Dear Amy: I have a friend, “Mandy,” who is a stay-at-home mom with two small children. Her husband is well-paid, and they have a very comfortable lifestyle.
Mandy sells clothes and shoes on eBay to make extra cash. What bothers me is the way she does it. She goes to Salvation Army stores and buys shoes and clothes by “armloads” (her words) and sells them for about five times the purchase price.
Aren’t these shops for the economically needy? I have two teenage girls, and every two years I donate a lot of good brand-name clothes and shoes to the needy, and now I wonder if my donation really does benefit the needy. I feel that this is not right. Mandy even asked me to get into the business with her, but I politely declined.
Am I wrong in my thinking?
– Sandy in Connecticut
Dear Sandy: “Buy low, sell high.” That’s a central tenet of capitalism; it’s also something that “Mandy” and the Salvation Army have turned to their advantage.
Inspired by your letter, I dropped off a bag of clean clothes and household goods at my local Salvation Army Family Center. I shared your question with Maj. Dennis Gensler, general secretary of the Adult Rehabilitation Centers Command for the Eastern Territories.
Maj. Gensler explained to me that the money Mandy spends for the “armloads” of goods she purchases at these donation stores goes to fund programs at the 115 Salvation Army adult rehabilitation centers throughout the country. In other words, the stores have a dual purpose. They offer low-cost used goods for sale to anyone (not just the needy), and they use the profit from the sale of your donated goods to fund their operations. See? Everybody wins! Gensler describes this as “a miracle,” and I’m inclined to agree.
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Dear Amy: I have a few friends who have graduated from college but choose not to work in the field they studied. Quite a few of my friends have attended the local Ivy League university; some have two college degrees.
I am a receptionist/typist and have been employed by the county for 16 years. I have also taken a few college courses over the years, but I do not have a college degree. If I did, I would be working in my field.
I am considering going back to school on a part-time basis to achieve this goal.
Every time I talk with these friends, it totally irritates me that they are in the same type of position that I am in and making the same amount of money – or less! They are not using their intelligence or college education.
At times they even brag to me about how educated they are. Am I justified in saying to them that they are totally wasting their college education, or should I just remain silent?
– Confused in Ithaca
Dear Confused: You sound very annoyed that the people around you lack your worldly ambitions. So use your annoyance to get yourself to college, and tell yourself that you’ll never become the kind of person who sits around bragging about her education to people who might covet it.
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