http://www.buffalonews.com Latest stories from The Buffalo News en-us Fri, 24 May 2013 05:11:54 -0400 Fri, 24 May 2013 05:11:54 -0400 http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130519/BUSINESS01/130518964/1188
My friend, Kathy, once said she hated buying toilet paper because it was literally like flushing money down the toilet. I totally get that.

When I was broke, which was every minute of my life before I landed this dream job, I used to fantasize about what it would be like to go to the grocery store and buy whatever toilet paper I wanted.

That’s because I used to stand in the aisle with my calculator, comparing unit prices and square inches, trying to figure out which toilet tissue had the best value. Then I’d try factoring in one ply, two ply and three ply, how much we would use on average and how that week’s sales and coupons affected everything.

After what seemed like forever, I’d settle on something and leave, feeling like I’d missed something and was making a terrible mistake.

Yeah, first-world problems, I know, but it made my heart race.

How nice it would be, I thought, to just grab what I really wanted – the Charmin Ultra – and move on.

Today, that’s exactly what I do. And I count my blessings every time.

It’s a relief for my husband, too, I think. Before, when we were shopping together, if he said, “I’ll go grab the toilet paper,” and tried to peel away, I would be seized with panic and go into full control-freak mode.

“Um ... Sure! Yeah! OK! Just make sure you’re getting the right kind,” I’d say.

“What’s the right kind?” he’d ask.

“I don’t know. Whatever’s cheapest,” I’d say.

He’d leave and come back in about two minutes, which told me that he definitely didn’t get the right one.

“This one was the cheapest,” he’d say, holding whatever.

“But was it the best value?” I’d ask, nervous.

“Um ... yes?”

I would try to send him back with more detailed instructions on how to find the “right” toilet paper, to which he would say, “Um, yeah. Actually, I think I’ll get the milk.”

I can remember as a kid helping my mom scrape pennies together so she could run down to the store and buy a single roll from Freshmart. I bet she did the same calculations.

My mother-in-law always seems to have Quilted Northern in stock. I wonder when she felt financially secure enough to start routinely buying the good stuff.

It’s nice to be able to appreciate the little things. If you’ve ever been stuck in a public stall without a square to spare, you know what I mean.



email: schristmann@buffnews.com or call MoneySmart at 849-4612. Follow me at www.Facebook.com/DiscountDiva. ]]> Sun, 19 May 2013 23:26:10 -0400 Samantha Maziarz Christmann
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It was the justification for incentives to build independent living centers, assisted living facilities, low-income senior apartments and even market-rate apartment complexes.

Now, that long-held tenet is coming into question following a study by researchers at the University at Buffalo that found that fewer than 1 percent of all senior citizens move out of the region because they couldn’t find suitable housing. If the tax breaks are just helping elderly residents move from one street to the next, or one town to another, that’s not economic development. It’s a nice taxpayer-funded present for a few thousand lucky senior citizens.

Those questions prodded the Amherst Industrial Development Agency to reject, by the narrowest of margins, $1.34 million in tax breaks for an upscale 99-unit apartment complex on Maple Road.

“There was the assumption that people were leaving in droves,” said James J. Allen, the Amherst IDA’s executive director. “Then this study comes back and says that’s not true.”

The rejection was a big blow to the developers because the tax breaks equaled about $160 a month for each apartment over the next seven years – the span the IDA’s tax abatement would have covered.

The developers, MEL Investors, said the project wouldn’t be viable without the tax breaks because it would push rents on a one-bedroom unit up to $1,100 from their subsidized $900 rate, and two-bedroom apartments would cost $1,200 instead of $1,000. On Friday, they were threatening to pull the plug on the whole project.

Even with the tax breaks, rents at the Maple Road Senior Apartments would rank in the top 25 percent among the Buffalo Niagara region’s apartment rents, according to the developer’s own study. Without them, they’d be in the top 16 percent.

“We’d exclude the sweet spot of the market that we’re targeting. “Remember, these are people who are on a fixed income,” said Sean Hopkins, an attorney for the developer.

“People get to a point in their life where they’re on a fixed income and they need affordable housing,” said Michael Connors, MEL’s development director. “If there aren’t affordable options, they may be forced to move to another community or even move out of the area.”

“I don’t think this is affordable housing. It’s not to say it’s unaffordable, but it’s not for the core of people,” said Amherst Supervisor Dr. Barry Weinstein, who opposed the tax breaks. “That’s within the marketplace. I don’t see where it puts them at a disadvantage. They’re new. They’re easier to rent.”

The debate forced IDA board members to wade through competing studies that came to very different conclusions.

The developer’s study said there is a glaring need for more senior apartments, with a 1 percent vacancy rate at the eight market-rate senior housing projects in the Amherst area. They noted that 90 people are on the waiting list to get into the St. Mary’s Apartments in Williamsville.

But the UB study found that St. Mary’s is the exception, with a median waiting list of just three people at all 36 market-rate senior apartment complexes across Erie County. It said demand for senior housing, which is strongest among people age 75 and up, isn’t expected to increase in Erie County until 2030.

The UB study is a powerful reason for local IDAs to think long and hard before granting tax breaks for any more market-rate senior apartments.

The Amherst IDA on Friday launched its own review of the senior housing policy, in hopes that it will prod other Erie County IDAs to join in. “We’ve got to tighten up on senior housing,” Allen said. “It’s not that we should not do it. It’s that we shouldn’t be doing every one.”

email: drobinson@buffnews.com ]]> Fri, 17 May 2013 17:15:12 -0400 David Robinson
]]> http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130513/BUSINESS01/130519711/1188
You know what I’m talking about. You run in for diapers and Scotch tape and you come out 30 minutes later with new oven mitts, a cute pair of workout shorts and the world’s funkiest throw pillows.

A cartoon by Amber Dusick shows a mom pushing her two children in a shopping cart saying, “We just need one thing.”

Suddenly, the Target bull’s-eye logo hypnotizes her and soon she’s saying, “Yes. Yes, I do need curtains.”

The next panel shows her leaving the store with a full cart exclaiming, “Wow. What just happened?”

Another one that made the rounds reads, “ ‘I went to Target and didn’t find anything I wanted,’ said no one ever.”

I know; I’m the Discount Diva. I’m supposed to be frugal. I’m supposed to be able to withstand the siren call of savvy marketing and impulse purchases of (really cool, really pretty) material things.

And for the most part, that’s me!

I can spend an entire day at the mall and walk out with nothing. When I shop, it’s not as a pastime. It’s because there’s something I need and have likely needed for a long time.

But something just happens at Target.

For all my effort to shop local and buy American, I blow hypocritically large amounts of money there.

“It’s their merchandising. They have it down pat,” said Amy Jo Lauber, a certified financial planner. “Plus there’s this illusion that since individual items are inexpensive, you’re not spending a lot – until you check out.”

Lauber noticed her clients with spending problems almost universally had a weakness for Target. Now she orders clients to avoid temptation by simply staying out of the store.

It’s not that the prices are high – it’s exactly the opposite. The prices are so appealing and the value so scrumptious that it’s almost impossible to resist.

Its crack team of designers have stocked every department with sumptuous little treasures. Its always-on-trend inventory gets churned in and out so fast that there is forever something new to catch your eye (and it’s usually flanked by a host of “something new’s” designed to complement it and follow it home).

Case in point: My friend Jessica’s Facebook rant about her most recent Target excursion.

“I went the other day for tin foil and Ziploc bags,” she wrote. “I have new towels, a toothbrush holder, pajamas, a pair of sunglasses and tin foil. See how I didn’t mention Ziploc bags? I forgot them.”



email: schristmann@buffnews.com or call MoneySmart at 849-4612. Follow me at www.Facebook.com/DiscountDiva

]]> Mon, 13 May 2013 12:08:33 -0400 Samantha Maziarz Christmann
]]> http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130511/BUSINESS/130519789/1188
The Buffalo life sciences company is working on a drug, called Entolimod, that has shown good promise in being able to keep people alive after they’ve been exposed to what normally would be a fatal dose of radiation.

If that wasn’t good enough, preliminary studies indicate that it just takes one dose to do the job, and that dose even can be taken a day after the exposure. The treatment doesn’t require a lot of other supporting treatments, either, like blood transfusions or antibiotics. You don’t even have to be in a hospital.

But the company has run into one financial and regulatory hurdle after another over the last five years. It proves once again that there is no such thing as a sure thing when it comes to the life sciences sector that the Buffalo Niagara region is pinning so much of its economic hopes for the future.

Good ideas sometimes don’t pan out. Good ideas sometimes can’t find the funding they need, as was the case with SmartPill and its ingestible diagnostic capsules. And even the good ideas that really do turn out to be good drugs or good medical devices often take a lot longer to pan out – and cost a lot more money to get there.

Cleveland BioLabs is a case in point. The clinical trials that have been done with Entolimod have shown that it has great promise as anti-radiation sickness drug. That’s planted visions in the minds of Cleveland BioLabs executives and investors of governments around the world stockpiling millions of doses apiece, just in case a terrorist attacks or a nuclear power plant has an accident. Other, less advanced research, has shown it could be a useful drug in treating some types of cancer, another potentially huge market.

But U.S. drug regulators are cautious, and they’ve raised questions about the structure of the remaining clinical trials that need to be done. That uncertainty caused a key federal funding source to back away more than two years ago from committing as much as $50 million to fund the remaining studies until the issues surrounding the trials are resolved. And even then, there’s no guarantee Cleveland BioLabs will get any money.

As a result, Entolimod, which Cleveland BioLabs executives once thought would be generating significant sales by last year, is stuck in a holding pattern while the company and federal regulators hammer out the details of those final studies.

But they’re still hopeful. “We believe there is strong evidence to continue the development of Entolimod as a radiation countermeasure,” said Yakov Kogan, Cleveland BioLabs’ chief executive officer.

A crucial meeting with U.S. Food and Drug Administration officials over the design of those final crucial studies over the proper dosage and overall safety of the drug has been pushed back yet again and now won’t be held until mid-summer. Even if that meeting goes well, Cleveland BioLabs still will need to actually do the studies, which will easily take the whole process into next year. And, of course, those studies will have to show that the drug really works and is safe to use.

Dr. Jean Viallet, Cleveland BioLabs’ new chief development officer, said the company doesn’t want to rush into the meeting unprepared. Better to take your time and gather all the information needed to address the regulators’ anticipated concerns, rather than come out of the meeting with more questions that need answering later, he said.

All the while, though, Cleveland BioLabs is burning through its remaining cash. At the end of March, it had $13.4 million in cash, and was burning through an average of about $1.15 million of it every month. At that pace, Cleveland BioLabs would run out of money sometime during the first quarter of next year, although C. Neil Lyons, the company’s chief financial officer, said the cash could be stretched through most of next year by scaling back planned increases in spending on the development of its cancer drugs.

In the best case scenario, the meeting with the federal regulators this summer goes well and the company is able to get its remaining clinical studies back on track. With the company and its regulators on the same page once again, BARDA ponies up the money to pay for the studies and Cleveland BioLabs is suddenly sitting pretty, able to switch out of survival mode and use its cash to step up funding for the development of its cancer drugs.

But there’s no guarantee that will happen. The questions over the clinical trials could linger, further straining the company’s cash reserves as the discussions drag on. And even if the trial does get back on track, BARDA might decide it doesn’t want to pay for the studies, leaving Cleveland BioLabs high and dry.

“We have spent a good amount of time thinking about our options,” Kogan said.

Those include seeking other funding sources, possibly through the U.S. Defense Department, or maybe even foreign governments. The company said it might consider selling some of its other drugs or subsidiaries to raise cash or bringing in a partner to help fund the trials. Selling more stock is another option, but it’s not terribly attractive in a dismal scenario because the shares almost certainly would sell at a deeply depressed price and anger its existing shareholders by watering down the value of their own shares.

For now, though, all Cleveland BioLabs executives can do is plan for the worst and hope for the best.

“We remain very hopeful that the outcome will be positive,” Kogan said.

email: drobinson@buffnews.com ]]> Mon, 13 May 2013 12:12:02 -0400 David Robinson
]]> http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130506/BUSINESS01/130509526/1188
Come on, you can admit it. You’ve been at an event or to church or having lunch with co-workers and someone brags about the interest rate she just got when refinancing her mortgage. You stay silent, grieving that you can’t take advantage of the low interest rates for mortgages.

You grumble when you read news stories about mortgage rates near historic lows, with rates on a 30-year fixed loan down to 3.42 percent last week. The rate for 15-year fixed mortgage was 2.64 percent, not far from the record low of 2.63 percent posted last November.

As mortgage rates fall, people are rushing to refinance. But what if you are 15 or 20 years into a 30-year mortgage and you don’t want to stretch the payments out again? Still, you can’t stand it that you are stuck at a 5 percent or 6 percent interest rate.

But there is a way to cut the amount you’ll pay in mortgage interest to achieve savings as if you refinanced. HSH.com, which publishes mortgage and consumer loan information, has created two calculators for homeowners who are unable to refinance at today’s low interest rates.

The company’s “PreFi” and “LowerRate” calculators help homeowners figure out how to attain a lower effective mortgage interest rate through prepaying their mortgage principal.

The PreFi calculator will help if you have a specific dollar amount available for prepayment each month. It calculates your interest savings over the remaining loan term and your effective interest rate as a result of making extra payments. The LowerRate calculator can be used if you want to aim for a specific interest rate.

“If you can’t refinance your mortgage but can afford to pay some additional money each month, that prepayment might save you as much as an actual refinance,” said Keith Gumbinger, vice president of HSH.com.

Gumbinger said he got the idea for the calculators because he was contemplating whether he should refinance his own mortgage. But he’s so far along in paying the mortgage down and the amount is so small, he wondered if it was worth the time and cost of refinancing.

“It’s hard to achieve measurable savings when you are in my situation and not interested in restarting the mortgage,” he said.

Let’s say you took out a $200,000 mortgage two years ago at 4.5 percent, which was the average 30-year fixed rate in mid-June 2011. You have an extra $200 a month you could apply to the mortgage principal.

Without prepayment, you will pay off your loan in 337 months (28.08 years). Total amount of interest you’ll pay: $147,819.88. With prepayment, you will pay off your loan in 244 months (20.33 years). Total amount of interest you’ll pay: $102,216.80. Your effective interest rate over those 244 months: 3.843 percent.

Here’s an example of how the LowerRate calculator works, using the same information. You want that 3.41 percent interest rate. So in the calculator, you would enter 3.41 to find out exactly how much extra you’ll need to pay each month.

To get the equivalent interest cost of a 3.41 percent refinance over a term of 28.08 years, you would have to prepay $167.10 every month – or just a little over $2,000 a year.

Of course the assumption is that you have the extra money to pay down your mortgage. But many people want to refinance because they want to lower their payment.

In that case, it may be worth considering a refinance, if you can qualify. Aside from savings, refinancing does free up cash you might need.

If you are not well-positioned financially – you’re not saving for retirement or college for your children, paying down other debts, such as credit cards – then prepaying your mortgage may not make sense, Gumbinger said.

Still, try out the calculators and prepay on your principal.

The next time someone is bragging about the lower interest rate they got, you won’t have to be envious. ]]> Mon, 6 May 2013 07:44:53 -0400 http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130506/BUSINESS01/130509547/1188
“Oh, wear your hair down! You have such beautiful hair!”

Back then, I would have heaved a sigh and squealed, “Mom!” with the same mixture of annoyance and impatience used by every teenage girl on the planet. And then I would have put my hair up.

If I had it to do over, I would thank her for the compliment, tolerate the flyaways and leave my hair tumbling over my shoulders.

In anticipation of Mother’s Day, I was planning to put together a gift guide filled with inexpensive gift ideas for moms.

But then I realized there is no better gift to give your mom (and yourself) than to humor her. And it’s free!

My inbox has been flooded with public relations pitches from companies anticipating gift guide stories, hoping to get their products mentioned in print. (That’s not how product mentions end up in my column, by the way. Trust me, I need no help coming up with things I love and that I think are worth spending money on).

Companies pushing products for moms almost always have a common theme: indulgence.

Indulge your mom with our gourmet chocolates. Indulge your mom with our luxurious massages. Indulge your mom with our glamorous jewelry.

It makes sense. “Mom” is the world’s most stressful occupation.

But do you know what kind of indulgence your mother really wants? The kind where you agree with everything she says and do whatever she wants.

Come on, it’s only for one day. And really, are her requests that outrageous?

She wants you to stand up straight? Good posture makes you more attractive anyway!

She wants you to try that new restaurant with the rubbery steak and six pages of early bird specials? Big whoop! Order the salad – it’s impossible to screw up.

She wants you to tuck in your shirt? What’s the big deal?

She wants you to show the ladies at work that dance move you used to do when you were little? So what! You’ve done worse for less.

She wants you to settle down and give her some grandchildren already? OK, that one may be a little much. But you get the idea.

So wear that ugly shirt she gave you for your birthday – the one she says brings out the color in your eyes. Go to church with her. Let her show you off to her friends. Do whatever she has been nagging you to do and that you’ve been avoiding.

I promise, you’ll be glad you did.



email: schristmann@buffnews.com or call MoneySmart at 849-4612. Follow me at www.Facebook.com/DiscountDiva ]]> Sun, 5 May 2013 22:58:52 -0400 Samantha Maziarz Christmann
]]> http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130504/BUSINESS/130509590/1188
Reverie, a Silver Creek company that makes adjustable beds and mattresses, is planning to move a small portion of its production from Taiwan back to the United States as it shifts its local manufacturing from Dunkirk to an cavernous old canning factory in Eden.

“For some time, we’ve been trying to figure out a way to bring manufacturing back to the United States,” said Martin Rawls-Meehan, the company’s president and chief executive officer.

For starters, Reverie is moving just a small slice of its overseas production, mostly for its high-end adjustable beds, to Eden, but Rawls-Meehan said he’d like to shift more work on its less pricey products to America in the future.

“It’s going to be a work in progress,” he said. “We have to decide how successful it is before we decide to move some of the entry level products here.”

It’s a symbolic victory, but when you’ve been beaten down as much as the Buffalo Niagara region’s manufacturers have over the last 30 years, you hang your hat on whatever you can.

The move won’t create any local jobs. Reverie is simply moving its production – and the roughly 30 factory jobs – at its too-small Dunkirk plant to space it’s leasing in the old canning factory at 8800 Main St. in Eden. Its Silver Creek call center, which employs 15 people, is staying put.

Reverie, and its parent company Ascion, had been talking about expanding its manufacturing base in Western New York for a couple of years. The company won $800,000 in funding from the Western New York Economic Development Council in 2011 for a $7.2 million project to build a new 87,000-square-foot facility in Chautauqua County for its manufacturing work and call center operations, creating 50 new jobs in the process.

But council officials said the project fell through because Reverie had trouble lining up local suppliers.

“The challenge has always been on the supply chain side,” Rawls-Meehan said.

Even so, taking just a little bit of work from overseas and bringing it back to the Buffalo Niagara region feels good. After all, Trico Products emptied out a couple of sprawling local factories a quarter century ago so it could cash in on cheap labor along the Texas-Mexico border. We’ve lost 46 percent of our factory jobs since 1990, and cheap overseas labor is a big culprit in that drop.

But now, we’re hearing more about companies, like Reverie, returning work to America. Apple Inc. said it will start making computers in the U.S. Ford Motor Co. has brought some car production back home from China and Mexico.

It isn’t stopping the decline in manufacturing, but it might be slowing it a bit. “Onshoring is still in its infancy, and largely limited to anecdotes,” said Michael Doelga, a TD Bank economist who studied the onshoring tend in a report late last year.

Rising wages in China are a main catalyst for onshoring. Wages in China grew by 19 percent a year from 2005 to 2010, according to Boston Consulting Group. Since 2005, U.S. manufacturing wages have dropped by 2 percent after inflation.

In Reverie’s case, the company has always made its mattresses in the United States, but all of the adjustable bases for its beds were produced in Taiwan. It also makes beds and frames for other companies, such as Tempur-Pedic.

“Starting out, it was just easier for us to be overseas,” said Rawls-Meehan, who co-founded the company in 2003.

But making those frames in Taiwan adds about $20 to $60 in shipping costs to each unit. And it forced the company to keep inventory levels higher to compensate for the longer shipping times.

Shifting the production of bed bases here will help Reverie fill orders faster and also allow it to give customers more customizing options, such as a variety of fabric choices, when they purchase a higher-end model that’s made here.

If the shift works, Reverie could shift more work here on its lower-end models, and that could mean added jobs.

“If all goes well, it will be significant,” Rawls-Meehan said.



email: drobinson@buffnews.com

]]> Sat, 4 May 2013 23:22:42 -0400 David Robinson
]]> http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130429/BUSINESS01/130429107/1188
Let me put you to the test. How much do you know about the following?

• When to take your Social Security? Securian Financial Group surveyed baby boomers 50 to 65 about their plans for claiming Social Security retirement benefits. Only 18 percent knew how or when to go onto Social Security.

• The cost to have Medicare. Nearly three-fourths of boomers surveyed by Bankers Life and Casualty Company Center for a Secure Retirement didn’t know that most Americans on Medicare pay premiums, co-pays and deductibles.

• Long-term care insurance. Only 14 percent of participants in the Bankers Life and Casualty survey knew that Medicare generally does not cover long-term care. Long-term care insurance can help cover the cost of nursing homes, assisted-living facilities and in-home care. The insurance pays expenses for those who need assistance with daily activities such as eating, dressing and bathing, or who have a severe cognitive impairment such as Alzheimer’s disease.

• Your company pension. Have you considered whether to take a lump-sum distribution instead of guaranteed monthly payments? Could you manage the money if you take a lump sum?

Even some people with strong financial backgrounds aren’t prepared enough for their own retirement.

If anyone should have mastered the science of retirement, it would have been Stan Hinden, who spent the last 12 years of his 45-year journalism career as a financial columnist for the Washington Post. Yet Hinden, now 86, admits that he was not prepared with the breadth of knowledge he needed to handle his affairs in retirement.

But, what experience can teach you.

After 17 years in retirement, Hinden is well-versed in many issues and shares his wisdom in “How to Retire Happy: The 12 Most Important Decisions You Must Make Before You Retire” (McGraw Hill, $20).

Be sure to get the updated fourth edition, which contains the most recent information about Medicare. The chapter on health insurance covers the new deductibles for Medicare Part A (pays for hospital stays) and the new deductible and new premiums for Medicare Part B (pays for medical tests, doctor and preventive services). It also gives details on the new monthly premiums for Part D (prescription drugs). The new edition also explains some of the salient facts about the new health care law.

Also new to the book are the health issues affecting his wife of 59 years, Sara. She suffers from Alzheimer’s and lives in a small group home for dementia patients.

“Signs of Sara’s illness first appeared in 2007, when she was 78,” he writes. “Needless to say, Sara’s condition dramatically changed both her retirement and mine. Until then, we had been poster children for a happy, upbeat retirement. … My experience with Alzheimer’s disease has given me a new perspective on how one prepares for serious illness during retirement.”

One way to prepare is consider getting long-term care insurance. Sara’s policy, which she took out at age 62, is helping defray the cost of her care, which runs about $4,000 a month. The insurance pays $130 a day, or $3,900 a month. But her maximum total benefit is $260,000, which equates to 5.5 years. The chapter on long-term care is scary and depressing. Yet it is a must read.

I asked Hinden what one piece of advice he would give someone close to retiring (within five years).

Start working on your retirement budget now, he said.

“Pay close attention to your likely health expenses,” he added. “Prepare to go on Medicare at 65, if you are not already there. See if you can upgrade your secondary health insurance, or arrange to buy it. Study your prescription drug expenses and see if you can minimize those expenses.”

Hinden doesn’t come off as an expert wagging his finger at you. He has become smarter and wants to help show you how to retire happier and better informed. ]]> Mon, 29 Apr 2013 08:03:23 -0400 http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130429/BUSINESS01/130429123/1188
You already know that when you buy local, you support small-business owners, keep more money in your community and keep your neighborhood strong and vibrant. When you buy American, you keep jobs from disappearing overseas, go easier on the planet and assure that human rights, safety and environmental standards are being met.

But did you know that if everyone diverted just $5 of their budget every day toward American-made goods, we could bring unemployment down to almost nothing, says Alan Uke, the author of “Buying America Back”?

Buying something American-made from an independent retailer would be ideal. But sometimes just doing one or the other – buying American or buying local – is a feat in itself. Still, if you make the effort, you’ll find you can pull it off more often than you might have thought.

Here are a few ways to try:

• The Made in America store, 900 Maple Road in Elma. Local manufacturer Mark Andol started this store after losing contracts to overseas competitors and having to lay off half his workforce. It can be hard to find products that are truly 100 percent made in the U.S.A., from the labor to the packaging. Since Andol has done the work of vetting products for you, all you have to do is take a trip to the store (or its website, MadeInAmericaStore.com).

There, you’ll find just about everything you could ever want – clothing, groceries, toys, pet products, tools – all of it made in the U.S.A.

• Etsy.com. Individual craftsmen use this online marketplace to sell their handmade and vintage goods.

You can further zero in on sellers in your neighborhood by visiting Etsy.com/local, and narrowing your search to sellers in whatever city, state or region you specify.

A reader named Ruth called me recently asking for help finding a telephone that wasn’t made overseas. All I could find were cordless AirWay brand phones made here by an Ontario-based company (888) 949-9473.

Another option is to find used corded Western Electric phones, which were made in the U.S.A. until the company was bought by AT&T (which now manufactures its phones in Asia).

• It’s KanJam season! The modified flying disc game was invented by two North Tonawanda teachers but is now played around the world. The game is manufactured on Walden Avenue using American materials, and the company is headquartered in Getzville.

You can pick up KanJam for $39.99 at Laux Sporting Goods, a six-store, family-owned retailer based in Amherst.



email: schristmann@buffnews.com or call MoneySmart at 849-4612. Follow me at www.Facebook.com/DiscountDiva. ]]> Sun, 28 Apr 2013 23:48:57 -0400 Samantha Maziarz Christmann
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During the first decade of this century, roughly one of every five jobs that had been in Buffalo’s central business district disappeared, according to a new report from the Brookings Institute.

Some of those jobs went away entirely, as the region muddled through two recessions. But some of those jobs moved out to the suburbs – and beyond, with the portion of the metro area that’s more than 10 miles away from downtown standing out as the only segment of the Buffalo Niagara region that actually gained jobs from 2000 to 2010.

In short, the heart of the Buffalo Niagara economy is steadily shifting away from downtown Buffalo and moving toward the suburbs.

Brookings researchers call that shift “job sprawl,” and it’s not a good thing for shrinking areas, like the Buffalo Niagara region.

“It’s not just about the number of jobs,” said Elizabeth Kneebone, the report’s author and a fellow at the Brookings Metroploitan Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. “The location of those jobs matters, too.”

And in the Buffalo Niagara region, the location of those jobs is changing.

The heart of the local job market has always been in that ring that runs between three to 10 miles from downtown, and that’s still the case. About half of the region’s jobs were packed into that ring in 2000, and despite the steep job cuts at the auto plants in the Town of Tonawanda and Hamburg during the decade, along with other manufacturers in that belt, it still was home to 51.3 percent of the region’s jobs in 2010.

But downtown has been struggling. While 21.6 percent of the region’s jobs were within three miles of downtown in 2000, just 18.1 percent were within the central business district in 2010 as office work migrated to the suburbs and the remaining retail downtown shriveled.

And most concerning, the part of the region that has turned into a magnet for jobs is the area that’s in the farthest ring, between 10 and 35 miles from downtown. That ring, which stretches from North Tonawanda to Lake Ontario in the north; from Depew to Batavia in the east and from Hamburg to Dunkirk in the south, actually added 3.7 percent more jobs during the 10-year period. As a result, 30.6 percent of all local jobs now are located in that far-flung ring, up from 28.3 percent at the turn of the century.

Kneebone said the Buffalo Niagara region has plenty of company in seeing the shift in jobs toward the outermost ring of suburbia. Nationally, the share of jobs located at least 10 miles from downtown (43 percent) had grown to be nearly double the share of jobs located downtown (23 percent).

“Almost every major metro area experienced a decline in the share of jobs located downtown,” she said. “This happened in every type of market,” both the booming ones and the ones, like Buffalo, that were struggling during the 2000s.

The type of job also plays a role in the shift. Retail jobs tend to be focused away from downtowns, and so is factory work, which tumbled by nearly 40 percent during the decade. “Every major industry saw a shift of jobs outward,” Kneebone said.

The good news is that the Great Recession brought the shift to a virtual halt. The share of jobs in each of the three rings in 2010 were very close to what they were in 2007, before the recession hit.

But that doesn’t mean the shift won’t resume when the economy picks up steam. And it’s why the Western New York Regional Economic Development Council, which is playing a growing role in charting the region’s economic development strategy, has made stopping sprawl a major priority, by encouraging what they call “smart growth” policies.

That means cleaning up brownfields so that land can be used again productively, rather than leaving vast pockets of vacant, poisoned property in prime locations within Buffalo and the first-rung suburbs. The council also has come up with a scorecard to measure the “smart growth” qualities of projects and is backing a handful of projects to improve the infrastructure in downtown Buffalo.

The plan for the “Buffalo Billion” envisions “dense, mixed-use, mixed-income communities with excellent transportation and virtual connections” as one of the keys to developing a productive and sustainable regional economy.

“Smart growth is good economic development,” said James J. Allen, the executive director of the Amherst Industrial Development Agency.

That’s because sprawl is expensive, requiring costly investments in new infrastructure, such as roads and utilities, as businesses push farther and farther away from the city core. It also puts low-income workers at a big disadvantage, because many of the jobs at those new developments likely won’t be on public transportation routes, making it difficult – if not impossible – for workers without cars to get to them, Kneebone said.

That’s why Amherst officials have been working with the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority to try to come up with ways to expand bus service in the town. That’s an easier sell when business activity is concentrated within a particular area – development officials call it density – than when it’s spread throughout the hinterlands.

“We need in-fill development. We need to take underdeveloped properties and make them denser. Why do we need to do it? Because it’s good for public transportation,” Allen said. “We have to figure out how to get public transportation throughout Amherst,” Allen said. “The people who work in Amherst can’t always afford to live in Amherst.”

And as jobs push outward, so does the demand for housing from workers who want to live closer to their employers so they can shorten their commutes. The flip side is that, with the region’s population declining, that only weakens the demand for housing near the downtown area and exacerbates the problem of vacant and crumbling housing in the city.

Redevelopment is a big part of the solution to sprawl, too. The Lakeside Commerce Center just south of the Tifft Nature Preserve is a great example of that, with a barren industrial wasteland that sat unused for decades being converted into an industrial park that now is home to companies that otherwise might have picked a site on undeveloped property in the suburbs.

“The real challenges arise when you see this decentralization take place in a more spread out, diffuse way,” Kneebone said. “It’s harder to serve spread-out jobs with transit effectively. It also has implications for low-income residents.”

email: drobinson@buffnews.com ]]> Sat, 27 Apr 2013 23:21:49 -0400 David Robinson
]]> http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130422/BUSINESS01/130429785/1188
The majority of filers – three out of four – get refunds. This year the refunds were pretty large, on average $3,000.

But what if you didn’t hustle to file because you couldn’t pay? Or maybe you did file but couldn’t pay all that you owed? One in six taxpayers owes money, according to the IRS.

Increasingly, I run into people with tax collection issues. Many are entrepreneurs. In struggling to keep their businesses running, they didn’t pay estimated taxes during the year. So they end up owing the government lots.

Fearing the IRS will move aggressively to collect, they don’t call or respond to letters from the agency. Instead, they gravitate to the voices that offer too-good-to-be true deliverance.

“If you owe $10,000 or more to the IRS, call for a free tax consultation,” the saviors say. “We can stop IRS liens, levies and wage garnishment.”

Have faith, the tax-relief companies encourage. Through working with their team of tax experts, often claimed to be former IRS agents, they guarantee that they can help you escape most of your tax obligations, including penalties.

But don’t count on it. In the case of tax debt, you can believe if you want that there is some quick fix or a former IRS worker who knows the secret to getting tax relief. But this kind of blind faith in a debt-settlement company is likely to leave you deeper in debt and still stuck with a tax bill. Many of the companies require thousands of dollars in upfront, nonrefundable fees, money you could apply to your taxes.

In recent years, several large tax-relief companies have closed after authorities accused them of deceptive practices. Roni Deutch, who called herself the “Tax Lady,” shut down her practice after California’s attorney general alleged her company swindled thousands of people by taking large upfront payments while providing little or no help in lowering clients’ tax bills.

The IRS offers a number of options if you owe and can’t pay. You can pursue the options yourself. In just minutes, you can set up an online payment agreement for up to 72 months if you owe $50,000 or less in combined tax, penalties and interest. Go to www.irs.gov and search for “Online Payment Agreement Application.” You can also request a payment agreement by filing IRS Form 9465.

“We work with people all the time to get them back in the system,” said IRS spokesman Eric Smith. “Chances are you don’t need to pay somebody. You may be able to do a lot of work on your own. When you see the ads for people saying they can solve your tax debt for pennies on the dollar, many of those kinds of operations are not providing good service to people.”

You can also try to get the IRS to reduce your tax burden by asking for an “offer in compromise,” or OIC. This allows the IRS to accept less than the full tax payment under certain circumstances. If you’re in great economic hardship, you may qualify for an OIC. But you first have to provide detailed financial information to prove your economic situation, and you have to exhaust all other payment options. The IRS received 64,000 offers in compromise during the fiscal year that ended last September and it only approved 24,000, an acceptance rate of 38 percent. You can use the IRS’ OIC prequalifier tool on its website to see if you’re eligible.

Even if you decide you still need help from a tax professional, do some homework to learn about the IRS collection process. If you have a good working knowledge of your own, you’ll get better help, Smith said.

The IRS has a series of videos at IRSVideos.gov/OweTaxes that provide a lot of information on the collection process, including tips on hiring someone to represent you before the IRS. If you’re low-income, you may be able to get help through the Low Income Taxpayer Clinic Program, which is run by the Taxpayer Advocate Service and provides free or low-cost assistance.

If you have tax debt, stop hoping for a savior and contact the IRS. ]]> Mon, 22 Apr 2013 07:00:29 -0400 http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130421/BUSINESS01/130429810/1188 I've had a special place in my heart for Earth Day ever since my dreamy Environmental Studies teacher, Mr. Swisher, put on a rock concert at my high school to raise awareness (and teenage heartbeats).

I've been freaked out about the state of the planet, however, since I was a neurotic little preschooler. I can remember watching an episode of “Sesame Street” that featured a song called “Garbage Man's Blues,” complete with a foreboding verse about how we were “running out of resources/running out of space” and how we “don't have room for all that waste.” (To see a clip of the song, visit my Twitter or Facebook pages. Addresses are below.)

Even if I couldn't have imagined it way back then, being environmentally aware has enhanced my life in lots of ways – including helping me save money.

Here are ways you can do the same:

• Buy in bulk. Whether you're bringing your empty bottle of Dr. Bronner's soap to be refilled in the bulk section at Lexington Co-Op or just buying an extra large canister of protein powder, you'll pay less and reduce packaging. Just make sure you have enough room to store bulk purchases and that you're not buying more than you can use before the product expires.

• Borrow stuff. Use your dad's tools; get your books from the library; or wear your best friend's dress to a party. Why pay (and use resources) for something you'll only use once?

• Use less gas. Walk, bike, carpool, take the bus. You'll reduce your carbon footprint and make fewer $4-per-gallon trips to the gas station.

• Try meatless Mondays. Meat is expensive. Raising livestock uses more resources and does more damage to the environment than growing crops. Save money and the environment by switching out steak for pasta once a week.

• Buy secondhand. People often forget about the second “R” in reduce, reuse, recycle. Reusing items such as clothing, housewares and appliances keeps them out of landfills and affords a terrific price break.

Selling stuff you don't need anymore through the classifieds or at consignment shops such as Once Upon a Child can also be a nice little source of revenue.

• Control your climate – and prevent climate change. Weatherproofing your home and lowering the thermostat will help you conserve energy while reducing your heating bill.

• Bottle your own water. Invest in an aluminum or stainless steel reusable water bottle and fill up at the tap or drinking fountain. You'll save money and contribute fewer non-biodegradable hunks of plastic to landfills.



email: schristmann@buffnews.com or call MoneySmart at 849-4612. Follow me at www.Facebook.com/DiscountDiva
]]> Mon, 22 Apr 2013 06:40:15 -0400 Samantha Maziarz Christmann
]]> http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130420/BUSINESS/130429841/1188
Q: Wegmans looks to hire people who are innately helpful and caring. Why is that the most important quality?

A: We don’t think you can teach caring. You can teach anything else. What we try and do is identify whether you’re caring or not and there are even new tools that came out that help you figure those things out, new software. The hiring process is where you have to begin this whole journey.

Q: It seems like everyone sells groceries now – Target, Walgreens, etc. How is that squeeze affecting Wegmans?

A: Well, there are certain things we believe in doing that we think are very important to people. We think eating fruits and vegetables is important to people and so we try and concentrate on things that we think are most important and maybe if we concentrate on them a lot, then we can do a better job than somebody else... Hopefully we can take an area like produce and do a better job than anyone else on those areas and hopefully those are really important to people. The other thing we’re trying to do is trying to cook more vegetables in the stores. I don’t think Target is going to do a lot of cooking in their stores, nothing against Target, by the way, but that’s our strategy to do things that customers want that we can do that our competitors can’t do and hopefully our customers will come to us because of those things.

Q: The market is kind of fractured with high-end gourmet at some stores and then deep-discounts at other stores. How do you compete with that under one roof?

A: Our stores do very high volume per store. They’re almost like little villages, so that’s how it all works. I’ll give you an example: if you’ve got someone selling cheese and they’ve got five customers an hour or if they’ve got 50 customers an hour it makes an enormous difference. The (relative) cost of your salary is a lot less, so frankly we can pay the cheese person more and we can still afford the cheese person.

Q: Wegmans always seeks out well-educated demographics in store locations. Why?

A: Our goal for food is to offer really great-tasting food that in the end is healthier. We sell food. We think that’s our responsibility. In most situations, there’s a change process that takes place. You’ve got folks who are innovators and early adopters and so on down the line. And frankly, when it comes to food, the innovators are better educated, they think more about health and we think that everyone will be there eventually. If we don’t serve communities where there are better educated folks, it takes longer to get to our point of view and we’re not even sure we can get there. I guess that’s our process for change. It’s nothing against anyone. We have a lot of customers that aren’t as educated and we think we do a good job for them, too. But we try and put our stores where people will pick up more in produce, maybe less meat. We sell a lot of meat, we have I think a great meat program, but we don’t think it’s as good for the environment. We think people should eat less meat for the environment, but that’s why we do what we do. We have a vision as to where we think things should go for the environment, for sustainability, for health and so we try and say, “How do we tend to make this vision take place?”

Q: I’m sure it tends to line up with demand, anyway?

A: Eventually. But it lines up first with better educated folks. They get it. They know what we’re trying to do. We have the whole “Love your veggies” with the little heart. We don’t go around preaching “eat healthy” but people know we’re nudging them. So we try to do it in a way that’s fun.

Q: Do you have any expansions planned for Buffalo?

A: We’re looking to remodel our Transit Road store right now. So that will be the next big endeavor.

Q: How far do you see Wegmans expanding overall?

A: Our basic strategy is to grow every store in every market. To make improvements in every store... Our objective is not to be an extremely large retailer. Who knows how big we’ll get, but our objective is not to be national. I would say our objective is not just to maximize our profits, it’s to help our customers be healthier.

Q: Tops has a new Orchard Fresh chain they’re launching, Trader Joe’s is coming, Whole Foods has been looking around. What do you think about that?

A: I think it’s good for the market if that happens... I can’t say we’re particularly happy about it, but on the other hand, it’s inevitable. Each one of these is different. There are similarities, but there are a lot of differences between Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods for example. But competition in the end is good. You find out things customers want and you have to be good at doing it.

Q: It almost seems like Wegmans can do no wrong. You’re always the best place to work and number one on this list and that list. How do you do it?

A: Well, we can do a lot of wrong and we work very hard to correct things when they do go wrong, so that’s number one. But number two, I think our basic philosophy is to do what is right and what our people feel is right, and to never ask our folks to do anything that isn’t in their heart... I wonder about the same thing. Things go well and people say nice things and feel-good things, and you wonder how that’s all happening, and you just be humble and say, “Let’s keep working hard to treat each other right and treat our customers right and keep your fingers crossed.” I don’t know what else to say.



email: schristmann@buffnews.com ]]> Sun, 21 Apr 2013 10:12:57 -0400 http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130420/BUSINESS/130429840/1188
The Niagara County IDA came the closest, falling just one vote shy last week of approving between $112,000 and $143,000 in tax breaks to a Ransomville Chevrolet dealership that needs to upgrade its facility to meet the latest standards set by General Motors or risk losing its franchise.

While the IDA’s board was tilted, 4-2, in favor of granting the tax breaks, the incentives ended up being denied only because three of the nine board members missed the meeting and the project fell one vote short of the five “yes” votes that it needed to gain approval.

Even more alarming was the argument that IDA attorney Mark J. Gabriele used to justify the car dealer’s pitch for tax breaks, contending that the project qualified for incentives because it was the only car dealer in Ransomville, and thereby provided goods and services that otherwise would not be readily available.

Providing goods or services that aren’t otherwise available is, indeed, one of three exceptions written into the new law barring retail tax breaks, along with exemptions for projects that are part of a “tourism destination” development or in a highly distressed area.

But IDA board member Stephen F. Brady notes that many communities don’t have car dealerships. That doesn’t stop residents of those communities from driving cars, though.

“It rang a little hollow with me,” he said. “My view was that it was not some type of critical service.”

Still, Brady was just one of two IDA board members who mustered the courage to vote against the handouts, which clearly would have been contrary to the spirit of the new law.

The new law, which took effect late last month, effectively restored the ban on tax breaks for retail projects that was in place before the prohibition expired in 2008. But that isn’t stopping IDAs, like the one in Niagara County, from probing at the edges of the new rules, looking for loopholes in the law’s gray areas.

Because of the different interpretations, James J. Allen, the executive director of the Amherst Industrial Development Agency, thinks the whole issue could end up in court.

“It’s a fluid, evolving situation,” said Fredrick A. Vilonen, the Amherst IDA’s chairman.

IDAs, desperate for fee money after the recession caused office and manufacturing projects to dry up, jumped on the opening created by the 2008 change in state law and turned to retail projects as a way to keep their revenues flowing during the downturn.

That led to tax breaks for pizzerias, restaurants, children’s play centers and other projects scattered throughout Erie County that did little to generate new wealth in the community, favored one business over another, and simply divided the region’s consumer spending in a different way. Critics rightly argued that the tax breaks were squandering municipal and state resources without creating any meaningful economic development.

The controversy prompted the Cuomo administration to step into the fray. In their view, the change should bar the most controversial tax breaks for retailers – from doughnut shops to liquor stores and car dealers. Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz, who under the law would be required to sign off on retail tax breaks that were approved by the Erie County IDA using any of the three exemptions, also is taking a strict view of the new law.

But the Niagara County IDA last week showed that it’s looking for ways around the intent of the new law. And officials from the Amherst IDA have discussed what the law means for the ability of the agency to provide tax breaks for projects that might include a retail tenant but also would help redevelop a vacant or under-used building targeted for redevelopment.

“We were able to do redevelopment projects prior to 2008 by just doing the project and not the tenant,” Allen said. “There is some debate as to whether you can do that.”

The law, according to Robert G. Murray, the lawyer for the Erie County IDA, says a project is considered retail if more than a third of it is devoted to serving customers who visit the site. If less than a third of the project’s costs are going for the retail portion of a particular project, then it’s eligible for tax breaks. Often, that’s determined by calculating if more than a third of the project’s total square footage will be used to serve retail customers.

But what if an IDA is approached about providing tax breaks for a project that has no tenants lined up? Murray’s interpretation is that IDAs could grant incentives to those projects, but would have to rescind them if tenants that eventually occupy the building are considered to be retail.

Allen said he hopes the six IDAs in Erie County can come up with a policy that still will allow some wiggle room within the law for redevelopment projects that involve retail tenants.

Allen would like to see an interpretation that allows IDAs to grant incentives for improvements to the shell of a building that might house a retail tenant – which would permit tax breaks for projects to renovate buildings along suburban business districts that might have shops on the ground floor and offices or apartments above.

“If we can’t assist with buildings that are vacant or underperforming, we’re going to have a lot more problems. We’re going to have a lot more vacancies,” he said. “I’m hopeful some exceptions can be made when there is chronic vacancy.”

email: drobinson@buffnews.com ]]> Sun, 21 Apr 2013 07:35:01 -0400 David Robinson
]]> http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130414/BUSINESS01/130419471/1188
It had a little sparkly shade with a beaded butterfly fluttering across the outside and a bunch of little see-through stars. It came in several different colors and was so cheap I was tempted to buy one for both of my girls and each of my nieces.

But something always freaks me out about buying anything from a dollar store that gets plugged into an outlet. Same goes for anything made in China.

Call me crazy, but a country that gets caught putting melamine in baby formula to save money doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.

Believe it or not, there really are things I don’t mind paying more for. Like, you know, anything that will keep my family alive and healthy.

Turns out, when it came to my anything-with-a-plug-shouldn’t-be-cheap phobia, my overbearing mommy fears were well-founded.

I had the opportunity to sit in on a firefighter’s association meeting last week and learned something really scary.

You know that little label you get on extension cords and plug-in appliances that shows it has been tested by the Underwriter’s Laboratory? It’s got the capital letters “UL” in a little circle and is supposed to show that the product has been tested to comply with rigorous safety standards.

Well, investigators have found that overseas manufacturers regularly make counterfeit labels, then knowingly tack them to things such as extension cords sold in the United States.

“It’s just like the knock-off Nikes,” said Robin Schott, chairman of the Firemen’s Association of the State of New York’s legislative committee.

But while counterfeit kicks may only rile the fashion police, a fraudulent label could put your family in serious danger.

The group is pushing for tougher penalties for retailers that knowingly sell mislabeled goods. But stores say if their buyers tell them something is safe, they have little way of knowing what is ending up on their shelves.

What can you do to minimize the risk you’ll bring home something dangerous?

There are a couple of ways to spot fake UL labels. Be suspicious if a product doesn’t have a toll-free consumer hotline number on the box, doesn’t have an instruction manual outlining care and maintenance, has subpar craftsmanship or its packaging has grammatical or spelling errors.

UL-certified products will say “Listed” or “Classified” under the UL logo – NOT “approved” or “pending.”

For maximum peace of mind, spring for products that are made in the U.S.A.



email: schristmann@buffnews.com or call MoneySmart at 849-4612. Follow me at www.Facebook.com/DiscountDiva. ]]> Mon, 15 Apr 2013 07:28:04 -0400 Samantha Maziarz Christmann
]]> http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130413/BUSINESS/130419535/1188
The Keanes – company chief executive Daniel G. Keane and his father, Kevin, Mod-Pac’s chairman – increased their bid for the company by more than $3 million, earning the unanimous endorsement of the three-member panel of independent directors that was evaluating the offer and approval from the Buffalo specialty printing company’s full board.

But some longtime Mod-Pac shareholders, including some who have been pushing the Keanes to take the company private since the mid-2000s, aren’t rushing to endorse the offer, largely because they say they can’t get a good handle on which Mod-Pac the Keanes want to buy.

Is it the Mod-Pac that was reeling for the second half of the last decade, as it struggled to replace the lucrative sales it lost when online printing company, VistaPrint Ltd., bought out its contract to send all of its printing business to Mod-Pac? The company whose sales didn’t budge from $48 million between 2007 and 2010, leading to losses during the first three of those years?

The company that, despite earning more than $3.1 million combined in 2010 and 2012, fell back in the red during the first two quarters of last year, losing more than $240,000 during the first half as sales turned flat and the profitability of those revenues weakened because of the make-up of those sales and higher paperboard costs.

For that Mod-Pac, the Keanes’ offer of $8.40 per share – a 17 percent premium from their initial bid of $7.20 per share in late October – doesn’t look too bad, especially when you consider that the company’s total sales are just shy of $60 million a year, a tiny sum for a publicly traded company.

But what if the Keanes are buying the other Mod-Pac? The one that earned a combined $2.7 million during the final two quarters of last year – just $400,000 less than the company earned in 2010 and 2011 combined. The one whose sales jumped by 11 percent during the second half and hit record highs in each quarter.

While Daniel Keane warned investors during February that they shouldn’t assume that the strong growth during the second half of last year will continue, investors like Brendan J. Walsh and Edward K. Duch are wondering if the Keanes aren’t trying to snap up Mod-Pac on the cheap, just as the company finally is getting back on track.

“I just think there’s a lot more value for shareholders to be unlocked here,” said Duch, a former Buffalo banker who now lives in Florida. “I think there’s just more to put on the table.”

The timing of the buyout bid, which initially offered to pay Mod-Pac shareholders a 31 percent premium for their stock, also raised eyebrows.

Two days after the bid was disclosed in late October, Mod-Pac reported that its business rebounded strongly over the summer, with third-quarter profits jumping by 43 percent as strong sales of its custom folding cartons propelled revenues to an all-time high. The fourth quarter was even better, with profits more than doubling to their strongest level in three years as sales hit set another record.

Walsh and fellow investor George F. Cole of Arlington, Va., have made their feelings known to the board committee that reviewed the Keanes’ offer, writing the second of two letters last week expressing their concerns that the initial bid was too low.

If the company’s earnings keep growing the way they did during the fourth quarter, they think the company could be worth a lot more, maybe even $15 to $20 a share.

Simply going private will do wonders for Mod-Pac’s profits, eliminating the $500,000 to $1 million that the company now has to spend to meet the accounting, reporting and legal requirements all publicy traded companies face.

“There’s a half million to $1 million in savings that goes straight to the bottom line when you’re not public,” Duch said.

Walsh and Cole think the Keanes’ dominant 41 percent voting stake in the company also may have stopped other potential suitors from thinking about making a bid of their own. But now that the Keanes agreed not to have their shares count in the upcoming merger vote, Duch wonders if other potential buyers might take a second look.

“I’m hoping this maybe gets some heads turned by venture capitalists or other printing companies,” he said.

And now, Mod-Pac’s fate is in the hands of the shareholders who aren’t members of the Keane family. The Keanes declined to comment.

“I can’t predict what the shareholders will do,” said Christopher Carosa, a Honeoye Falls money manager who runs the Bullfinch family of mutual funds. “Are they willing to fight for a higher price, or are they inclined to take the money and run?”

email: drobinson@buffnews.com

]]> Sun, 14 Apr 2013 07:32:48 -0400 David Robinson
]]> http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130408/BUSINESS01/130409287/1188
So what are you doing for Financial Literacy Month?

I get questions all the time from people who want to better handle their finances. During a recent speaking event, a worker asked how he could get his wife to show more interest. Take her to a financial class, I recommended.

Forty percent of U.S. adults graded themselves a C, D or F on their knowledge of personal finance, according to the most recent financial literacy survey by the National Foundation for Credit Counseling and the Network Branded Prepaid Card Association.

Nearly four in five survey participants said they could use some advice and answers to everyday financial questions from a professional.

When asked what worries them the most, 57 percent of Americans said a lack of savings. Forty-three percent are concerned about not having enough money for an emergency.

Well, stop worrying and do something about it. America Saves, a campaign managed by the Consumer Federation of America, has launched a text-message service that will send out tips and personalized texts to people who pledge to save.

The campaign is offering a nice little carrot to encourage a commitment. It is giving away $500 to one person, chosen at random from all who sign up for the text messages. You have to be 18 or older. Standard messaging rates apply, so be sure you aren’t running up text charges trying to win free money.

The promotion runs until April 30. To sign up, go to americasaves.org/pledge. Here’s what some of the agreement says: “I [you type your name] pledge to save money, reduce debt and build wealth over time. I will encourage my family and friends to do the same. I pledge to save $ [fill in the dollar amount] for [set a time frame] month/s.”

America Saves Director Nancy Register said her organization is intrigued by experiments conducted in the Philippines among low-income bank account holders. Researchers found that sending regular text messages reminding and encouraging people who had set a savings goal to stay on track increased the total amount saved by 6.3 percent.

“Even now, a significant number of lower-income consumers don’t have home access to computers,” Register said. “Youth and young adults communicate more frequently by text than email.”

In the case of the America Saves promotion, organizers are banking on the cash award to spur actual saved dollars. “So many incentives are really retail strategies,” she said. “You have to spend to save. Many savings tips, like clipping coupons or waiting for deals, are about spending less.”

I love the idea of the contest. It’s also very true that many savings strategies still encourage spending. I always say, you never save when you spend. You might be spending less, but you are not engaging in the action of saving.

America Saves has it right. A little enticement doesn’t hurt. The Council for Economic Education is also having a contest for K-12 classroom teachers. The council is offering a $1,000 prize for the educator who comes up with the most creative video (30 or fewer seconds) demonstrating a specific financial literacy lesson, activity or project. Teachers can find details at www.councilforeconed.org. Videos will be accepted through Sunday.

The American Library Association and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago are promoting “Money Smart Week” April 20 to April 27 at local libraries. You can find a class at www.moneysmartweek.org and more information at www.ala.org/offices/money-smart-week.

Even if money isn’t on the table, take some time to search for a local literacy event this month. Yes, leave your home so that you can improve your financial house. ]]> Mon, 8 Apr 2013 08:14:30 -0400 http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130408/BUSINESS01/130409300/1188 Seen any good movies lately? Rather than mortgaging your house for a trip to the theater or paying a bundle subscribing to HBO, catch movies for free or cheap this week.

Here’s how:

Stream movies for free. Before you see the long-awaited horror remake of “Evil Dead” in theaters, catch the cult classic 1981 original “The Evil Dead” for free on Hulu.com.

Or if you missed “Fela!” the musical at Shea’s, check out the 1985 documentary “Fela Kuti: Music is the Weapon” about the Nigerian activist, which features his incredible Afrobeat music.

For an expanded library of titles, you can subscribe to HuluPlus for $7.99 a month. Sign up for a free, one-week trial at Hulu.com.

Over at Crackle.com, you can find the artsy German crime thriller “Run Lola Run” and the before-Gary-Busey-was-crazy classic “The Buddy Holly Story.”

Netflix just added the Audrey Hepburn, Gregory Peck classic, “Roman Holiday,” and “The Hunger Games,” based on the Suzanne Collins novels.

If you don’t have a membership, you might consider joining for $7.99 a month at Netflix.com.

Brick-and-mortar rental store Family Video lends all its children’s DVDs for free (except for new releases). That includes our daughter’s favorite, “Coraline,” a stop-motion film adaptation based on a novella by Neil Gaiman.

The public library is a great place to borrow free DVDs. There is often a long waiting list for new releases (the list is shorter for Blu-Ray discs), but Niagara and Erie county libraries are well stocked with classics. Try one of my favorites, “True Romance,” starring Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette. It’s a romantic crime thriller written by Quentin Tarantino about an odd couple being pursued by the mob.

Starting Tuesday, Redbox kiosks will begin stocking “Hitchcock,” based on the legendary filmmaker and starring Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren. Four-time Oscar winner “Life of Pi” hits Redbox the same day. All movies are $1.20.

Remember discount theaters to catch the big Oscar-nominated movies on the big screen. Movieland 8 on Thruway Plaza Drive in Cheektowaga is now showing academy favorites “Life of Pi,” “Lincoln,” “Argo” and “Zero Dark Thirty.” Tickets are $4 for all shows every day except Wednesday and Friday, when tickets are just $2. Or you can opt for its $6 “big deal” any day of the week which includes a movie ticket, a small popcorn and a drink. Call 895-3409 for show times.

At Four Seasons Cinema, 2429 Military Road in the Town of Niagara, you can catch Best Actress Jennifer Lawrence in “Silver Linings Playbook” for just $5 or $3 on Tuesday. Call 297-1951 for show times.

Both theaters accept cash only.



email: schristmann@buffnews.com or call MoneySmart at 849-4612. Follow me at www.Facebook.com/DiscountDiva ]]> Mon, 8 Apr 2013 07:00:54 -0400 Samantha Maziarz Christmann
]]> http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130401/BUSINESS01/130409968/1188
That would be the amount of money you need – including your Social Security and a pension (if you have one) – to retire comfortably.

The nonpartisan, nonprofit Employee Benefit Research Institute has been asking people for years about their confidence level when it comes to their ability to have a financially secure retirement. The most recent survey shows that many Americans aren’t very optimistic.

EBRI found that 21 percent of Americans are not very confident about retiring comfortably and 28 percent aren’t comfortable at all. The latter figure is the highest percentage since the institute began surveying confidence levels.

So why are people so pessimistic?

It’s partly because they don’t know how much they will need for retirement.

Less than half of workers (46 percent) surveyed report they and/or their spouses have tried to make that calculation. And when asked how much they think they need to save, their estimates were high. Twenty percent guessed that they needed to save between 20 percent and 29 percent of their annual income, and nearly one-quarter said they would have to save 30 percent or more.

“Many workers believe that they have to save substantial, perhaps even unreachable, percentages of their income each year to achieve a comfortable retirement,” said Jack VanDerhei, EBRI research director and co-author of the report. “In many cases these savings targets are aggressive, but they may not be based on a careful analysis of their individual circumstances.”

VanDerhei added, “Many people simply don’t or won’t take the first basic step to plan for a comfortable retirement.”

Workers’ confidence in having enough for retirement decreases as the average amount they think they will need to save increases. Americans 45 or older who aren’t at all confident about having enough money to retire believe that the percentage of income they need to save each year is, on average, 43 percent, an unattainable number for most.

There are many calculators to help you find your number. EBRI and its American Savings Education Council have created a retirement planning calculator, “Ballpark E$timate,” at www.choosetosave.org.

It’s likely when you do a retirement calculation, you’ll see a big number. And you may find you’re not on track to hit it.

“We know people get frightened when they see the gap,” said Mathew Greenwald of Greenwald & Associates, which conducted and co-sponsored the retirement survey.

But as scared or discouraged as people get, once they know their number they can set more realistic targets, VanDerhei said.

“Many people can make better decisions and have more control when they know,” Greenwald said.

Look at these numbers from the survey:

• 57 percent of workers reported that they had financial assets totaling less than $25,000, not including their primary residence.

• Only 23 percent of retirees feel very confident that they had done a good job of preparing for retirement.

• 16 percent of workers and 13 percent of retirees said their level of debt is a major problem.

• Only 50 percent of workers and 52 percent of retirees indicated that they could definitely come up with $2,000 if an unexpected need arose within the next month.

“Plan to save at least a foundational amount by age 60,” Greenwald said. “The risk of waiting beyond that to build a foundation is too high.” ]]> Mon, 1 Apr 2013 07:30:36 -0400 http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130401/BUSINESS01/130409984/1188 I delivered my own baby, by myself, in my car.

You know I'm always encouraging you to do things on your own to save money, but giving birth by yourself in a Prius isn't one of them. Everyone says the second baby comes faster than the first. They're right.

My husband and little brother loaded me into the car just 45 minutes after my contractions started, yet we still didn't make the six-mile drive to the hospital in time.

We got to the emergency room parking lot, my husband jumped out to get help, and Princess Sloane started crowning.

Inside the ER, the guard was mistaking the husband's panicked “My wife is having a baby” for the run-of-the-mill panicked husband's “My wife is having a baby,” rather than the “Holy cow! My wife is literally having a baby! In her yoga pants!”

There I was, howling like a wild animal, screams echoing into the September air, when poor husband rolled up with a wheelchair.

I don't remember yelling at him to “Get a PERSON!” but I heard someone or something growl those and other words in his direction.

Long story short, my daughter was born the old-fashioned way. Minutes later, the ER crew swept in, and all was right with the world.

People think it's just hilarious that the Discount Diva found a way to avoid paying the hospital's labor and delivery fees.

But believe me, this is one time I wouldn't have minded splurging.

As my doctor said, “You thought you were saving money delivering by yourself, but just wait until you get the bill from Delta Sonic!”

Yes, there are plenty of other ways to save money on labor and delivery, should you choose to do so at a hospital with doctors attending.

You can opt for a shared room rather than a private one (though I'd argue the extra $50 is worth the privacy). You can skip the epidural (although if I could have bought an epidural from the Burger King drive-thru, I would have). And who needs a television and phone in your room when all you'll want to do is sleep? You can also call hospitals in advance to find which one has the best average rates for maternity care.

Friends reminded me to check my bill closely to be sure the hospital didn't try to charge me for what I had taken care of myself. Even if you don't have a DIY birth, this is sound advice.

As I was combing through the charges for my daughter's birth, I came to a line billing me $250.

For a circumcision.

email: schristmann@buffnews.com or call MoneySmart at 849-4612. Follow me at www.Facebook.com/DiscountDiva.
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