I’m pleasantly surprised at how much people respect that. Asking the doctor or the vet “and how much will that cost,” for example…
When I am asked to buy some crap I don’t need so that some charity can get 7% of it, if I’m interested in helping out, I’ve gotten to where I’ll just say, “I don’t want that, can I just donate $10 to your school and they can have ALL of it?”
The last school my daughter attended, the administration heard all the complaints from parents about getting nickelled and dimed to death, so they banned all such fundraisers and asked all parents to make a once-a-year donation as a tradeoff. The parents happily snapped it up…