Great Birthday Gift

Lauren gave me a great gift for my birthday this year. A $50 account with KIVA. I first became aware of KIVA a couple years back when I was looking for a means of helping my friend, Abraham, in Ghana get a business started. In short KIVA facilitates micro-loans to third world citizens in need of capital to start or grow their business. Loans can be made for anything from a $100 to a roadside peddler to buy a shoestring inventory, up thousands of dollars to a farmer for a tractor. KIVA's website allows me to view and decide who gets my loan in $25 increments. My loan will be combined with other lenders until the request amount is met.

I gave my first $25 (toward a total request of $525) to a young woman in Vietnam with a farm supply business, so she could increase her inventory. This is not her first loan. She's received and repaid five previous loans expanding her business each time. I should receive the a full repayment within 13 months, and there is no interest. At that time I can either cash out or re-loan to another requester.

There's also the possibility that she will default on her loan. It's a gamble. As I see it though, this venture is somewhat like all those slot machine I've played over the years. I won't win, but at least now I can't lose, too. And this rounds going to last 13 months

Thanks, Lauren

Interested in Playing a little yourself? http://www.kiva.org/

I'll sell your car for you!

I just sold Lauren’s car for her --- an interesting experience.

It was a Toyota, Corolla I bought new in 2001 that Lauren and Megan drove 83,000 miles to mostly just visit their Huntington Beach friends. I priced it at the lower end of Blue Book -- $5500. After a few weeks and more than a few painful encounters of the strange kind, I dropped the price to $5000.

At first I used Craig’s List to advertise the sale. I got over ten phone calls in the first couple days. A couple of them showed up and told me everything that was wrong with the car that made my asking price laughable (in their country). Most of the callers said they would like to come by to see it but never showed up.

One young lady asked me to call her on Saturday if it was still available. When I called she treated my call like I was a stalker. I expected that at any moment she would tell me I was harassing her with all (this) phone call(s). She just wasn’t sure she was interested -- maybe it would be better if we were just friends was a comment that wouldn't have been anymore strange.

Most though just called and wanted to know if I would take a lot less than my offer price. At first, I just said no. But after awhile, I started playing with them. When they said they thought it was worth $4200 or $4800, or whatever. I just asked them why they thought that was the right price. Some said because it was eight years old, some because it had 83,000 miles. I said, then as long as were going to pretend the price is wrong, let’s just pretend that the miles or age is wrong, too. Let’s pretend it’s two years old with 40k miles. Hell let’s pretend the price is $6500, but I’ll let it go for $5500. Most hung up, but some laughed.

I also got a lot of email asking questions. I was honest in my reply, mostly.

Q: Has it ever been in an accident?

A: (Hell yes, with two teenage girls you can’t expect an original bumper or fender.)-- real answer: A fender bender, but no airbag deployment or frame damage.

Q: Was it driven by a smoker?

A: (with multiple cigarette burns a dead giveaway, I just tried to mitigate the anwer.) Yes, but I also have a tendency for uncontrolled diarrhea and projectile vomiting, so you really can’t smell the smoke.

One phone call came from a man and his friend who worked at a nearby 7-11 Store. They wanted me to drive the car to the store so they could see it. The funny thing is that I did it. Both were recent immigrants from Nepal and as they took turns working the store counter, the other tried to negotiate the price down. I’d already decided that I wouldn’t take a nickel less just for my inconvenience. I left getting nothing more than an offer of a free Slurpee. I don't like Slurpees.

When it finally sell, four weeks into the project, the lead came from the time honored method of a sign in the window. A young couple were out riding their bikes on a Sunday morning, saw the for sale sign in the window, and bought it later that afternoon . It sold old for just $50 off my final asking price -- so they could get it detailed.

I still had 6 weeks left on the Auto Trader ad I paid $39, so I replaced the comment section of the ad where you BS all the positives with the following statement. “Advice to buyers. If you want to buy a car for $4200, don’t call where the sales price is $5200. Call an ad where the price is $4200. Guaranteed, you’ll have better luck! PS: I happily SOLD this car and did so with no great discount.”

We're still getting calls from people who can't, won't, didn't read the ad.