Per the usual, we're trying to clear out what remains of our December fashion collection to make way for January's showcase. Stop by Sunday between 12-6 p.m. to get 40% off all non-consignment fashion (ex. shoes, belts, scarves, clothes, bags, etc.).

All non-consignment objects and jewelry will be 20% off, so come on down and get yourself everything you didn't get for Christmas. The vast majority of our December inventory will be going away on Sunday night, so get here before it's gone!

Merry Christmas. Happy New Years. Last week I lost my disability check. No more crazy money. According to MetLife, they can find "no functional limitation in memory, attention, focus, concentration or mood management" and since I exhibit no symptoms of "mania, psychosis, suicidal or homocidal ideations," I'm not disabled. I could go on about how I think they'd reconsider that assessment if they followed me with a hidden camera or implanted my brain with a monitoring device, but whatever.

The moral of the story is Golden Rule has to not only start sustaining itself, it has to start sustaining sustain me.

For the first five months of business I bailed Golden Rule out with my own personal funds. In November we finally turned a small profit, which I put back into the business by purchasing equipment to launch e-commerce. This month we are $1800 in the hole (in other words, we've still got to pay rent, some bills, some advertising expenses, some build-out expenses for or next installation, and those costs aren't reflected below). This month there's no disability check to bail us out.

Our fingers are crossed for a miracle. They've happened to us before.

In the mean time, however, we're busy crunching numbers, calling on all our community resources, holding marketing meetings (thanks Jasmine and Marie), business development meetings (thanks Amanda and Maya), meeting with professionals outside of our organization, and spending a lot of insomniac nights trying to figure out what to do to stay in business.

We're trying to stay positive, we're trying to remind ourselves that we've done some really incredible things in just 7 months. Our monthly transformations of art+fashion+furniture+artifacts are always INCREDIBLE. Our gross sales are INCREDIBLE for any business in this economy, let alone for a business our age and size that deals in predominately second-hand with prices as low as ours.  Most importantly, our customer and consigner and volunteer base is INCREDIBLE, strong and growing.

But the numbers speak loud and clear: "If you're not making money, it's a hobby, not a business."

It's pretty clear that the 80/20 consignment cut days are over effective January 1st. They have to be. There's no other choice.

In addition to that, we're in the brainstorming phase--meaning we haven't formerly evaluated our ideas, we're just putting them out on the table--of thinking about other ways to keep this sinking ship afloat. If you have any ideas we might not have explored, PLEASE share them. Likewise, if you have any insights into the advantages and disadvantages of ours, PLEASE share.

Some strategies we're exploring include but are not limited to the following:

- Limiting the quantity of items accepted from consigners
- Maximizing the quality of items accepted from consigners
- Increasing our overall price-point
- Doing away with our 20% and 40% discounts for "helpful people"
- Doing away with our 20% and 40% end-of-month sales
- Moving towards an intern and/or volunteer-only staffing model
- Charging a processing fee per consigned item
- Having a monthly membership fee for consigners
- Instead of a comission, having a volume-based sales fee from consigners that goes towards business expenses
- Doing a monthly lottery incentive for consigners who do continue to volunteer
- Doing an option for consigner payout at 60/40 cash or 60/20 cash plus 60/40 trade
- Giving volunteers/consigners who work in the shop a small sales commission
- Moving towards a profit-sharing model for volunteers
- Becoming a proper co-op
- Going non-profit
- Seriously cracking down on giving 80/20 unless someone's committing 20-30 hours a month
- Have a 50/50 split with a work one day, get 60/40, work two days, get 70/30, work three days get 80/20 deal
- Having a separate consignment rate for hand-made vs. vintage/antique/used contemporary goods
- Doing some kind of volume-based profit sharing with volunteer consigners after the 60/40 split
- Keeping the current model but "stack functioning" consigner/volunteer commitments during volunteer shifts
- Everything stays the same and Wynde gets another job
- Wynde starts picking for better stuff that will make more money than her dead mom's clothes
- We figure out some balance between volunteer-intern-consigner scheduling for the store
- We stop putting out $400+ a month to promote art that doesn't actually sell
- We start marketing hardcore (see another future post on this)
- We close up shop at the end of June
- We get a business partner

Anyway, that's where we're at. Some of those ideas send chills up my back. Others make me want to vomit. Some are conceptually compelling but logistically challenging. My plan is to look back historically on our sales and work out some retrospective case studies with hypothetical scenarios from above and see if there's a way out of the weeds.

That and I'm meeting with a book keeper and small business adviser, like, ASAP.

So yeah, in full transparency it's been a hell of a December. I hope this offers some perspective to everyone involved with Golden Rule--customers, consigners, volunteers alike--and that you can benefit a bit from the transparency here. This running a business thing isn't a joke, and trying to run a business with a social practice component (i.e. the aspect where we try to nurture aspiring designers and consigners, and to have an underlying mentorship/advocacy model) is even more challenging.

As I write this it is ironic that I'm thinking, "What will so-and-so do without the other 20% of her check?," or, "Will so-and-so have to go out and get another job if he doesn't get the other 20% of his check?" or, "Will so-and-so be able to afford to keep making jewelry if she doesn't get this income?," rather than, "Fuck, how am I going to pay my rent and feed myself. Shit, I'm not far enough along in my recovery to even begin to think about working somewhere other than this safe space I've created."

But in the end, I guess what the therapists have been telling me all along holds true: you have to take care of yourself first.

Hey you. Amanda here at Golden Rule, being all cool and stuff. We're getting geared up for the great flip this week, which means we are having a 20% off sale on all GR non-consignment this week! On Sunday that goes down to 40% off non-consignment fashion! Make you moves now before it's too late! Stuff goes fast around this time of the month! Click below to watch!

These items are for sale here at Golden Rule SEVEN days-a-week from 12-6 p.m., but only for a few more days. We accept cash, checks, Visa/ Mastercard and even American Express. See something you like and need it right now? Call us at (503) 477-5124 or send us an email at info@goldenruleportland.com and make your home shopping dreams come true today!

If you know us well you know the last week of the month all non-consignment inventory is 20%-off. Now's the perfect time to get yourself everything you couldn't get while you were feeling guilty about wanting things for yourself during the giving season.

Also, mark your calendars for Sunday, January 2nd, when all Golden Rule non-consignment fashion will be 40%-off from 12-6. Speaking of 12-6, OUR LATE NIGHT HOLIDAY HOURS ARE OVER. If you want to shop late, email us for an appointment.

This $5 pile may be the best thing we've ever done and the worst thing (people love it so much they only look at it instead of everything else). Whatever the case, we're keeping the $5 pile through the end of December. And we keep replenishing it!

Last Wednesday I got to spend some quality time on top of the $5 pile with Wally, the former foster dog of Golden Rule volunteer Hannah Spas who is now the dog of Golden Rule shopper Rikki. Wally didn't bark at my face this time. Progress!

We had less than a week to "activate" (This is a new word to me. I'm not sure if it's an art world word or a mall world word?) Trade, a 3,000+ square foot space in the mall for The Occupation of The Settlement. In the end, it all worked out pretty okay. It would have been a lot better with more time, more money, less office carpet and office ceiling, but hey, you do what you can.

The installations at Trade will be available for viewing until January 31st. My piece, "I Knew You Pt. 1 (Dear James)," which consists of walls covered chronological order with my late mother's writings to her lover in prison between the years of 1983-1997 will evolve in three phases over the course of the month to read I KNEW YOU, then NEW YOU, then NO YOU.

The mall installation thing would have absolutely killed me had it not been for the incredible help of Angel Davis, our new cataloging intern/art assistant, and Tristan Bynum. I was really close to death even with their help. If it hadn't been for them checking in to see how I was doing late at night, calling to see when I was going down during the day (it was very hard to get out of bed that week, and continues to be so this week, too), and helping me strategize through the math of expanding walls, I'd have probably dropped out of the project entirely, burnt the letters, closed the store, and left town tail between my legs.

Huge thanks also to Hannah and Ted Spas for their help sorting and strategizing from the get-go. Tons of love to Trade collaborators Nim Wunnan of Research Club, Tori Abernathy of Recess Gallery, Max Ogden, Elizabeth Lamb, and Evan Jones and Mar Ricketts of Guildworks. The folks next door at Place were also instrumental in keeping me almost sane. Thanks to Gabe Flores for energy osmossis and comic relief, Palma Corral for being there late and talking it out, and to Gary Wiseman for protective headgear. HUGE HUGE thanks to everyone who held down the Golden Rule fort while I was out.

For a long time now I have been longing to have a dog in my life again. My landlord, wonderful man though he is, unfortunately (a) comes from a family of real estate agents who have seen the damages pets can cause to properties, and (b) never had pets as a child. It's gotten to the point where as much as I love my house and as much money as I have invested in making in a home (you know, the building of a garage loft live/work space edition, painting all the rooms, putting an egress window in the basement, etc.), I need to have a dog more than I need to live in my house. So I got a prescription for a companion animal! 

So I'm shopping for a dog, not urgently, but proactively. I'm looking for a dog who is (a) small to medium build, (b) mellow but cheerful in temperment, (c) free from anxious and aggressive tendencies, (d) ideally house-trained, but possibly a puppy, (e) able to be a shop dog, (f) able to pass the companion animal certification test, which is an extended version of the Canine Good Citizen Test, and (g) maybe a little on the odd-looking side. I'm exploring all possibilities including the shelters, adoption groups, breeders, and craigslist. If you or anyone you know is parting with a dog that fits these requirements let me know!

Our friend, collaborator, and fellow capital letter enthusiast Sarah Radcliffe has been working for a long time to launch her Yo Vinitage e-commerce site. This week she did it! We're very proud of her! So much work it took, I know, and the results show!

Please check it out for yourself--it's so impressive (and very motivating for us to follow suit)! You can also meet Sarah in the flesh next week at Frock Off, a pop up collaboration between Yo Vintage and Palace, at 220 on December 29th. 6-10 p.m.

We are really just awful when it comes to letting the press know about our monthly showcases and monthly sales. We kind of just sit back here and do our thing and wait for people to stumble in and maybe take advantage of it. Good thing Eden Dawn, who writes the Shop Talk Blog for Portland Monthly Magazine was one of the folks who stumbled in during our $5 pile!

Eden's coverage of our $5 pile had a SERIOUS impact on the size of that pile, which has shrunk and grown over the course of December (yes, it's still there, yes, there's new stuff in it daily). We've had our best month of sales yet, and I'm pretty sure at least some of those customers came in with intention based on the Shop Talk blog coverage. Note to self: send press releases.