>What is this invoice? and the other stuff I need to know >about? Accounting. You have to keep track of your incoming and outgoing money so that a) you know whether you're making money at all, or enough to justify the work you're doing (eg are you making 10c or $10 an hour?) b) you can do your tax return. >Creadit card. That was kind of a problem, I want to do >paypal shopping cart, but I don't know that much about it. >How much do they charge? Paypal shopping cart itself is free, but you have to have it linked to a Premier or Business Paypal account (not a personal account) and that takes about 3% of each sale. One drawback of the Paypal cart is that your customers have to sign up for Paypal to use it, and that can make them either confused (so they give up and don't buy) or annoyed with you. I have used it for some years on my Lego kit sale site and I've experienced those problems. Accepting credit cards directly will cost you a setup charge, probably a monthly fee, and a percentage of each sale. You might have a lot of trouble getting this going at all because of your age. This is quite separate from the shopping cart, which will also cost you. I highly recommend doing a budget comparing your expected sales and income to expected costs before you commit yourself to ongoing costs like web hosting and credit card acceptance. Do it for optimistic, pessimistic and middle-ground expected sales. Also make sure you know *when* the money will go in and out - most new businesses have a startup period where there is more money going out than coming in, and you have to know what to expect and have the money available to keep going until you reach profitability. You might find selling via eBay a good way of starting (I don't know if eBay allows live plant sales). At least then you don't have any big commitments to start with and you can bail out if necessary without losing too much money. How are you going to restrict web site sales to US customers? You won't be able to mail live plants outside the US without major paperwork. Are you going to be working full time on this? It sounds like it from your time allocation. No school? :-) Kevin

I think whether it will be a good experience or a bad experience for you depends a lot on the apartment you choose and how much leg work and research you do when looking for a place. When I was looking for my current apartment I knew I wanted to find a place I could stay happily for several years. I had made a list of things I didn't like about my previous apartment (high utility costs due to age, maintenance issues, etc). I used the internet to narrow down complexes that met my basic requirements (allows pets and in a specific geographical area, size), and then I physically visited each complex I was considering with my list in hand and asked a LOT of questions. I made several visits to the most promising complex at different times of the day to see how busy/noisy/crazy it was. Luckily, they had several units available, so I chose one that was far away from the clubhouse and pool to minimize noise. I talked to residents while I walked the grounds and asked them how they liked the place. I was as thorough as I could possibly think to be. Obviously, I can't control everything (for instance, our upstairs neighbors are pretty quiet, but if they moved, I'd have to just deal with that). That's just part of apartment living, however, I've found that I can put up with a lot of stuff as long as I am prepared ahead of time. Great things about living in an apartment is that the commitment is low. If, for some reason you had to move (or just wanted to move because the place isn't what you really wanted or expected), you have that option when your lease is up. That's much harder to do with a house you own. You don't have to worry about yard maintenance, but if you like plants and gardening, you can get a place with a balcony or keep houseplants, which I think are more fun than mowing the lawn. If things break, there is someone to come and fix it for you, usually within a day. I've lived in apartments for over 10 years, and I'd like to buy a house in the next three years, but I'm pretty happy with the situation right now. I have always been lucky to have nice neighbors, or at least quiet neighbors who leave you alone. There have been kind of crummy experiences (my last place), but it was easy to pack up and move somewhere better. There are good and bad things about apartments AND houses, they're just different issues. If you're someone who is not home often, or doesn't like yard work or physical upkeep of a larger place like a house, then I'd say an apartment or townhouse might be a good option for you.

First of all - donâÂÂt panic! I had a somewhat similar incident when we installed our geothermal system. Someone from the municipality happened to drive by and just about went berserk when he saw what was going on with 2-drill rigs, massive compressors and tracked excavators etc. He asked if we had permits; I informed him that we didnâÂÂt. He didnâÂÂt say stop all work, which we wouldnâÂÂt have done in any case but he did take MANY digital photos of the work site and informed me that he will be submitting them to the Engineering Department. Our municipality has no permit requirement; I guess they havenâÂÂt figured out yet how to tax it. I have since heard from the cityâÂÂs chief engineer on 2 occasions, once to consult with him on converting the municipal swimming pool, sports complex, indoor skating rink, and municipal garage - all separate buildings, to geothermal. The other occasion was when he himself was interested in a geothermal conversion of his own home. Why am I telling you this? HereâÂÂs the bottom line. Many, perhaps MOST municipalities have NO regulations or by-laws concerning geothermal installations. If itâÂÂs not on the books, they leave you alone. Most wouldnâÂÂt even know what or how to inspect them. So, if your municipality has no by-laws on the books then almost certainly no permit is required and youâÂÂre home free - literally. Furthermore, if by-laws were adopted AFTER your installation was done then you should be exempted and grandfathered! Some jurisdictions that have brought in permit requirements have absolutely killed geothermal for all but commercial and institutional projects, as the permit requirement requires an engineering study to be performed and having a professional engineer sign off on the project. This could easily add $10k to the cost of a residential project making it untenable. Commercial or institutional geothermal projects always have the engineering requirement so itâÂÂs no big deal and already factored in. As a case in point to illustrate the effect of regulation, after 1-geothermal driller encountered natural occurring natural gas in 1-residential geothermal borefield, a province wide moratorium was placed on ALL geothermal drilling everywhere in Ontario with the requirement of proving that any project - even residential, conform to and comply with EPA regulation. ItâÂÂs like trying to get EPA and governmental approval to build a pipeline in you front yard! Imagine the cost⦠SR Here is a link that might be useful: CGC - Moratorium On Drilling

Renovator8, I'm sorry my last post seemed grouchy. Ok, lol, it didn't just "seem" like it - I was hot, tired & grumpy - ya think it showed, just a teeny bit? I did see where you quoted the reg's that included the pre-fab pool with 24" limit. That's the same thing our city said - is that a federal regulation? The inspector that came (& put the ki-bosh on ours - in a friendly, apologetic manner, I should be fair & point out) gave the impression that it was a local "city" ordinance. Now I'm curious, not that it really matters. Our pool was filled to just about 20" or so, just for safety reasons. (My 4 year-old is tiny for his age, heck - he'd be small for a 3 year-old). Although he was never in it without my supervision, that's as deep as I was comfy with. Mr. Inspector Fella walked all around it, and said "Nope, you're good to go - this doesn't require a permit". Until he read the print on the side that said "Max fill 30 inches". He was surprised & clearly embarrassed to have to make me drain it. I know I got off-topic, & yep - I did rant a bit. Sorry about that. However, while I did start the topic w/the pool situation, it was literally because it had gotten me thinking about other permit issues, & I really wanted to hear from others if they did things without them, as we have done on occasion. Oh - here's another one (rant, I guess?) for ya! Anyone else have their town do this? Every 5 years or so, the city hires a firm to fly over town & do aerial photography.. Then city employees pour over every lot, comparing it to the previous aerial map looking for changes. If they see a new deck, for example, they look to see if a permit was obtained. Lol, do the clerks get a temporary job title change to "Code Compliance Officer"? :-) My Dad built a deck attached to his house years ago, didn't even think about getting a permit. It was in backyard, with a privacy fence - I don't know if he was being stubborn (he certainly had it in him, lol) or just didn't know he needed a permit in the first place. After he passed away, an inspector showed up at Moms front door w/a tape measure & clipboard. She about fainted, when he told her the aerials indicated a deck - but not well enough for dimensions. He needed to get accurate measurements for property assessment records (or something like that). Poor lady thought she was in big trouble, lol, called me at the office all upset. "No, you're not going to jail, mom. But your property taxes are about to go up". And they did. (That wasn't meant to be a rant - more of a funny story/memory lol). Anyway, sorry if I offended. I didn't want to! :-) Btw, you think I live in Kansas? What? Next you'll be thinking I'm a girl.. Then you'll think I have some tools... I don't know where people come up with things, I swear. ;-)