E-mail
Print
RSS
G-bookmarks
Live
TechnoratiDriving Your Salary
Dear Dave,
I’m a pastor. I make $24,000 a year, and my wife and I live rent-free in the church parsonage. We’ve also got two kids, about $19,000 in credit card debt and we owe $13,000 on a van loan. The book value of the van is $23,700, but we got a good deal with our trade-in. Do you think we should sell the van?
Matthew
Dear Matthew,
I’d sell that thing tomorrow! You can’t prosper when you’ve got a year’s income tied up in something that’s going down in value.
Cars are just about the biggest item you can buy that will go down in value like a rock. I mean, if I were to come to you and offer you an investment opportunity where you could turn $23,000 into $10,000 in just three or four years would you be chomping at the bit to get in on it? Of course not!
You can easily get a quality, dependable vehicle for less than $10,000 – with no payments. And that will also free up money and enable you guys to really attack that credit card debt! - Dave
___
Can the government go bankrupt?
Dear Dave,
With all the crazy economic things happening lately, I was wondering if it’s possible for the government to go bankrupt.
Susan
Dear Susan,
Technically, it’s possible. But the chances of that happening are so close to impossible I wouldn’t worry about it. They’ll just continue being bureaucratic vampires and sucking the money out of us!
The real issue, I think, are some things that haven’t been pointed out about the situation with our national debt. When the government takes billions of dollars and uses it to help Fannie Mae or AIG, where do you think they get that money? They borrowed it. How do they borrow money? They issue government bonds that are bought by foreign investors, local investors, institutional investors and others.
But here’s the catch. If all these people are buying government bonds they’re not buying other kinds of bonds. So when the government borrows hundreds of millions of dollars by going into the bond market and issuing bonds, they’re basically sucking money out of the economy.
And when there’s not as much water running downstream the creek gets dry! - Dave
___
Straight Commission Search
Dear Dave,
I own a small business, and I pay my people on straight commission. We’ve started growing a bit, and I’m having trouble finding good, new reps who want to work under this kind of compensation structure. Does your team work on commission, and if so, how do you do it? Gary
Dear Gary,
I love commission plans that rely heavily on incentives. I just plain love the idea of commissions. I mean, I’d put my receptionist on straight commission if I could figure out how to make it work!
But honestly, there’s hardly anyone on my team that works straight commission. The majority of my folks work on a small salary plus commission, or some kind of draw until they get rolling.
Now, I don’t want them fat and sassy and getting something for nothing. That’s not fair to me. But the truth is that a broke salesperson smells, looks and acts desperate. They tend to promise the sky and deliver something a lot closer to earth.
The key is to find a happy medium. So I usually give my guys enough to get by, but if they want anything better they have to go kill something and drag it home. The base keeps the kids fed and the lights on, but if they want a little fun and some pleasure in life they have to work for it!
- Dave
For more financial advice plus special offers to our readers, please visit www.davesays.org or call 1-888-22-PEACE.
