Things to live by or ?

Deuteronomy 28:1-68

English Standard Version (ESV)

Deuteronomy 28

Blessings for Obedience

 ¹"And if you faithfully obey the voice of the LORD your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. ²And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you obey the voice of the LORD your God. ³Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the field. ⁴Blessed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground and the fruit of your cattle, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock. ⁵Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. ⁶Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out. ⁷"The LORD will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before you. They shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways. ⁸The LORD will command the blessing on you in your barns and in all that you undertake. And he will bless you in the land that the LORD your God is giving you. ⁹ The LORD will establish you as a people holy to himself, as he has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the LORD your God and walk in his ways. ¹⁰And all the peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the LORD, and they shall be afraid of you. ¹¹And the LORD will make you abound in prosperity, in the fruit of your womb and in the fruit of your livestock and in the fruit of your ground, within the land that the LORD swore to your fathers to give you. ¹²The LORD will open to you his good treasury, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hands. And you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow. ¹³And the LORD will make you the head and not the tail, and you shall only go up and not down, if you obey the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you today, being careful to do them, ¹⁴ and if you do not turn aside from any of the words that I command you today, to the right hand or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them.

Curses for Disobedience

 ¹⁵"But if you will not obey the voice of the LORD your God or be careful to do all his commandments and his statutes that I command you today, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you. ¹⁶Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the field. ¹⁷Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. ¹⁸Cursed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock. ¹⁹Cursed shall you be when you come in, and cursed shall you be when you go out. ²⁰"The LORD will send on you curses, confusion, and frustration in all that you undertake to do, until you are destroyed and perish quickly on account of the evil of your deeds, because you have forsaken me. ²¹The LORD will make the pestilence stick to you until he has consumed you off the land that you are entering to take possession of it. ²² The LORD will strike you with wasting disease and with fever, inflammation and fiery heat, and with drought^[a] and with blight and with mildew. They shall pursue you until you perish. ²³And the heavens over your head shall be bronze, and the earth under you shall be iron. ²⁴The LORD will make the rain of your land powder. From heaven dust shall come down on you until you are destroyed.
 ²⁵ "The LORD will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You shall go out one way against them and flee seven ways before them. And you shall be a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth. ²⁶And your dead body shall be food for all birds of the air and for the beasts of the earth, and there shall be no one to frighten them away. ²⁷The LORD will strike you with the boils of Egypt, and with tumors and scabs and itch, of which you cannot be healed. ²⁸The LORD will strike you with madness and blindness and confusion of mind, ²⁹and you shall grope at noonday, as the blind grope in darkness, and you shall not prosper in your ways.^[b] And you shall be only oppressed and robbed continually, and there shall be no one to help you. ³⁰ You shall betroth a wife, but another man shall ravish her. You shall build a house, but you shall not dwell in it. You shall plant a vineyard, but you shall not enjoy its fruit. ³¹Your ox shall be slaughtered before your eyes, but you shall not eat any of it. Your donkey shall be seized before your face, but shall not be restored to you. Your sheep shall be given to your enemies, but there shall be no one to help you. ³² Your sons and your daughters shall be given to another people, while your eyes look on and fail with longing for them all day long, but you shall be helpless. ³³A nation that you have not known shall eat up the fruit of your ground and of all your labors, and you shall be only oppressed and crushed continually, ³⁴so that you are driven mad by the sights that your eyes see. ³⁵The LORD will strike you on the knees and on the legs with grievous boils of which you cannot be healed, from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head.
 ³⁶"The LORD will bring you and your king whom you set over you to a nation that neither you nor your fathers have known. And there you shall serve other gods of wood and stone. ³⁷And you shall become a horror, a proverb, and a byword among all the peoples where the LORD will lead you away. ³⁸ You shall carry much seed into the field and shall gather in little, for the locust shall consume it. ³⁹ You shall plant vineyards and dress them, but you shall neither drink of the wine nor gather the grapes, for the worm shall eat them. ⁴⁰You shall have olive trees throughout all your territory, but you shall not anoint yourself with the oil, for your olives shall drop off. ⁴¹You shall father sons and daughters, but they shall not be yours, for they shall go into captivity. ⁴² The cricket^[c] shall possess all your trees and the fruit of your ground. ⁴³ The sojourner who is among you shall rise higher and higher above you, and you shall come down lower and lower. ⁴⁴ He shall lend to you, and you shall not lend to him. He shall be the head, and you shall be the tail.
 ⁴⁵ "All these curses shall come upon you and pursue you and overtake you till you are destroyed, because you did not obey the voice of the LORD your God, to keep his commandments and his statutes that he commanded you. ⁴⁶They shall be a sign and a wonder against you and your offspring forever. ⁴⁷ Because you did not serve the LORD your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart, because of the abundance of all things, ⁴⁸therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the LORD will send against you, in hunger and thirst, in nakedness, and lacking everything. And he will put a yoke of iron on your neck until he has destroyed you. ⁴⁹ The LORD will bring a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth, swooping down like the eagle, a nation whose language you do not understand, ⁵⁰a hard-faced nation who shall not respect the old or show mercy to the young. ⁵¹It shall eat the offspring of your cattle and the fruit of your ground, until you are destroyed; it also shall not leave you grain, wine, or oil, the increase of your herds or the young of your flock, until they have caused you to perish.
 ⁵²"They shall besiege you in all your towns, until your high and fortified walls, in which you trusted, come down throughout all your land. And they shall besiege you in all your towns throughout all your land, which the LORD your God has given you. ⁵³And you shall eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of your sons and daughters, whom the LORD your God has given you, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemies shall distress you. ⁵⁴The man who is the most tender and refined among you will begrudge food to his brother, to the wife he embraces,^[d] and to the last of the children whom he has left, ⁵⁵so that he will not give to any of them any of the flesh of his children whom he is eating, because he has nothing else left, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy shall distress you in all your towns. ⁵⁶ The most tender and refined woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground because she is so delicate and tender, will begrudge to the husband she embraces,^[e] to her son and to her daughter, ⁵⁷her afterbirth that comes out from between her feet and her children whom she bears, because lacking everything she will eat them secretly, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy shall distress you in your towns.
 ⁵⁸"If you are not careful to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and awesome name, the LORD your God, ⁵⁹then the LORD will bring on you and your offspring extraordinary afflictions, afflictions severe and lasting, and sicknesses grievous and lasting. ⁶⁰And he will bring upon you again all the diseases of Egypt, of which you were afraid, and they shall cling to you. ⁶¹Every sickness also and every affliction that is not recorded in the book of this law, the LORD will bring upon you, until you are destroyed. ⁶²Whereas you were as numerous as the stars of heaven, you shall be left few in number, because you did not obey the voice of the LORD your God. ⁶³And as the LORD took delight in doing you good and multiplying you, so the LORD will take delight in bringing ruin upon you and destroying you. And you shall be plucked off the land that you are entering to take possession of it.
 ⁶⁴"And the LORD will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you shall serve other gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known. ⁶⁵And among these nations you shall find no respite, and there shall be no resting place for the sole of your foot, but the LORD will give you there a trembling heart and failing eyes and a languishing soul. ⁶⁶Your life shall hang in doubt before you. Night and day you shall be in dread and have no assurance of your life. ⁶⁷ In the morning you shall say, 'If only it were evening!' and at evening you shall say, 'If only it were morning!' because of the dread that your heart shall feel, and the sights that your eyes shall see. ⁶⁸And the LORD will bring you back in ships to Egypt, a journey that I promised that you should never make again; and there you shall offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but there will be no buyer."

Don't think just because someone told you so, It's true, Things you really need to know ! When selling online.

I marvel at the online sellers, I say marvel not necessarily in a good way.The online availability that has allowed everyone and anyone to sell online has also allowed folks who really have no experience with online selling or any experience even with retail sales.This is a problem for those who have spent years perfecting their craft of sales and marketing. I've been in the retail and service industry for more than 45 years and there is a proven way to sell products, Whether in a B&M store of an online store, It's pretty much the same.

There are some very basic things one should know before beginning to sell or set up shop, First and foremost you need to check with your city or county to see what is required to sell online,Hobby Sellers may not be required to be licensed, But  Most jurisdictions require a business license and a sellers permit to collect sales tax on sales with in your own state.

Many seller are mistaken in thinking that they are just hobby sellers, therefore no license required, But unless you plan on losing money in you venture, You most likely want to make a profit, that makes you a business, I don't know what many of these sellers are going to do when the IRS does an Audit.

Here is some information you may or may not want to know.It's easy to do like this fellow and just put your head in the sand and hope no one see's you,But I can tell you that it will haunt you from time to time,That's why he keeps having to check to see if he is being spotted.

Many a business starts out as a hobby and then turns into a profitable activity. An activity may continue to be a hobby after it produces taxable income if you pursue it without expecting to make a taxable profit. But, if you reasonably expect to earn a profit; you have more than a hobby, you have a business.
What are the tax implications for a business versus a hobby?
Income from an activity is taxable, whether the activity is a hobby or a business. The good news is that you can deduct expenses up to the amount of the hobby income you earn. You can't claim a loss from the hobby. Taxpayers who incorrectly report losses from hobby activities can be subject to additional taxes, interest and penalties in an audit.
What does the IRS consider when deciding if something is a business or a hobby?
The IRS presumes an activity is a business if it makes a profit during at least three of the last five tax years, including the current year. The time frame is different for breeding, showing, training or racing horses. In those instances, we consider it a hobby if it earns a profit in two of the last seven years. If the profit requirement isn't met, the activity may still be considered a business, depending on certain factors.
Here are a few questions to help you make the correct determination.
Do you spend enough time and effort on the activity to make a profit?
Do you depend on the income for your livelihood?
Have you changed how you operate?
Do you carry on the activity in a businesslike manner?
Do you have the knowledge needed to carry on the activity as a successful business?
How should hobby income and deductions be claimed?
Income earned from a hobby should be reported as other income on Form 1040.
Deductions for hobby activities are claimed as itemized deductions on Schedule A.
Take them in this order and only to this extent. First, take deductions that may be both personal and business related, such as home mortgage interest and taxes, take those in full.
Second, take deductions that don't adjust your basis, such as advertising, insurance premiums and wages. If your gross income for the activity exceeds the deductions you took in the first category, take only the excess here. These expenses are deducted as miscellaneous itemized deductions.
Third, take business deductions that reduce the base of the property, such as depreciation and amortization. Again, take only the amount where your gross income for the activity is more than the deductions you took in the first two categories.
These are also taken as miscellaneous itemized deductions.
What deductions can I take if my hobby has turned into a business?
If an activity qualifies as a business, you may deduct ordinary and necessary expenses. An ordinary expense is one that is common and accepted in that trade or business.
A necessary expense is one that is appropriate for the business. Personal expenses are usually not deductible.
Where can taxpayers get more information?

If you're a new business owner, know your federal tax responsibilities. Visit IRS.gov/smallbiz (with a "z") for help and information.

Is Cheap Good, Or is cheap CHEAP?

I've been selling now for going on 46 years  and little has change since then, Except for the advent of the masses to selling on the net,Is that Good or Bad?

There are pluses and minuses in this new world of easy selling sites, The pluses are  anyone can set up shop with little or no experience in Selling or Marketing, One of the big problems in the market place today is the flooding of the marketplace with left overs or garage sale items. Some sellers just want to clean out the garage or kids room of stuff that is no longer need, That's great except for one thing, lot of us are full time sellers and purchase our inventories and spend countless hours working our business plans only to find items at give away price that no business man or women would dare think about doing unless they wanted to go out of business.

I've been thinking lately about leaning more towards a paid selling sight strictly because those type of seller list in that market place. Even though their price are low and I'm sure so are there sales. Most full time sellers are here for one main reason and that is to make a profit, Any one who has extremely low prices and ship at exact cost will at the end of the year realize that just because you make a couple dollars on an item, It does not mean at the end of the year you will show a profit. After you figure in all your hidden costs which are:

• Laptops, I Phones,Desktop, Cameras etc 
• Actual Postage
• Shipping labels (Plain Paper included)
• Packing tape
• Printer ink supplies
• Wear and tear on printer
• Packing supplies(Peanuts,Bubble wrap,Tape)
• Time preparing orders for shipping
• Not including time preparing listings(I like getting paid for my time)
• Not adding a handling charge will cost you when mistakes occur, Sometimes we error.
• If you take your order to the PO, You have time , Gas, Wear &Tear, Plus a higher cost to ship.
• Taxes which I doubt most sellers do not do
• Business license, Seller permits
• Don't forget the space needed to store products

The good news is if you are a ligitmate business, All the above stuff is tax deductible.Including a portion of your home used as your office, Store room and Auto expenses related to your business.

Ebay use to be the cream of the crop in online sales and may well still be King of the mountain, But cheap goods have caused them to rethink their bottom line, It is much more costly to sell there and that may not be a bad thing. It will for sure weed out those who should really have a yard sale once a year and dispose of unwanted items.

I'm all for free enterprise, But I do Believe that real sellers have overhead cost and have to be a bit smarter than others.I know I will get negative comments to this post, But if I can wake up one or two sellers to the fact that they are hurting everyone and themselves by low prices and exact cost shipping, Then I've done what I sought to do.

 Happy selling.

Changing times require changing methods

Recently with all the changes in Google Feed requirements, UPI's,MPN's and brands, It continually has me retinking my position in intenet sales. A couple of weeks ago we set up independant web stores at Weebly.com which can be accessed via our main domain at www.rsalesonline.com at EPIS which is my Hub for all our venues.The new store are the ones that say My Store.

I figure that if Google Products is the most searched search engine world wide, I needed to position my self to gain the best advantage I can in placement. Therefore by running my own site, I can pick my own Categories which is a big thing since most all my items are Collectibles, The majority are older items out of production,Even my trains are1970 & 80 stock.

We now have a Christian Music and Book store and a Toys & Collectibles Store and finally a Clothing store all stand alone, These are not duplication of stock in my Addoway storefronts, I refuse to try and keep up with multiple stock in multiple stores, That's just nuts, JMHO.

I seem to be addicted to putting more work on myself than I can handle, But as I have said before, If your not changing with the times, Then you slowly fading away, How many B&M shops have gone out of business because they refused to see changes and made the necessary adjustments to avoid going broke. Most of us don't have to worry about going broke hopefully. I do have to be concern with creating the best sale venues we can with what God has given me to work with.

I am blessed with an abundance of inventory which we accumulated over the past 10 years (Hence aka Shopaholic) But after watching these folk on Hoarder, We are not buying anything right now, I have folks comming to me all the time wanting me to sell stuff for them, My answer is always the same, Sorry, But I have way to much stuff already that is still boxed, Taking on more stuff would be nuts, My son once ask me why I didn't just open a B&M store, Why should I take on that headache, Here if i decided tomorrow to throw in the towel I could, With a shop I could not do that. If you have ever run a B&M you know it's not all fun and games. Enough said for now, God Bless and wishing everyone Prosperity and Good health, Always Larry

Tough times are all around us, What do we do?

In March of this year we moved all out items from Bonanza to Addoway, We were working on updating all 2,300 items when Google through another Monkey Wrench into the works but requiring all sellers to add UPI or MPN to all listings except certain categories, Sales stopped dead, So we again decided to diversfy and add some items back into our old Booth at Bonanza, That said with all the natural desasters back in mid west, East and South East I'm not surprised that there are no sales to be had.

 My take on this whole thing right now is to go through all my inventories and clean house, Dress everything up I can up so when things return to normal,  I will have one of the best looking booths and Storefront on the net and will be ready for business.

I'm one of the fortunate one's having retired in mid 2008 and having my feet planted firmly in the internet. There have been many bumps in the road, From venues crashing and losing thousands of listings to disappointments in venues that never went anywhere at all. What really keeps me going is the people both on Bonanza and Addoway, they are for the most part an awesome bunch of folks.

We all face disappointment along life's road, But how we deal with those disappointments determines if we succeed or fail in our journey. I chose to get right back up and start right back down that road. Quitter's never make it to the top, They just wander around and around the base of the mountain complaining about how high the mountain is, Instead of putting one foot in front of the other and heading toward the top, You may never make it to the top, But I will say with each step you will be closer than you were before.

So take this slow period and a work just as hard as you would if sales were hopping and when they do, You will be much better prepared than the other fellow who saw the Glass as half empty, and is waiting for someone else to fill it up.Mine is always Half full and I am the only one who can fill it, God Bless

What it takes to sell online!

I've been selling online for years and also worked in many retail situations, From Furniture sales, Flooring Contractor both sales and Installation, Been a showroom manager. If I learned anything through out the many years selling is to look at what has worked in the past. Although I have strayed from some of my known staples. I realize that I need to return to many of them to be successful.

Here goes, Price points, I has always been well known that when a potential buyer see's any item ending in .99 they will only remember the dollar amount, So 19.99 will stick in there minds as $19 only. I've had many argue that this is not true, But it is true, It can be any combination .88-.77-.99 or even .01. So I will be fine tuning my items back to the .99 in my listings.

Now on to my next thought, Price to low or to high? Many newbie sellers believe that bargain pricing will generate sales, If that were true then there would not be so many Sellers championing lack of sales, It's not about Price 90% of the time, It is more about quality and quantity of goods available. Case in Point, I have listed many time in auction with low start prices and the auction went full circle and no bids, Re listed the item at a much higher start price and the item sold with bids. Most of the time sales are very dependent on the right item and the right price in the right place to the right buyer.

One of my pet peeves is when I hear things like "I charge only what it cost to ship" How dumb this is, Unless you can get a really good mark up on your items, You will be surprised at the end of your accounting year, How much money you lost by not adding a Handling Charge to off set Supplies and Time and Travel to ship your items. I never ever list shipping at exact cost. My prices are fair and shipping is part of that equation.

Another thing about S/H, I you follow the pros when it comes to  infomercials, They have it down pretty pat, They charge roughly $6.95 S/H on just about every item and they will give you added item for just a processing fee, Which most likely is another $6.95. One thing they have going for them is most $14.95 or $19.95 items cost only pennies to produce, So they make money no matter the items.

I love selling online, But it needs to be a more level playing field, meaning that I am all for checks and Balances, meaning that sellers who regularly sell for profit, Should be licensed to sell, Should be required to process sales tax and so forth. There are  ways to be a Hobby seller, But to qualify as a hobby seller you can not profit from the sale of your items.Normally as a hobby seller, You make a product and sell it for less that the actual time and material it takes to create the item, That's a hobby seller.

If you sell the stuff you have in your home, You don't have to report it as income since you normally won't charge more than you paid for these items, Once you begin add inventory now you become a seller for profit, unless you are dumb and buy high and sell low, That's what happens when begin to go  broke.

Hoping this slant on selling will be helpful, It is not my intent to bash anyone, Just to give my take on Professional selling.

I lost my Blog awhile back , New things happening, Old things passed away

So glad to have found my lost Blog, It really was not lost, I just could not located it.  Many things have happened in the last couple of months. Bonanzle last year changed the site name to Bonanza, From that point on things began to change not for the better, We did well up until January 23,2011, at which time Bonanza fail somehow to feed to Google, By the time I notice it my sales had stopped and a search of Google products show only a handful of my 2,600 items still in the shopping. Once it started back I had lost all interest in continuing, By coincidence I was looking at Model trains when I saw The Trainman items on a place called Addoway, I had seen it in passing but didn't give it much thought since there was a bunch of new sites popping up everywhere. I emailed him to ask how it was going and before I got an answer, I felt this was worth looking at, Once there I just knew I had arrived. The Trainman told me he had not sold anything at all. That didn't deter me at all. I set up a storefront and Imported 471 items out of 5 booths that was not doing anything at all. Once I saw how great this site was, I moved another 2,000 plus items over and closed Bonanza.

Bonanza was an awesome venue when it started, But as time went on there were way to many glitches, Most caused by a platform that was incorrectly set up(Just my opinion) and each time a change or improvement was added it caused further defects.I had been there as a cheerleader since 9/2008 and felt kind let down.

Now on to bigger things, Addoway is integrated with Facebook and that means all your Facebook friends will become a Huge part of your business plan as well. Addoway is young as far as Internet eCommerce, But aside from not having a shopping cart integrated into the site yet, It is laid out very well, Looks very professional, As other have said, The Support teams is awesome and very attentive, Right now the site is totally free, Plans later this year there will be FVF so we can grow. Pro members enjoy a host of Benefits not extended to free members, And the cost is only $8.95 a month or $75 a year.

I love the ability to interact with all the sellers here as well as many other ways through Live Chat, This site is spreading like wildfire across the net.

Stop by and take a look, If you decide to join please use my like, It just help me with my reputation.

www.addoway.com/ref/7eb29cb333192403eda033f2c334a4c5 

If you join now and upgrade to pro, You will not pay any fvf until Jan 2012 and your fees will be less that free members, Listings are free to all, and run or 30 days and can be set to re up automatically for ever or until they sell.

Thank you so much

Larry