Adventures with lyrical - buying a business

Actually you don"t, although it is always wise to get one. For example, when you tithe at church, you don"t necessarily get a receipt for that.

What you should do, however, is always, always, always do your charitable donations with a check, so it can be tracked if you get audited. If you want to donate with cash that is fine, but don"t expect to be able to write it off and have it count if you get audited. If you do donate with cash, like giving money to a homeless person, do it out of the goodness of your heart, not because you expect a tax deduction.

As far as what type of charities to donate to, I personally enjoy donating to more local charities, because 1) I can see the results of my donations, 2) it"s easier to keep tabs on the charity to make sure they are using my money properly, and 3) I like supporting my local community to make it a better place to live.

I personally shy away from larger, national charities because I feel too much of my donation goes to the bureaucracy that runs it, and I don"t really get to see the good my money is doing first hand.

As an example for local donations.....I set up a scholarship for the local school. It"s nothing major, not like a full ride or anything like that, but it helps someone who"s underprivileged get a little help for college tuition. I enjoy meeting the person that wins the scholarship, and I like to keep in touch with them and see how they are progressing through school.

Another example is that I helped donate to the local theater guild, so they could build a bigger auditorium. It"s strictly low-key, below average talent to be honest, but I enjoy watching the productions and meeting people from the community.

And of course....time. I donate my time by volunteering at the homeless shelter and the prisons like once or twice a year, and I used to do Habitat for Humanity every year but I haven"t volunteered for them for over a decade.

TheCutlery said:

As far as I know, you do.

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Ah, I thought someone here or elsewhere had made a comment indicating you didn"t. Here a simple receipt is not enough though, you need an official tax receipt.

For example, I donated to a girl I know who was fund raising to do some sort of "mission" where she will travel around the world going to 11 countries to do good works, and more importantly, preach to the ignorant brown people she comes across along the way. I didn"t realize when I donated that it was an American organization, and all I got was a receipt for the transaction but no official tax eligible one. I emailed them and they never even responded, so I just shrugged and let it slide. It was $50, so the tax benefit might have been $10-15.

You need *some* document showing you gave money, regardless of the amount. Donate $1? Prove it. Bank statement is popular in the few cases the organization doesn"t give a thank you/acknowledgement letter.

More than $250, then that thank you/acknowledgement letter is required, and needs specific info on it, but any organization who receives a lot of cash provides these.

Donations of goods works a bit differently, and is more annoying.

Yeah, you"d think they"d have required one all along, just kind of makes sense to me. Up here they all follow this basic format:

Outstanding thread! Thanks a ton for sharing your insight and for being incredibly open about the entire evolution so far. I was stoked to see that you kept on updating the thread since that first post way back in 2008. Huge kudos to caring so much about the people who work for you and your desire to give back. Have an epic 2012!

So I read in my Positive thinking book yesterday while on the toilet and this morning an idea hit me. The Whole Foods of Walmart... That"s basically the idea of a chain of stores similar to Walmart that advertises quality products instead of the cheapest crap they can pull in from China.

John (the eater) told a story a while back about Master Lock. Walmart goes to Master Lock and tells them they need cheaper locks or they"re going with another company. Master Lock says they can"t reduce the prices to the level Walmart wants so Walmart tells them they"re walking. In the end the last job the employees had was to pack up the machines and ship them to China so Walmart could give us cheaper, lower quality locks.

I always preach quality being more important than price so what if a store was created at first with a limited amount of products that advertised quality over price and laid out specifically the value of the product over its life cycle. Say a quality Master Lock costs $8 and lasts 20 years where as the Walmart China version isn"t as tamper proof and only lasts 5 or 10 years but costs $5. Obviously competing with Walmart on paper towels won"t fly but competing on products like locks could start a store that pushed quality, it should bring more jobs back to the U.S. Ideally I would say engineers, scientists, higher end home manufacturers and other professionals that look for quality AND put a little effort into analyzing the value of what they buy and how it can benefit them over the looong run would be the target and hopefully word of mouth spreads on the store the same as Whole Foods quality does.

Thoughts?

Cathan said:

So I read in my Positive thinking book yesterday while on the toilet and this morning an idea hit me. The Whole Foods of Walmart... That"s basically the idea of a chain of stores similar to Walmart that advertises quality products instead of the cheapest crap they can pull in from China.

John (the eater) told a story a while back about Master Lock. Walmart goes to Master Lock and tells them they need cheaper locks or they"re going with another company. Master Lock says they can"t reduce the prices to the level Walmart wants so Walmart tells them they"re walking. In the end the last job the employees had was to pack up the machines and ship them to China so Walmart could give us cheaper, lower quality locks.

I always preach quality being more important than price so what if a store was created at first with a limited amount of products that advertised quality over price and laid out specifically the value of the product over its life cycle. Say a quality Master Lock costs $8 and lasts 20 years where as the Walmart China version isn"t as tamper proof and only lasts 5 or 10 years but costs $5. Obviously competing with Walmart on paper towels won"t fly but competing on products like locks could start a store that pushed quality, it should bring more jobs back to the U.S. Ideally I would say engineers, scientists, higher end home manufacturers and other professionals that look for quality AND put a little effort into analyzing the value of what they buy and how it can benefit them over the looong run would be the target and hopefully word of mouth spreads on the store the same as Whole Foods quality does.

Thoughts?

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You do understand China can make the high quality products you are talking about. Most of the CRAP that you see from China is not because China wants to make crap its because the buyers demand prices so low that they have to use cheaper materials. Trust me I deal with this daily, its my job over here.

First, like Usha said, the reality is that the quality of products isn"t cheap just because it"s made in China, it"s the labor that is cheap. Look at Apple....would you say an iPad or an iPhone is poorly constructed? Yet they are made in China.

Second, even the crap made in China that is crap....Americans still gobble it up. Wal-Mart is a perfect example. Aisles and aisles of crap and poorly made items....and yet it"s one of the biggest companies in America and most Americans can"t get enough of it. It"s the sickening reality that most Americans don"t give a crap about quality and will choose a lower price point every time. I shouldn"t just harp on Americans because I"m sure it"s the same around the world.

Thirdly, your idea is already being done, even you already mentioned Whole Foods, so you would be competing with others fighting over a very small piece of the pie, while the larger piece is being gobbled up by wholesalers like WalMart and Costco.

Not to say you can"t be successful in your endeavor. Ferrari will never be larger than Honda, for example, not that they would want to be. Same for you, if you can keep your expectations realistic, then you can definitely carve a niche out for yourself.

[edit] realize also in today"s global market, there are very few things that Americans make "the best" of anymore. I"d rather buy a car from Europe, for example, or a television from Asia. In fact, just thinking about it at the moment, I"m having a hard time coming up with items I would want for my house that I feel are best made in America....maybe my clothes? furniture?

Right now, in this economy, consumers are way to price sensitive. I"m sure you can pull up plenty of examples of people who say they are willing to pay for quality, but when it comes down to actually paying for quality they are still going cheap. That is why places like McDonalds and WalMart are thriving despite this economy.

In the restaurant business, where I live the big trend is the hippy "organic, local, green, sustainable" movement. Every time you hear someone talking about a restaurant up here they are always bringing up the fact that everything is sourced locally, blah, blah, blah.

Yet the restaurants that offer these things keep going out of business. I talked to one owner who had the shut down who said "there is a huge disconnect between what the consumer wants and the consumer understanding the costs that it takes to produce that product. They want these locally sourced organic dining experiences right up until they need to pay for it."

Every consumer is going to say they want a quality product. You need to follow the dollar to figure out what they really want.

opiate82 said:

Right now, in this economy, consumers are way to price sensitive. I"m sure you can pull up plenty of examples of people who say they are willing to pay for quality, but when it comes down to actually paying for quality they are still going cheap. That is why places like McDonalds and WalMart are thriving despite this economy.

In the restaurant business, where I live the big trend is the hippy "organic, local, green, sustainable" movement. Every time you hear someone talking about a restaurant up here they are always bringing up the fact that everything is sourced locally, blah, blah, blah.

Yet the restaurants that offer these things keep going out of business. I talked to one owner who had the shut down who said "there is a huge disconnect between what the consumer wants and the consumer understanding the costs that it takes to produce that product. They want these locally sourced organic dining experiences right up until they need to pay for it."

Every consumer is going to say they want a quality product. You need to follow the dollar to figure out what they really want.

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I totally understand that. I have the same income as 5 years ago, meaning I didn"t lose my job, actually it"s gone up a bit. But the point is, I have a hard time finding quality products in an acceptable price range.

My example is a bed frame. Either A I can buy a shitty just metal frame that"ll hold up for a few years until the lame ass brackets get worn or I can buy a $1200 sleigh bed frame. I literally shopped around and all the places I went too, it was easy $69 dollar bedframe or $900+. In reality all I really wanted was probably a $300 one. I ended up building my own out of wood. Cost me $150 and my time. It actually saved me money cause it was a project to keep me busy.

I also live in Washington state. So yes, everyone I know wants to eat more organic shit. I always just comment, it must be nice to be able to afford to eat that way. Don"t get me wrong, I blow money on stuff, but organic food isn"t one of them. My friends blow money on stuff and organic food which leaves them no savings etc.

Good points. All of them.

I suppose I"m on the opposite end of the spectrum. In engineering school we had to take an econ class where we learned about the past, present and future value of money as well as evaluating products based on their life cycle and comparing the costs. Usually the higher quality ones win out.

I always go for quality even if it does cost more because if I buy a piece of shit and it breaks or doesn"t function the way I expect it to... I get pissed off that I ever bought it and it really irritates the fuck out of me. I would rather have NOTHING at all than a piece of shit lower quality item.

I hate anything mechanical Walmart sells for that exact reason. If the average person looked at the cost of an item and considered buying higher quality product B and how it can save them money in the long run and 2 brain cells fired at the same time... they"d buy the better product or wait until they could afford it.

Quality saves money and time and my time is worth a shitload to me... even if I waste it posting/reading on the internet. At least I"m doing something I really want to do as opposed to going to walmart to buy the 8th blender of my life because I always buy cheap $15 ones instead of paying $50 for a quality one just ONE time.

It"s been a while since I read the beginning of this thread, so I don"t remember if anyone asked, but do you mind sharing what you scored on the GMAT, Lyrical?

My job search is going poorly, so I"m considering going back for an MBA (I know...I"m going to be one of "those" people). Unfortunately, I"m pretty much too late to make it for Fall 2012, but I"m keeping my options open.

Have you been studying at all Elurin? I looked into taking it now so I don"t have to worry about it if I decide to go to bschool in the next five years. The practice GMAT application they have though I got a 650 without studying at all. Any school I would want to go to I would need low 700s so I"m looking at a lot of prep work (mostly in math properties because those fucked me).

Candiarie said:

Have you been studying at all Elurin? I looked into taking it now so I don"t have to worry about it if I decide to go to bschool in the next five years. The practice GMAT application they have though I got a 650 without studying at all. Any school I would want to go to I would need low 700s so I"m looking at a lot of prep work (mostly in math properties because those fucked me).

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No, this is something I"ve just recently considered, mainly because my job search is going like shit (applied to over 70 places in 2 months, in about 9 states, heard back from 1; interviewed and didn"t get it).

On the plus side, my undergrad GPA was 3.75, so that might buy me a little leeway. Unfortunately, it was essentially a no-name school. But yeah, I"m thinking that I"ll take it to get it out of the way for the future.

Luckily for you GMAT prep is really easy/cheap - just buy the offical GMAT study books that have actual questions from past test banks and and then download the computerized test from the GMAT website. I think I spent $100 or so for the three books and the test was free, pounded out practice questions for a couple of months after work and got a 750.