Geoff said 15 minutes later

Yahoo offers a business account which will allow you to host a website, build it, and even allow people to purchase from you using their credit card. You will be charged a small percentage (I think like 2.5% from Yahoo) for each transaction. I would look into that. I'm not sure what Google offers.

Don't spend too much on making a killer website at first, make it clean and easy to use. To get the most out of your website though, you will need to advertise with pay-per-click programs from Google and/or Yahoo or else no one will get to your website through searches. You can set a limit of how much you want to spend a month, and that determines how high up you rank (and this all depends on what keywords you choose). This can range from a few dollars a click to hundreds (yes per click, and to be ranked number 1 on a particular word).

If you can't afford to advertise, I wouldn't bother spending much on your website because your only visitors will be you and whomever you refer the site too in most instances. if you decide to use pay-per-click...don't do a lot of words for little CPC (cost per click). Pick a few words, and load up the cash on them. For your stuff, expect to dish out at least $100/month for much action (remember you pay everytime someone clicks, if no one clicks, you don't pay, however once you reach your set monthly limit, your taken off the advertised listing until next month, but expect to hit your montly limit everytime).

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Kristen said about 1 hour later

We were actually thinking of having the website more as a reference and spread the word by word of mouth for starters. We aren't aiming to make a lot just from people googling "purse" or whatever. We figure that when we start having parties (think tupperware style) people might ask if we have a website. I'll look into the yahoo business account though, that sounds interesting. Thanks Geoff!

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GJ said about 3 hours later

You should definitely allow people to order from your website ASAP. Ten years ago this wasn't necessary--today, it is. How else are you going to sell? It doesn't sound like you'll have a brick and mortar storefront, nor a phone ordering system, so unless you give prospective customers an easy way to buy, you'll make no money.

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GJ said about 5 hours later

oops, sorry, missed your comment about hosting parties. :) anyhow...it still makes sense to have a website you can make sales on....

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GJ said about 5 hours later

OK, now for the party pooper role. Kristen--did you build a business plan? Who are your competitors? What are you bringing to the market that someone else isn't?



I ask these questions because I see that Butler Bag has a lot of brick and mortar stores selling this item already. So...why will people buy at the parties, or website, when they may well be able to buy at a brick and mortar store for perhaps (maybe even likely) less money? That's a concern--not sure if you addressed these kind of issues in a business plan or not.

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Geoff said about 17 hours later

It appears they have only one store in all of NY. So unless you live nearby, you can't buy direct from them online (not yet anyway).

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GJ said 1 day later

Kristen doesn't live in NY, funny guy. Even if she was planning to do this in NY, there is no guarantee that 10-20 stores won't suddenly start carrying these purses, especially if they become the next big thing.



My point is...you should never start a business without a solid business plan. That business plan had better cover topics like competition...

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Geoff said 1 day later

Ok, there are only two stores in all of Virginia tough guy. :)

Competition...ppppshaw! What are the chances of this coming into the hands of a big department store, or a Target or something....oh, crap.

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GJ said 2 days later

it will if they deem it profitable for them

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Geoff said 3 days later

Yes I know, I was being facetious, silly.

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Kristen said 3 days later

I can't see these things at Target. I think that they are comparable to the Vera Bradley collections--found in specialty, small, boutique type stores. I'm going to tool around the yahoo deal this weekend and see how it goes! (I'll also be trying to locate a business plan prototype to copy, and I'll be checking out how our competition has been handling things. We actually looked into that to change up our pricing!)

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Geoff said 3 days later

Good luck with it, let us know how you fair out!

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GJ said 3 days later

Good move on the business plan. You certainly want to fully understand what you're undertaking, what you hope to achieve, and how you'll get there. It can be rather eye-opening...but businesses that don't have one almost always fail.

GJ said 1 day later

That's one mouthful of a URL! :)

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Geoff said 1 day later

You need a .com address if you can.

.net just doesn't have the same impact, not to mention people are used to typing .com and may end up going to the wrong site.

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GJ said 1 day later

If they get the first part right, they'll get the .net part right. hehe.

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Geoff said 1 day later

You'd be surprised.

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GJ said 1 day later

I'm kidding you. I know people are stupid. After all, I'm one of 'em.

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Kristen said 1 day later

Well, we tried, but everything that was a good variation was taken...

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GJ said 2 days later

Yeah, that's not too surprising in this day and age. It wasn't all that surprising even ten years ago, in fact. :)

GJ said 8 minutes later

You have a phone number on the site?? Where does that go?

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Geoff said about 1 hour later

Looks good Kristen! Glad the Yahoo business helped! I've recommended it to a few people because it is a successful program for young business entrepreneurs like yourself (Safari needs a spell check like FireFox).

I think it is a great start and hopefully works out for you. If you find yourselves engulfed in customers (and cash), give me a call and we'll build you a custom website solution like nothing you've seen! Until then, rock on with the new site!

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Kristen said about 2 hours later

the phone number goes to a phone line that we set up especially for the business.
Do you think that's ok?

Thanks Geoff, I don't see us getting engulfed in cash anytime soon, right now it's
just tooling around and all hoping to get the business off the ground. I'm hoping
that I'll be able to pick marc's brain about creating a shopping cart program if
I can't get something to work on my own. I have a creepy feeling that they are
complicated.

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Kristen said about 2 hours later

the phone number goes to a phone line that we set up especially for the business.
Do you think that's ok?

Thanks Geoff, I don't see us getting engulfed in cash anytime soon, right now it's
just tooling around and all hoping to get the business off the ground. I'm hoping
that I'll be able to pick marc's brain about creating a shopping cart program if
I can't get something to work on my own. I have a creepy feeling that they are
complicated.

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Steve said about 7 hours later

Web site looks really good Kristen! Looks like you undercut all the other resellers by $10 too!

So guys, what does it take to get Kristen's web site to show up when you do a Yahoo search? I found a few other resellers (including the original designer), but no links to Kristen's sight. Even when you search for Ladolcevitaonline, all you get is the .com website.

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Kristen said about 7 hours later

I think I'd have to pay for this, unfortunately. I'd like to set up a "store" in ebay. I can't say that I expect to get a lot of looks from people just googling butler bag. It would be nice, but probably more expensive than we can afford. We mostly did it because when we mention it to people the first thing they ask is, oh, do you have a website? I'm hoping we'll be able to use it as a tool to spread the word by word of mouth at firt. That has worked well so far. I even had our first customer email today with this method.

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GJ said about 7 hours later

There are some things you can do to the page to get you picked up by the spiders. The paid things you're talking about are sponsored search--you first want to get some ranking by normal search. Your bro Geoff can probably help with that, as I've been out of practice with that knowhow for more than a few years.

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Geoff said about 18 hours later

It will take time to get your website up on the search listings. One of the things you can do is submit your site to the search engine for free. You can easily do this with Yahoo and Google by clicking on the "Advertise with Us" link or "submit your site." This is a first start. It can take up to 8 weeks before a crawler gets to your site, but typically they'll at least begin to visit your site within a week.

Some suggestions for you Kristen for SEO (search engine optimization)....make sure your pages have a Title. Your homepage just says "Home." That is no good, you want to have your company name in there, then a brief description about what your services are. Search engines will search through your title too, not just the content in your website. The trick is to have the "keywords" people are going to search for in your title, and in your text. The other trick is to have Meta Data in your website. I'm not sure if the Google builder gives you this option or not, but typically you put in "Meta Keywords" and "Meta Description."

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GJ said 1 day later

Aw, Geoff, you don't know how to Googlebomb?

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Geoff said 1 day later

That was so last year haha.

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Eric said 2 days later

Great idea Kristen! I'm so proud!

Dad might be able to help you with the eBay thing, although he doesn't have a store. Are they selling very well on eBay?

I've really been trying to figure out a gimmick to sell on eBay; I'm so impressed that you and your friends came up with this!

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GJ said 4 days later

I'd suggest memory water. Suckers are buying that stuff in droves these days.

Steve said about 22 hours later

Sounds good Kristen! I took another look at the site, it's very professional looing, nice job!

We missed you (and GJ, Darcy, Abby, Trevor, Aaron, Eric, Gina, Kyle, and Katelyn) at Easter. It was a nice, quiet Easter, hope everyone else enjoyed it (though sounds like GJ could have had a little bit more enjoyable of a weekend).

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GJ said 1 day later

Nice, Kristen! I hope your early success continues.

So...I assume you've gotten your tax angles covered--if not, be sure to read up on what you need to do or get an accountant who specializes in LLCs. I assume you are collecting tax from your buyers, right?

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Geoff said 1 day later

Sounds great Kristen! Your site is looking good too! Those darn Yahoo web builders have pretty much eliminated the need for people like me for startup businesses. Glad to see it is working out for you, keep trucking along!

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GJ said 2 days later

Here's a link for Yahoo Sponsored Search--$100 discount.

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Kristen said 2 days later

Cool! Yeah we're pretty well covered on the tax issue. When we applied for the business license, we actually did it through a tax guy. So he did a good job explaining what we had to do and what to watch out for. We're going to go through him to file. And Nancy, one of the five of us business partners, was a business teacher who took accounting classes in college so she is doing the books. So far so good! We do collect tax from Virginia residents, and we got a Visa/Mastercard thingee so we can let people use charge cards--most of our business is through that! We just scored another promotion at a hotel in Arlington, so we're hoping to rake in some dough there.
I just wish that we would pop up with yahoo or google. Nothing yet. I'm starting to wonder if it's the whole .net thing.

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Geoff said 2 days later

com is always better, however, it takes time to appear on google/yahoo. Some of the websites I designed took months before they popped up on Yahoo/Google and ranked relatively decent (aka, typing in the company name to actually show up on the first page). For you to show up on the first page of a search, you may have to wait another 3 or 4 months....no joke.

The internet is just plain crowded. Unless you pay to play, or are a highly specialized industry that isn't oversaturated on the Net...you will have a tough time getting quality search results. There are a lot of things you can do to help your site. For instance, make sure you have quality text on the site. For you, that is a bit tougher as you sell handbags...only so much you can tell about them. One thing you can do is try to get your website posted on other websites. Referring sites can really help you site in search rankings, especially on prominent websites. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) takes time. It is not an overnight process, nor is it a "flip the switch" and let the search engines do the rest.

There are companies out there making good money solely selling SEO services. If you want to jump into the Internet and gain some sales from people searching, pay-per-click. It will get you on the search engines instantly. You really are getting great advertising dollars. Every click you pay for is someone physically going to your site. You can't get that guarantee with any other advertising channel out there.

Go Google for Pay-Per-Click, most of your searches are from Google anyways. Yahoo will probably index your site better for free anyway. Google is more thorough in their indexing and tougher for new-comers like you to show up high in the rankings.

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Kristen said 3 days later

Good news! We do show up now on Yahoo and Google when you do butler bag and our company name! That was exciting! I signed up for the yahoo sponsored search that GJ listed above, and I listed some things in Google base, which I think made us come up better. I also listed our list on a whole bunch of other search engines...so maybe that's helping.

I've gotten lots of offers for SEO, most that sound scammy. I'm pleased with where we are now, and we will get our website posted on the website for our next promotion soon. I also found out that I can set up a shopping cart feature through paypal, so I'll be revamping my ordering process soon.

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GJ said 3 days later

Yeah, there is a lot of scam work in the SEO market. Even Google and Yahoo have come under fire for click-fraud. Proceed cautiously, and spend sparingly. :)

Steve said 30 minutes later

I think you're stuck. While you don't have to comply with their request to match their price, they also don't need to sell you the bags for any less than they list on their website, unless you had an agreement with them before hand. You might advise them of the other company that's selling the stuff on ebay, and mention that you don't think it's fair that you have to comply but they don't.

Even if you did have an agreement with them on price beforehand, they may find ways around the agreement, or just not be very supportive in providing product to you. Since they are you're only source of product, you are very limited in what you can get away with. They have quite a bit of control over you, unfortunately.

Have you gals given any thought to increasing the range of products that you resell? Relying on just one source for all of your income is very risky, as if anything goes wrong with the source, you're out of business.

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GJ said about 9 hours later

Steve's spot on, Kristen. There is nothing that can be done from a legal perspective--they aren't violating any laws. It's totally the rules of supply and demand.

Absolutely, positively inform the manufacturer of anyone who appears to be violating their selling rule. Remember, though, that you're not in that line of business, so don't spend your time on finding rule violators.

Now, of course, selling at the same price as the manufacturer is going to dent your sales. If they have a slicker site (and they almost certainly have more media exposure than your company), a price differential was the only thing keeping your sales going. What can you do now? Simple--you must add value for the customer. Previously, you added value by reducing their cost, but that's not the only way to add value.

Adding value:

1. Like Steve said, offer other things for sale--but be sure those things are complementary to your main sale items. Either find good accessories to sell, or expand your business to sell other "interesting" purses. You still want that to be a hallmark of your business, I assume.
2. Offer some kind of freebie or reduced price item along with the purses--this, to the consumer, makes the purse appear lower in price, even though you are keeping with your supply company's restrictions. The idea here is use the gap in price that you used to have to put towards this freebie or reduced price thingamabob.

GJ said about 5 hours later

Leave your money in your 401(k) and keep pumping money into it. You're buying shares, and the shares will eventually recover. Right now, if you have a long term plan and patience, you'll make a killing in a few years since you're getting shares on the cheap now. I did this back during our last meltdown after 9/11, and made out very well indeed. My investment lost 25% in a short time, but I was able to purchase 25% more during the meltdown, and so when the stocks recovered, my total portfolio was up 45% over four years, including the loss years. That's not too shabby.

I won't lie--my assets, most of which are in a very aggressive mutual fund, have taken a huge hit--so far this year, I'm down 35%. So what am I thinking about doing? Yep, up my contribution percentage. Thar's gold in them there hills!

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Steve said about 10 hours later

I'm with GJ, in that if the economy recovers, you'll do quite well buying stocks at the low prices they are now. The only hitch is if the economy never quite recovers, which there is a risk of. However, for you, with very little invested, there's not anything to worry about. For people of retirement age living off of 401Ks, I sure hope they moved all their money to bonds before the stock market started it's downward trend.

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Geoff said about 11 hours later

I concur with Steve and GJ...if you have the money, buy buy buy! Just make sure you are making some wise investments, and a few crazy ones too! (hey, you never know)

Today I had my own money crash. Got my school taxes for this year and saw a 27% increase! This is mostly due to the fact that my house was assessed (by some whacky government hijacker) at $125,000. It was being billed at $107,500 as of last year. Somehow I don't think, even with my improvements, that in this market my house jumped up that much in value. I'd be lucky to sell it for what I paid for it 2 years ago...or sell it at all!

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GJ said about 13 hours later

When you get taxed $7k on a house that isn't worth the $220k the government insists that it is worth, let me know.

To Steve's point--a total economic failure will wipe you out. However, if that happens, the world will be going to hell in an express train, so your 401(k) will probably not be your biggest concern. :) I'm an optimist, and I intend to make my $4M goal, dammit, crash or no crash.

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GJ said 6 days later

Weeee! Another 800 points down today! Isn't this fun? They said that the Dow hasn't been this low since 2004...funny, my 401(k) is worth now about what it was worth in 2004. Go figure.

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Geoff said 6 days later

well...they did manage to make up 430 points in the afternoon, so it wasn't a total blowout... I was really shooting for 1000 points, that would have been fun!

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GJ said 6 days later

Cool, so maybe I'm back to 2005. Who needs a DeLorean?

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Kristen said 9 days later

My 401k is down 35% as well since January 08--in fact, it is down much below where it was when I left Wegmans! I'm hoping the theory that buying up cheap stocks now works...although I have 35% less buying power as well.

I think that the media is playing a huge role in this crash. Whenever you see the news you are bombarded with pictures of Wall street suits with their hands over their mouths or eyes in utter disbelief and dismay. All you hear is "are we heading back to 1929 again?" Although I have to say, if I was nearing retirement, I would be absolutely freaking out right now. Good thing my children will live to be 200 and be able to support me for a long time.

Any bets on who might go under next? GM is not looking good, which is scary scary!

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GJ said 9 days later

Ah, Kristen, you've touched on something I've been saying for a while. GM is on the very edge of bankruptcy, and their letter to suppliers yesterday announcing that they are pushing out their payment schedule from 30+1 to 60+2 net days means one simple thing--they can no longer pay their bills on time. Word is, Getrag has come calling on unpaid bills and they're scrambling to pay Peter and delay paying Paul. Funny to see a major business having the same problems a lot of us have these days.

Latest even scarier rumor--China, who the US has gladly sold all sorts of securities over the past decade, could come in and buy GM for next to nothing. How's that for scary?

I don't understand your comment about how you have 35% less buying power--that should only be the case if you're income is down as much as your 401(k). Mine hasn't changed--my contribution is the same, but since prices of the mutual funds that I purchase are lower, I get far more shares for the same price now.

The media isn't doing a very good job of explaining the problem--but then again, our government obviously doesn't understand it either, as this silly bailout plan isn't going to fix the problem.

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Kristen said 9 days later

Well, since I stopped working at wegmans I don't contribute anymore to that 401k, I now have a retirement account that the school contributes to for me...although I need to set up a roth ira once I get settled in a house. That's why it feels like I have 35% less buying power. I would love to be wrong!

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GJ said 9 days later

Don't go the Roth route until you max out your 401(k) contribution, unless your 401(k) investment choices suck. You can contribute up to something like 15% of your income to the 401(k), and the tax breaks are better than in a Roth (roths are post-tax dollars, 401k are pre-tax).

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Geoff said 10 days later

Yes but with Roths you don't have to pay tax on your earnings, unlike regular 401K/IRA's.

It all depends on your current tax bracket and what you expect to be at when you retire. Right now I am in a low tax bracket, so I'd rather pay tax on what I contribute now, and assuming the market goes up, I won't pay tax on my earnings. Thus I am going with Roth for the moment. Of course, I won't realize any benefit until I am 59 1/2.

A traditional IRA or 401K will give you an immediate tax-free benefit. So if you are considering a Roth IRA, make sure you live long enough to enjoy the money, make sure you are in a low tax bracket, and pray the laws don't change too much :)

Also, if the market goes boom boom when you are about to retire...you aren't forced to take cash out of the ROTH IRA...too bad for those folks today who don't have a Roth.

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GJ said 10 days later

ok, let's clear up some misconceptions just introduced by Geoff.

401(k) are pretax...you pay no tax going in, and you pay income tax on what you take out and it is based on your tax bracket at the time of withdrawal.

Roth are after-tax--you are using income that Uncle Sam is taxing, so that means when you take it out in the future, you don't pay tax on it again.

If you are in a low tax bracket today, it may make sense to have a Roth. I can't speak for Geoff, but I'm definitely not in the bottom tax bracket today, so I used the 401(k) to help lower my current tax bracket (remember, it takes away from your taxable income). Yes, I'll have to pay income tax on it when it comes out, but I expect to be in a lower tax bracket than I am now--that's called smart living. :)

Now, let's say you were close to retirement before this whole fiasco started. If you had a portfolio like mine (high risk) at age 60, you are an idiot. Rather, you'd have a portfolio with next to no stock, few mutual funds, and lots of bonds and cash equities. Want to know why? Right now my stocks and mutuals are down anywhere from 25-50%. My bonds? Up 1%. That's right--they're unaffected...unless inflation goes bonkers, and then everyone gets screwed. :) So as you get close to retirement, you move stuff from high risk, high return to low risk, low return...because your goal at that point is cash preservation, not gains.

Now, I'm 38. I have lots of time for the market to rebound, and it ALWAYS rebounds. At least, so far it has. If it doesn't, we'll all have far worse problems to worry about, so I won't give a crap about my investments and worry more about feeding my family. Even if the recovery takes 20 years, I'll still come out ahead, and my investments will still be measured in the millions of dollars.

So...word to the wise. Don't pull out of the market. For sure, dump stocks of dead fish, like domestic auto companies and mortgage firms, and instead stick to mutuals and "newer" blue chips stocks. In ten years, you'll be thanking me. :)

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Kristen said 11 days later

This decision might be easy for me because I don't think my "company" (the county school system) offers a 401K. I don't think you can just create one, can you? I've heard that my choice is basically between a 403b and a Roth Ira. I am also at the bottom of the tax bracket now, and will stay (firmly) there if I stay single, but will rocket to the other side (of the moon) if I end up with Drew--so I'm thinking that I better pay tax now and hope that the laws don't change.

Good news though--gas is down below $3 a gallon here. Anyone else?

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GJ said 11 days later

Gas is hovering about $3.20 at the moment out here.

Kristen, if your employer offers any retirement program by where they contribute *anything*, that's your best deal. We folks in the non-education business have 401(k) plans (they replaced pension plans, like what Dad had back in the day), and most companies match you to some degree on the first few percentage points of your salary that you contribute to the plan. My company matches dollar for dollar (100%) of the first 4% that I contribute, so I'd be an idiot to contribute any less than 4% to ensure I got my free 4%.

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Geoff said 11 days later

I paid $3.82 the other day...premium of course. :)

Rochester sucks when it comes to gas. We're about 20 cents more than Syracuse, and I think Albany is 10-15 cents cheaper than SU!