Running or starting a small business can put a substantial strain on the pocket book, but with a little stewardship your small business can thrive on limited cash flow. Remember not everything needs to be new or brand name. Often with a little bit of research, you can find the supplies, clothing and tools you need at substantial savings.

Take this College Grad Student wearing a thrift store sports coat. With limited finances he is able to add credibility to himself and his speech/presentation by looking professional in a quality used sport coat. Proving the point that small businesses can present the image they need, while getting the job done with limited cash flow.

Saeler Enterprises started overnight when the company I was working for, Global Presence, closed it’s doors suddenly. I had left my Full time job at AOL just weeks earlier and was dependant on the income from the sub-contracting I was doing for the company. I had to really crank out the work to keep above watter financially, but still had limited cash flow.

Here are some of the Cost Saving tricks that helped my business stay afloat:

Know your localThrift and Second Hand Stores – Thrift and second hand stores have personalities as unique as theoir donors and the charities they support. Get to know the stores in your area by visiting them a few times seperated by a week or two. This will allow you to see the quality and type of merchandise they tend to carry.

For example locally we have:

• The Miracle Center (provides women with hope, transitional support, self-esteem, and tools that will break the cycle of poverty and addictions), is a great source for furniture, housewares and electronics.
• Casa De Los Ninos (Focused on the prevention and intervention of child abuse in Tucson, Arizona, through shelter care for children aged infant to 11 years old), is an excellent source of furniture and housewares.
• First Rate Second Hand (benefits Tucson synagogues and Jewish agencies in their works, like giving aid to katrina victums), has an exqusite selection of antique, furniture, housewares, and mens dress clothing.
• Deseret Industries (The Mormon Church started the Deseret Industries chain of thrift stores in 1938 mainly to create jobs), excellemt source of mens dress clothes.

Upgrade your Computers, instead of buying new -

The average business doesn’t need a Lamborghini to get the job done, just a good reliable vehicle. most business software isn’t going outstrip the resources of a Pentium 4 with a decent video card, memory and hard drive storage.

Most people who end up buying a new computer complain that the old computer was too slow. Usually it’s not the machine, but the software. Over time the operating system becomes bloated and tries to run too many processes at one time.

So instead of spending $600 or moreon a new machine, consider an upgrade of a few parts, have your system tuned up and spend one third of the cost of a new machine.

by Scott A. Hodge

Fiscal Fact No. 119

America’s political leadership is finally waking up to the fact that the tax rates businesses face in the U.S. are way out of step with our major economic competitors. Last year, for example, Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel proposed cutting the federal corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 30.5 percent. While a 5 percentage point cut in the federal corporate tax rate may sound significant, it may not be sufficient to meaningfully improve the competitiveness of the United States.

Currently, the average combined federal and state corporate tax rate in the U.S. is 39.3 percent, second among OECD countries to Japan’s combined rate of 39.5 percent.¹ Lowering the federal rate to 30.5 percent would only lower the U.S.’s ranking to fifth highest among industrialized countries.

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