomes are high in agriculture, the return on investment to put your money back into farmland and equipment just isn’t there. All those prices are exaggerated.

There are actually times when you should not invest in your operation, when you should take that excess cash and put it somewhere else, diversifying your income. That’s what we’ll be talking about today: where you should put your money so it’s growing at a better rate than it would in your farm.

Exercises have different rhythms.

Some you’re supposed to do every day, some weekly. There may even be long runs or tons of push-ups that you reserve for one day a month.

Handling your finances has different rhythms to it as well. I’ve got seven exercises that people should do on a daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly basis to increase their wealth.

Last week, we talked about managing income. We’re revisiting that topic, but this time specifically around real estate.

Today, we’ll be focusing on the tax advantages of real estate, which I learned from Paul Moore’s book The Perfect Investment, as well as a few real estate deals of my own.