Thursday night, Jon and I attended an annual fundraising event for the wonderful Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Development Corporation. It was the second time we got to hang out with Jim Koch, founder and leader-extraordinaire of Sam Adams beer, while at the same time enjoying loads of delicious food from local restaurants and MANY Sam Adams brew styles.
Last year, Jim Koch cancelled on the event last minute, so the silent auction offered a chance to bid for a personal tour with him IN the brewery itself! Jon was determined to meet him at some point, so he aggressively bid on the tour and finally won - both the future tour AND the good feeling of donating quite a sum to an excellent cause.
Well, I tried to apply the same generous principle this year and bid on several different “packages” with goodies or gift certificates from local shops and restaurants and unique entertainment venues (car racing?! Fenway Park tour?! make-up lesson?!). I was SURE that if I spread my bids out among several items, then I’d be outbid on most but be able to take something home and feel happy to have contributed more to this organization. CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR!
I ended up “winning” just about every item that I bid on, which was initially difficult to believe. NO ONE else bid on these? ARE YOU SURE? We can’t afford this! AAAAHHH!!! However, when I came home and neurotically tallied up the absolute value of all “won” items, it seems as though we “saved” 35% on the goodies. Sadly, this means none of it is tax-deductible, but I further tried to ease my financial conscious by allocating and recording what we spent among several budget categories (dining out, entertainment, clothing, gifts, auto maintenance, etc.).
We may be able to absorb it this time, but I need to be a lot more careful in the future before committing our resources so quickly to one particular cause. Hopefully this was all meant to be, but I’ll be sure to exercise a bit more caution in future auctions! YOU’VE BEEN WARNED!
