deleted by creator

He’d grind into a nice paste.

Valid

Valid

It’s up 75 cents in my area, just over the last week. I was originally saying we’ll see $4 before the end of March, but I think we’ll see it before the end of next week. We’ll have $5 gas this summer.

Thanks, Trump.

You’re on a good path, keep it up. People want houses, and mortgage rates are getting lower, and prices are starting to drop.

I think the only thing holding back a lot of people is uncertainty about the future of the economy, and jobs. So people are banking money, not spending it. I have a hobby buying, fixing, and selling guitars, and I’ve noticed a big decrease in sales interest, with lots of sellers.

The good news is that if we make through this mess without losing everything, these people will be sitting on a bunch of money they can finally drop on a house.

Oh yeah, I’m all for going direct to the consumer if you can. It’s a big layer of infrastructure and effort, but it’s worth it. I can’t imagine trying to make a living on wholesale margins.

Setting up the credit card fulfillment is probably the most complicated part, so once that’s done, you’re able to take cards from any other business you do as well. It gives you a lot more credibility than using some dumb app.

Then you have to set up a method of selling, but that’s not hard on eBay or Etsy, at least to get started.

Then you have to attract business. THAT’S the hard part.

I get it, believe me, I’m selling to that economy, too, and this year is off to a very slow start. Economic indicators always lag, and by the summer, we’re going to be discovering that the Q1 2026 was really bad. Small businesspeople already know that.

But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I started my business in September of 2007, and immediately got clobbered by the Bush economic crash. We powered through, figuring if we can survive this, we can survive anything. We did, and then we survived Covid. And here we are all these years later, trying to survive the current wave, which promises to be the worst yet, frankly.

If you don’t want to have to cater to rich, then you should focus on things people have to have, like it or not, and position yourself to help them with that. Maybe you know stuff in construction, and can help with permits, or you can clean businesses or houses, etc. People in my Mom’s neighborhood are always looking for a handyman. If there was someone who was reliable, the guy would be booked all day, every day.

If you’re artistic, you can make music, write a book, knit baby blankets, etc. It’s never been easier to get your art out there online where people might discover it, and buy it.

The one thing I wouldn’t do is get into a brick & mortar location, unless it is some kind of incredible deal, although I don’t know what that would be.

Stick with a vehicle or home based or online business. Overhead will kill you more than anything else.

One of the things I forgot to mention from my pitch was that I would say directly “I will give you enough tested tips, tricks, and advice, that I will pay for myself in mistakes you WONT make.”

And then I would give them a free example: You can buy a dedicated cart to carry around the gear you’ll need, and it will cost $2000, and take 6 weeks to arrive. Or you can go up to Harbor Freight, and buy this cart for $250, and it will do everything that dedicated cart will, do, plus more, AND you can stand it up against wall so it has a small profile.

There, they just saved $1750 off my fee.

And don’t let that Real.Esrate License lapse. Stay in touch with the biz, because at some point the market will turn around in a big way, and you can be in a position to recognize it, and get in early. It might be 4 or 10 years from now, but it will happen. You’ll need money then, too.

I’m old school, too, so my business has been built on networking, word-of-mouth, and good old repeat business. I’m worthless on Social Media, so I’m currently learning how to work with it, and making a little progress, I think.

My experience in the past with advertising is terrible, so I almost never spend money on it. I’m trying to launch a new online business, and I may have to invest a bit to jump start it, so I’m doing research before I blow my money on nothing.

Usually the best advertising is to get people to experience it firsthand, so samples or demonstrations are effective, but can be pricey and time consuming.

You know that they gave him an Olympic Gold Medal for participation, otherwise we would have been hearing him whine about not having one.

Every “Prize” outfit, including Nobel, should invent a special medal just for him, with the emphasis on “Special.” That way, 100 years from now he will be indelibly associated with empty, useless accolades.

Allegedly.

Wait, are they MAGA? Yes?

Then, allegedly.

“Gather around, little ones, it’s time for great-grandma to tell the story of how she tried to chew off the president’s dick…”

“Aww, this is my favorite Christmas tradition.”

“She won a medal for it, y’know?”

“Of course I do, I’ve been hearing the story since I can remember. It’s evolved a bit over the years. It got pretty gory for a while, but the grown-ups reigned that in. Now we’re lucky if she stays awake for the whole story.”

It’s called “Money Laundering” and the Real Estate Developer version of it is one of the few things that Trump is actually an expert at. Because at his core, he’s a criminal.

“Have them line up outside my office door!”

“Well, what would YOU do?!” - Donald J Trump, 45th & 47th President of the United States of America

Somehow, my son grew up without being interested in videogames or social media. He’s now a world class expert in film, but he has a hard time relating to others his age, who think quality is Anime or Marvel movies. He’s gone back to college for another degree, so he’s a few years older than the rest, and he’s astonished at how unprepared they all are for college, life, or anything else.

Covid really blew a hole in the education of our country, and it hasn’t come back.

I honestly don’t know what I did differently with him than any other parent. My philosophy has always been “Love what your children love, and you children will love you.” He was always into theater, movies, music, entertainment, so we leaned into that stuff. He just never showed any interest in Social Media or Videogames, and we never encouraged it, so he never got into that stuff.

Well, if they won’t become American, we have to kill them all. -MAGA

They’re too young to have been married, where their wife will disabuse them of this concept very quickly.

I’d still take her over MAGA, any day.