Quid Pro Quo

"This for that"

I thought this might be a good topic. Keep it above board, as we must.

So, in this case, "this for that" was for me my financial investment in the future for a comfortable retirement later. Sacrificing instant gratification for future comfort and enjoyment. No instant gratification buying meaningless stuff at the time (another project), as much as I might have enjoyed it. But I understand "quid quo pro" can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. So what can you say about your own personal "quid pro quo" issue? Keep it clean.

I'm in the same boat with retirement savings.  But I don't consider it a huge sacrifice... there are very little things I could spend money on that would make me happy, with the exception of things that grant me more free time - and that is the ultimate goal of [early] retirement.

I have another example that is a more immediate tradeoff but it was a E36 M3ty situation for me either way and I'll just leave it at that.

I was on the village board of our small town back in IL for a few years. The town had come into possession of several decrepit circa late-1800's downtown buildings, spent almost $200k stabilizing them, and were looking for people who would buy a building & open a business.

The long-time mayor was also a realtor, so he handled all transactions on behalf of the town, in addition to having investment properties of his own, or acting as an agent for private parties on occasion. 

One day before our monthly board meeting he tells me he has a younger family from TX who are interested in buying one of the buildings to open a Mexican bakery. The family comes to the meeting , explains their family has been in business for years, lays out a reasonable plan, and we vote to agree to sell them the building - with the stipulation the business is open within one year. 

No sooner than the meeting minutes were published in the paper the next day I start receiving calls asking why we sold the building to a known drug trafficker... Sure enough, our police pulled a copy of his record & he'd done several years in federal prison. In addition, there were plenty of reports of suspicious activities at his home(in the next town over) - which we found out he was renting from our mayor!!!

It gets better though. Per the purchase agreement he had to open the business within a year, which didn't happen. So we the board started the process to revoke the contract only to discover the deed to the property had been "mistakenly" singed & filed in his name...

Several of us on the board spoke to an attorney, but there wasn't anything we could do. 

Pete Gossett said:

I was on the village board of our small town back in IL for a few years. The town had come into possession of several decrepit circa late-1800's downtown buildings, spent almost $200k stabilizing them, and were looking for people who would buy a building & open a business.

The long-time mayor was also a realtor, so he handled all transactions on behalf of the town, in addition to having investment properties of his own, or acting as an agent for private parties on occasion. 

One day before our monthly board meeting he tells me he has a younger family from TX who are interested in buying one of the buildings to open a Mexican bakery. The family comes to the meeting , explains their family has been in business for years, lays out a reasonable plan, and we vote to agree to sell them the building - with the stipulation the business is open within one year. 

No sooner than the meeting minutes were published in the paper the next day I start receiving calls asking why we sold the building to a known drug trafficker... Sure enough, our police pulled a copy of his record & he'd done several years in federal prison. In addition, there were plenty of reports of suspicious activities at his home(in the next town over) - which we found out he was renting from our mayor!!!

It gets better though. Per the purchase agreement he had to open the business within a year, which didn't happen. So we the board started the process to revoke the contract only to discover the deed to the property had been "mistakenly" singed & filed in his name...

Several of us on the board spoke to an attorney, but there wasn't anything we could do. 

Sounds like something similar that happened here in Mn in the early 80’s.

https://www.nytimes.com/1984/08/18/us/patron-of-princeton-minn-he-came-bearing-gifts-but-now-he-s-in-prison.html

Btw, among his “donations” to the town, he also provided the Princeton Police Department with new VW Rabbit police cars.