Author: mrsonedollarallowance

September Financial Update

mrsonedollarallowanceLeave a comment

I really thought I’d be more on top of managing our expenses and categorizing them this year, but it just didn’t pan out. Our spending is higher than I would like in the food category, but I just can’t seem to carve out time to manage that. I did put effort into a Kroger run. We shop Kroger and Meijer (main grocery store chains in this area) for their sales, and we usually use this to stock up on pantry type items. Usually Mr. ODA handles the details because he can recall the average prices and the trends of sales, but we were running low on cereal options, so I checked the Kroger ad and made a list while I could sit and compare prices at Walmart. I learned a lesson on how some things are only deals on the weekend, and then another lesson that if you’re shopping the weekly ad sales, don’t expect everything to be in stock at the end of the sale period. But it’s fun to watch your total go from $135 to $77 when you press check out on the self check out screen!

We’re still carrying $13k on a 0% interest credit card until closer to the end of the year. This was a couple of rental issues and our house’s new windows. Whenever we have a big purchase coming up, we open a new credit card to give ourselves a “free” personal loan. It works out to be about every 18 months we have something to put on a credit card. We started this with IVF for our oldest. A few years ago, it was new carpet for the house. This time it was new windows for the house. We have the cash to pay for it, but we also believe in leverage. We also don’t go for any 0% promotional offers when purchasing from another company (e.g., furniture, windows). When we open a credit card, we get some sort of other offer (e.g., cash back), so if we’re going to take a credit hit, we may as well get $200-500 back on it.

We’re about to go down our first braces road. It’s not fully braces, but a gentle expander to help open his airway. It should help get his jaw more in alignment by helping him breathe through his nose at night. As a byproduct, it should help with some crowding he’s experiencing, although the orthodontist wasn’t concerned with his level of crowding at his age. It was an eye opening experience. The mouth told these two guys a ton of information about my kid’s lifestyle and needs.

I’ve backed off a lot of hours with my job. I’m working from home and managing a few things in the background. My motivation has been lacking, but our youngest started school, so I have more time to get things done. The beginning of school has a lot of activities, so I’ve been focused on that mostly as I’m on the PTA board. Two HOAs are active right now, and one HOA barely does anything so I just check those emails and move on. One HOA has a revamp of the deeds and restrictions, and another one has a major insurance hurdle we’re working through.

We allowed one of ours to do two sports this fall. I’m quite against the concept because you need to be committed to a team for the sake of the team, so I don’t like when kids chose between two options and then one team is left with a hole. But the baseball season usually doesn’t touch weekends, likely for the fact that most kids are doing soccer and flag football on the weekends. This year, they had to include a couple of weekends because of field maintenance in October, so we’ve been run ragged around here. The end is in sight next week though. We’ve been doing baseball multiple nights, one night of soccer practice, two nights of gymnastics, and then soccer and baseball games on Saturdays. We’ve even had a Sunday make up for baseball. We haven’t been double booked all that much. We were going to miss soccer practice for a baseball game, but then the league cancelled practice due to heat. Our daughter is going to leave gymnastics tonight a bit early so that we can be at most of the baseball game.

RENTAL PROPERTIES

I’ve been pretty down on the rentals lately. They’ve required a lot more attention, and it’s not easy attention. If it was just calling out a trades person to handle an issue, that’s fine. Instead, I’m managing people and their emotions. That’s not my role. I don’t need to know your life sob story. I don’t need to know all the details about what is happening in your marriage/divorce. Your job is to pay me rent on time, and if it can’t be on time, communicate that. My job is to collect the rent and keep things in working order.

As of the 8th, we had $2300 remaining on rent collection (granted $750 of that is expected because that house is on a twice-per-month lease agreement). One house told me well in advance that they were going to be late because of a new job and the delay with the first pay check. One house strung me along up until the very last minute that part of rent would be late. And another house said that she’d have no problem paying rent even though she broke a toe, and then proceeded to only pay part of rent with zero communication on what’s happening. She eventually said she would pay the rest by the 16th. Managing 14 rentals isn’t easy, but I still recommend having multiple because when people don’t pay their rent, you have enough coming in to cover expenses on the houses.

My previous post outlined the details of a turnover that I was working on. That involved calling out HVAC to fix a frozen line. Outside of managing that and late rent payments, my other time was devoted to a house that we’re going to sell.

Yup. That’s where I’m at. It’s a small 800sf house with 2 bedrooms and the bathroom is only accessible between the two bedrooms. It’s not in a great neighborhood (actually, the area itself is a great location and there’s been a lot of turnover/renovation, but literally across the street from our house is an apartment complex that pulls some pretty bad things). I also have A LOT to say about the tenants that left this house and what we’ll have to do to turn it over, but for now, our energy is going into turning this place into a listing. We’re currently deciding between a 1031 exchange and just keeping the money to put towards a pool. As I’ve said: I’m over the rentals at the moment. So I’m leaning towards eating the capital gains and getting a pool put in. The biggest deciding factor right now is that I’m tired of having to put the stress into finding a fall/winter tenant, so I’m not all that interested in purchasing a house in October/November/December. Perhaps if we list it in a month or so, and it sits for months into the spring market, I may change by mind.

NET WORTH

Well, it went down. But I was surprised it was up last month. We haven’t made any move, and we’ve lost about $4,000 of projected income with a vacant house while we get it ready to list. The house is paid off, so all we need to manage at this point is the electricity. Our credit cards are a decent chunk lower; our spending has been low this month.

House1: Turnover

mrsonedollarallowanceLeave a comment

My last post was about the tenant who vacated the house. She was one of the more difficult ones that we had to deal with. Her rent payments kept getting later and later, to the point that she was over a month behind on payment and wasn’t making partial payments. She finally vacated on August 1st.

Honestly, this is not going to be a polished, pretty, professional story. This post is a complaint about people and their inability to be grown ups and take responsibility for themselves, and that’s just this house is going.

TURNOVER WORK

The tenant did a great job cleaning the place and had the carpet professionally cleaned, so that was a big deal in getting through the turnover. Most of the house is carpet that is less than a year old, but we had laid LVP without leveling the floor for the living room area, and that has not worked well. Our lesson learned is that it’s definitely needed to lay leveling if you want your floor to stay in place. We also picked a fairly cheap option, and it seems the ‘locking’ mechanism isn’t the best. On the flip side, it’s extremely satisfying to bang the boards back together and watch the seem disappear. So we had to do that in several areas for that flooring.

Then there were random odds and ends. There was a toilet seat stained purple, a stove burner broken in half (the things that happen amaze me), and two cabinets had food left in them. I mopped down the floors and did minor paint touch ups. The fridge wasn’t working when I got in there. I moved it out from the wall to make sure it was plugged in and then shook it a bit, and it turned back on; that’s probably going to be an issue later. Overall it was a pretty easy turn over.

RENT OR SELL

Honestly, this house seems to attract a less-than-stellar group of interested tenants. I’m not sure why because the location is actually great, and if you rely on the bus, there’s a bus route to all major areas right behind the house. It’s a townhouse, so walking in to a flight of stairs is daunting, but you get a garage and private driveway as part of the gig. I’m just surprised at how hard it has been to find a new tenant here. I was ready to sell.

The issue is that if we sell, then we need to pay capital gains taxes on the profit, unless we 1031 exchange it. But to 1031 exchange it means buying another rental property, and I’m pretty burnt out on managing tenants at the moment, so that wasn’t too enticing either. I decided to see how a few showings turned out and go from there, but we had already broached the topic with our realtor to figure out list price.

TENANT EVALUATIONS

Shortly after having this struggle, I showed the house to about 10 groups in the matter of a few days. No one met the criteria we have laid out, but that’s not surprising. There were two candidates who stuck out. They were equal in how they didn’t qualify, but one was looking to move mid-August and another was looking for mid-September. I went with the mother/daughter/granddaughter group looking to move mid-August.

They had an ESA dog. I don’t mind an ESA dog when it’s actually necessary, but she didn’t have paperwork and it didn’t seem legitimate, but I have no more fight in me. The difference to me is $250. Their credit was barely above 500, and there were a few other red flags about verification of who they are. Again, it’ll probably come back to bite me, but I’m too tired to care at this point. It’s been a long road of managing difficult people.

MOVE IN

They had originally said about August 13, but when it came to signing the lease, they decided on August 19. At the lease signing, they were to bring the security deposit, $1350. They showed up with $1300 in cash and then struggled to set up an electronic payment method to get me the $50. They also expected me to allow them to pay in cash every month for rent, and I was direct in that cash is not sustainable because that makes me have to figure out getting to you to pick up cash. We got the lease signed and agreed to meet on the 19th at 9:30 am.

A couple of days before move in, the daughter of the crew texted me that she has another dog and is worried about coming up with the money for having an animal on the lease. I let her know that I wouldn’t charge her and it’s fine. I was hoping to garner some good will. Again, that $250 means more to them than to me at this point.

On the 19th, at about 9:20 am, the oldest tenant of the crew texted me that they were running late. I said I was already there and whenever they could make it would be fine. Then she texted me that she only had part of the rent. That her daughter’s pay check doesn’t clear until 1 pm. Now, they work with the City in some fashion, and the City had agreed to pay $500 towards their rent for the first month. So I had agreed that they just needed to pay $850 to get the keys because I had verified the program with the City already. So they were asking me to turn over the unit to them with $425 in hand. I declined. I asked her to let me know when they’re ready to pay the full $850 and I’d meet them. Unfortunately, getting a time decided was not going well. I just don’t understand why people think I’m sitting around waiting to show up at this house for them. I finally had to say I needed to meet before 2, otherwise it wasn’t going to happen until like 8 pm.

The daughter of the group was complaining about setting up an electronic payment method. Lady, you’re 22 and it’s 2026; I find it hard to believe you can’t figure this out on your own. She texted me constant updates. We also had an issue with the water getting in their name. They just kept texting me all day about what they were doing, and it was too much. I just need the payment. I don’t service the water company. I don’t service Venmo. I don’t service PayPal. I just need the payment in my “hands.”

Well, they made 2:00 happen and even was able to pick up the check from the City, so I started with the full $1350.

They had made a big deal about there being no blinds in the bedrooms. We’ve learned along the way that the more things we provide, the more it becomes our problem when the tenant breaks them. So over the years, we’ve removed broken blinds and not put them back up (you want landlords to provide things like window coverings, treat them nicely). We decided to provide the 3 missing blinds in the bedrooms. Well, when she moved in, she complained that they weren’t on the back doors, but I still didn’t add those.

Since they’ve moved in, we had an issue with the HVAC not working. The coils were frozen. It’s been a whole debacle. The one tenant texted me rudely that it being 80 in the house was unacceptable because she has a 3 year old. After all the issues with setting up their accounts, getting payment, making things harder than they needed to be, I was done. I wrote back that there was a proper way to establish this relationship, and in all my time as a landlord over several houses, I haven’t had anyone start off this in such a way. I wasn’t making it 80 degrees in there. When I was there, the air was running and it was comfortable. I can’t know something isn’t working until you tell me it’s not working. My tech ended up getting out there on Saturday and Sunday to manage it and get it running again.

SO FAR

At this point, they still are difficult. They had issues paying their partial month balance, but they got it paid. That’s another thing – I can’t believe the number of times people say “my employer messed up my pay check.” It just doesn’t make sense to me. I’ve been on the payer side and it’s not something that gets messed up. It’s pretty automated, especially when these people are likely using a punch clock system to make it even more automated.

I’ll just wrap this up here. Hopefully we continue to receive rent and it doesn’t become a bigger issue as we get into the winter months.

House1: Turnover – Original Tenant

mrsonedollarallowanceLeave a comment

I don’t usually spend much time on the tenant themselves, but there are a lot of lessons to share with this one.

We had to turn this house over last year when the two ladies who lived there moved to Georgia. They had been there a couple of years. We were busy when their lease ended, so when they asked for another month, I had agreed. But then we were on an awkward schedule for leasing. Our candidate pool was pretty low. We ended up settling on this lady who said she needed to find a place fast because her landlord was selling the property she was living in. She had told us that she needed to wait for him to return her security deposit to get us our security deposit. She told us this after we had already started the process of getting her into the house, so we just had to accept it. It took her 3 payments to get us the security deposit. That was the first red flag. She continued to be an issue for her entire tenure.

She was the type of person who wanted to hide behind her faith while continuing to treat us terribly. I can’t standing living through something like that.

The second red flag came when she kept saying her mail key wouldn’t work. She would take a week to respond to Mr. ODA with information on how it didn’t work. Finally, after several weeks of back and forth, Mr. ODA drove over there. He put the key in the mailbox number he told her and it worked fine. This doesn’t seem like a big deal, but coupled with everything else we went through, it was telling.

LATE RENT

The third red flag was everything about rent. In February, she paid $1000 on the 5th. Since she paid the majority of rent up front, we didn’t charge her a late fee. She paid $350 on the 15th. Not bad. She paid when she said she would. Then it just keeps getting worse.

She let us know that she was going to be late for March. There wasn’t great communication, but we received half of rent on the 7th. After much follow up, she paid the second half of rent and $50 towards the late fee on the 28th. When people pay that late in the month, I know it’s going to cause the next month to be late. So April comes along and she barely tells us what’s happening. She just keeps saying she needs more time and eventually pays on the 25th with $50 of a late fee. No partial payments. Mr. ODA expresses the need for partial payments and to communicate what is going on. She acted like we were out of line for expecting rent. Then comes May. More bad communication. Mr. ODA finally expresses that the late fee is actually $135 and that’s written in the lease agreement (she’s surprised by that). We get rent and the full late fee on May 30th.

We’re in trouble now. I serve her notice that she’s to vacate the premises at the end of her lease term, June 30. Now, please note that as of the 6th of each month, we are well within our rights to serve her a notice that says she has 5 calendar days to make payment or we’ll file for eviction. We don’t do that. We keep hoping she’ll figure it out and get back on track like she tells us she’s working on.

In mid-June, we’re camping, and she calls Mr. ODA. She says she’s been praying on it, and Jesus wants her to stay in our house instead of finding somewhere else. Mr. ODA tells her that she needs to make payment to us for that to be considered. She says she’s going to look into her finances and she can probably get us some money that Friday (it was Wednesday). On Sunday, Mr. ODA texts her to ask what’s going on and she says she can’t pay anything towards rent because she “just” paid rent and her last pay check needed to go to other bills. Mr. ODA says we’ll give her until the end of July since now she’ll have less time to find a place, but she needs to get out. Again, our attempt to treat someone like a human instead of us protecting our business 100%.

She paid June rent on July 5. She told us it would be on July 3. On the 4th she hadn’t paid. Mr. ODA asked where payment was and she said “it’s coming.” She paid rent and the late fee that Sunday morning after more follow up.

She told us we’d have rent on July 31 before she moved out. On the 31st, she said she needed more time. She handed me cash on August 1st.

The person who owns the house has bills to pay. If I don’t pay my bills, the bank could take the house away. So you not paying your rent affects what I can pay. Now, I’m a good person and am always trying to be reasonable. We’ve set up our business so that we can pay our bills even if someone doesn’t have the money to pay their rent perfectly on time. But paying your rent a full month (or longer) after it’s due, with very little communication, and hardly ever following through on the payment date you gave us is taking advantage of us. There was no appreciation for us being understanding. There were hardly any apologies. We were always the bad guy for following up when payment wasn’t being made (while the payment date was actually the date she established and we never forced anything).

THE MOVE OUT

I sent multiple emails letting her know that if she was not out by July 31 at 5 pm there would be fees incurred. She would claim to understand, but then at 3:20, she told Mr. ODA she wasn’t going to make it. Mr. ODA said to move everything to the garage so we could start working on the house to get it re-rented. Well, there’s no lock on the door between the garage and the house, so that plan didn’t exactly work to get us a secured house while she finished moving out.

I will say that she kept the house in great condition. There were chew marks on molding, which says she may have had a dog that wasn’t authorized, but she had the carpets cleaned by Stanley Steamer and the house was cleaned up when she vacated. It’s always a risk when you’re telling someone to get out because they haven’t paid rent that they’re going to destroy something or leave trash behind.

She kept trying to tell Mr. ODA that she’d be done by 8, then 10, then midnight. She really expected us to meet her to get the keys at midnight. Then around 9:30, she texted Mr. ODA saying she was really just too tired to continue and would need to finish it the next day. I met her out there at 9 am. She said she couldn’t get a u-haul and needed more time, but her truck reservation was for 5:30 pm. I literally said that the goal post keeps moving so how was I to know that she’d actually be out of there that night. She tried to give me the keys to the house at that point, but I had to explain that if she gives me the keys, then it’s on me to drop everything and be available when she got the u-haul, and it wasn’t fair to me to keep having to show up to be told she wasn’t done.

Well, she ended up getting the u-haul a bit earlier and was able to text Mr. ODA that she was ready to turn over the keys. She did eventually get everything out (well, except for two cabinets in the kitchen).

But that wasn’t it. Mr. ODA decided to offer to get her the mail that was in the box. It was really because she wanted to check on the 1st one final time, but Mr. ODA didn’t head out there with the mail key. So after multiple back and forths, they finally decide to meet at a park in town. She then shows up a half hour before the agreed upon time because she was able to get out of work early. Well, that’s not how meet ups work. I just can’t comprehend the number of times that this lady thought that we just sit around waiting for her to decide to need us and that we were just going to magically appear when she rubbed her genie lamp. So Mr. ODA went out of his way to get her the mail, and she was bothered that she had to wait – even though he was 8 minutes earlier than the agreed upon time.

SECURITY DEPOSIT

In the end, it wasn’t bad. She got 80% of her security deposit back. I charged her for a broken stove burner, trash removal from the kitchen, and a stained toilet seat that needed replaced. The house was very clean, so I didn’t need to put much time into that.

SUMMARY

She lived there for less than a year, but she was one of the hardest people to manage. I try really hard to establish a relationship with my tenants that says I’ll treat them with respect and understanding if they treat me with respect. I get praised and thanked up and down from my other tenants. This one wasn’t like that. She thought our bar of understanding needed to be way too high and was completely unreasonable. We were as gracious and patient as we could be.

Big Summer Trip: Part 3

mrsonedollarallowanceLeave a comment

I did not intend for this to be a 3 part post, but NJ had a lot more to it than I expected. Now it’s Delaware’s turn.

We arrived in Delaware on the Cape May ferry and drove straight to our hotel in Lewes. We got there fairly late, but the room was amazing. We always seem to get the nicest places when we have no intention of being there for very long! Mr. ODA was able to book it for cheaper than we expected, and it was about half the cost of what we planned to spend on a crappy motel in Wildwood.

LEWES

Our first stop in Lewes was the Cannonball House. It was a small house by the water that commemorated the early 1900s of navigation on the water. It was free and worth a visit. Our oldest got to hold a real cannonball. There were examples of how early morse code was used, and the kids got to try their hand at communicating in that language. We also visited the Zwaanendael Museum. This was also free and was very welcoming of children. There were activities for them to do on both floors, and they were encouraged to touch and explore. I wanted to do Lightship Overfalls, but their hours are very limited, and we weren’t going to be around for the timing. Lewes is an adorable, quaint town that gives New England vibes. I would definitely recommend a visit.

DOVER

From Lewes, we drove north to Dover. As I’ve mentioned in the past, we love to see the state capitol buildings, so this is a must for us if we’re nearby. There were no assigned tour times, just that the tour needed to conclude by 1:00. After visiting, I’m assuming this was because the lady giving the tours just does tours as people show up, but she wants to leave by 1. She brings her german shephard to work with her, and she was just the sweetest pup. This lady doing the tour was incredible. You could tell she cared a lot about the history. She spoke with enthusiasm instead of regurgitating data memorized. Her dad served in the House in the 1930s too! The security guards and this lady were very welcoming. We shared the awful NJ experience with them, and they said they hear it often. We ended up staying there until 2:30 when the kids finally made it known that they had to get moving and were tired of sitting around while we chatted. We walked around the area and visited the original capitol house. It was so hot, and we were hungry, so we had to give up exploring and fix that.

We grabbed some Wawa sandwiches and found picnic benches to eat our late lunch. There were quite a few homeless people around, so I kept my head on a swivel. Our youngest left his water bottle at Wawa. When I went back for it, the worker laughed and said “oh honey, you’re in the hood. That thing is long gone.” I actually laughed in her face because nothing about Dover felt ghetto or unsafe having grown up on Long Island and visiting Queens and the City.

We came back on another day to visit the Air Mobility Command Museum. This was also free. It had planes that were open for us to explore, an old air traffic control tower to explore, and several areas with things to learn about war planes and the history of communication in the military.

MILFORD

Our visit was to a friend’s house in Milford. We didn’t explore very much of Milford itself because we went to the beaches, but it was a great little area. One afternoon, we went to Big Oyster Brewery for happy hour. It’s a bar with a playground area for the kids. The weather was great with no humidity, so it was a lovely afternoon hanging out there.

BEACHES

The first day, we went to Cape Henlopen State Park. It was $20 for a day pass to enter. The beach was lovely. Mr. ODA likes to play in the waves, so we went to a place on the ocean. Turns out, the two older kids absolutely love playing in the waves also. We were on the beach for about 4 hours. We went to the food truck for lunch. It was really expensive, and, other than the fries, not great. There are lots of trails to explore the area there, but we just drove around to get the sights instead of taking tired and cranky kids on walking trails in the heat.

On the third day, we visited Rehoboth. We got there at 9:30. Parking starts at 10, which is also when people start showing up. When we got there, there were hardly any people. It filled in as the day went by. We spent 4.5 hours on the beach that day and had packed our own food. We rode a few rides at Fun Land and walked the boardwalk. We wrapped up with ice cream on the main drag. But the place was just so crowded that we were happy to head home for dinner.

SUMMARY

So for 17 days, we explored NY, NJ, and DE. In total, we spent over $1300, which included two hotel nights, but otherwise we stayed with family and friends. In DE, we bought groceries, some meals out, parking at the beaches, and gas, so the total spending came to $340 for the 4 nights we were there.

August Financial Update

mrsonedollarallowanceLeave a comment

I’m tired is an understatement. The rentals have hit the point where they’ve worn me out. I can’t put my finger on it, but I’m over them. Tenants have hit an oddly needy phase where they feel the need to walk me (and my property manager) through all their days and issues instead of keeping it a professional relationship. There’s been slightly more turnover than we usually see (yet they’re from houses that had been occupied for several years, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that eventually they need to move on). On the personal front, I feel like I’m juggling a lot of thoughts even though I don’t feel like it’s too much. There’s just a lot of brain power going towards decisions and organization.

PERSONAL

Kids started school a week ago. We’re still establishing a routine, but sports are forcing the schedule more than anything. Everyone seems happy though.

I had to pay the final payment for the windows this past month. It was delayed as they had to replace several windows and sashes that were damaged. I appreciated they didn’t ask for final payment while waiting for things to be right. That increased our credit balances by $6k. Then we bought a couch. I’d say it was on a whim, but it was something being considered for months. We walked into Costco to see a sectional we liked, but as we started thinking about it, the sectional really wouldn’t work the way we want in the space. We walked around Ashley, picked an option, thought about it for a few days, and then went back to purchase it. We were able to get it for a couple of hundred less than anticipated based on final price, and it was delivered at the end of that week.

I’m volunteering on the PTA at my kids’ school. I walked in a room and ended up VP for that, but so far it’s been great. We’ve been busy; everyone wants to help, so it’s encouraging. I’m on 3 HOA boards, one of which meets monthly and has a project that we’re trying to wrap up. I’m still working a few hours; much less than I had been, but it’s still something that I need to give attention to. Gymnastics, soccer, baseball. The littlest one starts school in September. Not too much, but enough to feel it. I’m also driving the kids to school every morning, which wasn’t the plan and wasn’t how the last two years went. However, their bus stop is an hour before school starts, and I already feel like they need to wake up too early, so I committed to driving. Things are shaking out and it’s getting easier though.

I am close to finishing a bathroom renovation we started several weeks ago. It took me two months to get a mirror for over the sink. And then Mr. ODA cut and nailed in a trim piece that I need to caulk and paint still. There are a few paint touch ups I’ve been waiting to do since I knew that trim piece would need painted, so that’s on my radar. I changed how the kids’ backpacks, coats, and school things would be managed this year. I removed them from the mud room (since it’s small) and made a wall in the dining room a place for all those things to live. It’s working better at this point now that we’re less crowded. I was hoping that walking past the kitchen table with water bottles on it would help them remember water bottles, but I’m not seeing that success rate yet.

RENTALS

I don’t even know where to begin here. We have a DV case at one house, mice at two houses, had to remove someone from a lease due to a divorce, had to turnover a house with an entitled previous tenant and a less than stellar pool of candidates (but it’s rented), an HVAC call that was completely unnecessary but I did it to appease a tenant, another tenant complaining that her washer smells (that’s not on me), and another house where the tenant complained that the sink faucet base is peeling (again, not doing anything with that). I think my expectations are just off. I’m used to some time where the houses run on autopilot, but they’re taking a lot more of my time these days, even if it’s just managing who still owes rent.

This month, everyone paid rent “on time.” Actually, one was late by a day, and I did have to follow up, but she apologized and said she fell asleep before her check cleared and had just woken up. There’s one house that pays twice per month, and they’re going to be two days late on the rent that’s owed this week.

Actually, quick aside. Since when do checks clear in the middle of the day? I’ve never experienced this. On my pay day, the pay is sitting in my account after 6 am that day. Someone is claiming that her check clears at 1:00 pm. Someone else was saying they needed to wait until 12:30 for their check to hit their account. How is that happening? I pay people via Gusto at work and I can’t set a payment TIME, just a date.

NET WORTH

It’s crazy that this balance is $100k higher than last month. I updated the market values of the houses. None of them increased, but a few decreased. I’m not surprised knowing that market prices have cooled.

These posts are specifically to talk about the actual money aspect of life. It’s not meant to do anything except share regular life decision making, establish a constant reminder that the small decisions build your wealth, and remove the stigma of talking about money (while also not perpetuating the thought that it’s cool to complain about being broke all the time). So while I highlight “net worth,” I felt compelled to point out that wealth isn’t that number. Wealth is the freedom we’ve established for ourselves. We are available to take the kids to school and pick them up without a rushed/stressed demeanor. We are able to attend all the school events. We can drop everything and be at the school in 10 minutes if a kid needs us, without checking in with a boss or asking for time off. We can take trips during the week (when school isn’t in session). We can provide activities and food for our kids without stress.

None of our wealth was handed to us. None of it was by accident. 98% of the credit goes to Mr. ODA for even have the thought process (I like to take my share for being open minded and trusting his research). My dad was a blue collar worker and my mom worked multiple part time jobs. We never felt like we were “poor,” but working to earn money was what I knew. I believe all your experiences in life are for a reason, but you need to be open to seeing the lesson in those moments. I was open to Mr. ODA’s life plan and financial ideas. I went through Amway with a team that taught “think bigger” type moments for your time. I went to DC for my job way earlier than I ever planned to, and it seemed to be so I could learn the lesson that trading time for money wasn’t how I wanted to run my life.

We STRUGGLED before we were married. We wanted to buy a house, but we didn’t have 20% down. We wanted 20% down to avoid paying mortgage insurance that we feel is a waste of money. We SCRAPED together $80k to get that down payment in Northern Virginia. There were retirement loans, gifts from family, and a concerted effort to spend less than $5 per day on food. We didn’t have a mentality that we were owed anything or that we deserved to give ourselves treats for getting through the week. We weren’t poor, but we knew we had a big goal in mind, and that owning real estate was going to get us more control of our money. Things didn’t really spring board until we sold that VA house and had over $120k sitting in our bank. That’s when more investments came in. That’s when setting multiple small goals made it so that I could quit working full time without us feeling the pressure. I’ve told our story multiple times.

I just wanted to acknowledge that the point here isn’t the literal dollar amount. It’s the freedom that we have. It’s the ability to be on our terms and schedule. Mr. ODA is out golfing this morning. We played pickleball yesterday morning. We aren’t working for our weekend. We aren’t flashing extravagant spending on the weekend because we spent the week working 10 hour days to have the money to live for 2 days and carry the stress of work home with us. And so with that, just take a moment and look at your finances and see where there’s a creep in spending that could be taking you away from a goal. Think about a bigger picture of life.

Big Summer Trip: Part 2

mrsonedollarallowanceLeave a comment

I discussed the first half of this trip in a previous post. We spent over a week in NY visiting my family, and then we went to NJ for two days and finally on to DE for several days. Mr. ODA thought we could use the opportunity to explore some areas we typically wouldn’t. Usually we’re just trying to get home, which takes a whole day, so we don’t make stops near NY. The whole trip only cost us about $1350, which included two hotel stays ($437). We were entertained the whole time and the kids had fun. 

I make these posts after our trips to share that you can explore different places, give your kids exposure to lots of things, and it doesn’t need to cost a lot of money. I see so many people save all year to splurge on one trip (e.g., Disney), when there’s a lot of learning experiences out there for little growing minds. I understand everyone has their own preferences, and if it works for you, that’s great! I just want to share another perspective of how we manage our trips and activities.

NEW JERSEY: PARKS

We left NY on a Monday morning. We explored northern Jersey for the day. Honestly, we could have spent more time in each place. I was surprised at how early we made it to a hotel.

Our first stop was the Palisades. While some parts of it were nice to see, it was overall disappointing. The park also requires payment to park in the parking lots instead of an access payment, and that was a surprise from all of our travels.

Stop two was Paterson Great Falls National Historic Park. The kids love to get their junior ranger badgers from the National Park Service, so that kept us entertained for a while. They give you a booklet and ask the kid to fill out a few pages to earn the badge. This one had a bingo game where you walked the park to find the images in the pictures and cross them off. Even the littlest one got into it. While the park and the huge waterfall was cool to see, I wouldn’t recommend spending much time in the area.

Stop three was Liberty Park. While I didn’t care to go to the Statue of Liberty itself, it was nice to show the kids it. We spent a while at the huge playground there, got some Mister Softee (my personal favorite), walked the waterfront trail, and drove around the park. We didn’t rush being there, but we were also cognizant of heading south before NYC rush hour started.

We stayed in Cranbury, NJ for the night. The hotel was outdated with a bunch of deferred maintenance, but they had an evening social hour that we were able to get a snack at. We hung out in the lobby and played card games.

NEW JERSEY: TRENTON

The next morning we had a tour scheduled at the Capitol in Trenton, which is why we had stayed in Cranbury (to be close, but not too close because #trenton). Mr. ODA booked a 10:00 tour. They were adamant that a tour had to be booked. He was given general instruction that he, logically, thought would be obvious when we got there. It wasn’t.

The first stop is to enter the parking garage under the Capitol. There’s a police officer sitting on the street and one sitting in the middle of the entrance area (not welcoming – giving “this isn’t safe” vibes). I pull up to the gate, and the man asks what we’re doing. I said we have a 10:00 Capitol tour. He seemed put off by us, but I think it was just his general demeanor. He then gave a bajillion instructions on where to go. Let me say what he should have: You’re on the 3rd floor. Go to the 1st floor. Park in visitor parking in section 1F. Do not go to the elevators near 1F. Go to the elevators at 1C.

The elevators are extremely important.

When Mr. ODA got the instructions over the phone, the lady said “do not go outside.” Out of context, that makes no sense. Turns out, behind all these instructions was a simple fact: the welcome center is your destination, not the Capitol security entrance. That is so unbelievably important. And yet, no one could clearly communicate that.

We got on the elevator at 1F. We followed the instructions that were printed and taped to the wall (so seemingly an important update because it required extra signage to be printed) to go straight to security at the entrance. We walked outside. Followed signs to the entrance. The lady at the security guard desk called the tour people to say we were there. It was 9:49.

Now, here, the security guard could have said, “it’s better if you go back to the welcome center and meet the tour there.” But nooooooo. She said “hang out in the vestibule. Do not go outside. She will come get you.” No one came at 10 for us. We kept asking what the plan was while we sat in a muggy vestibule with 3 small kids. “They’re coming.”

Turns out, there’s a welcome center. Turns out, the tour starts there. Turns out, they were going to get to us when they got to us and there was no rush.

So many failures on that part.

Then we take the tour. There are police officers everywhere, and always more than one. A buddy system. Inside a Capitol building. All over the building. That’s new to us. And we’ve been to a lot of Capitols. The tour wasn’t great. I tried really hard to ask myself questions like, “I grew up in NY, is this not good because I already just don’t like NJ?” and “I had to wait 22 minutes for our tour to start because of terrible communication and signage, am I just angry about that, or does this really suck?” It was bad. There was nothing all that noteworthy to NJ’s history to share. The tour guide told us twice that Abraham Lincoln walked the halls for one day on his way back to DC. One day. This story came up twice. Wow.

At the end of the tour, we’re escorted directly into the parking garage. Ummm, I have 3 kids who likely should pee even if they don’t say they need to go, and I need to pee. The tour guide escorted us back into the building, then stood outside the bathrooms while we went, and it wasn’t until we finally said “there are 3 cops here, do you still need to be here or can we look at the WELCOME center?” that he finally got permission from the cops that he could leave.

It was just a surprisingly terrible experience all around. We didn’t feel welcomed at any point. I’ve never visited a Capitol that made you feel like it wasn’t safe around every corner and that didn’t say “go ahead and explore the building” after the tour.

We were going to explore Trenton, but at that point, we just wanted out.

NEW JERSEY: THE SHORE AND CAPE MAY

We headed south through the Pine Barrens for a scenic drive and arrived at the Cape May Zoo. That was incredible and free. There was also a gigantic playground there, but it was hot, and I was ready to move on, but in case anyone has plans to be in southern Jersey – plan a day at the zoo and park. The food in the zoo was expensive, but I justified it that we hadn’t paid to enter the place.

From there, we drove over to Wildwood. Mr. ODA and I played ultimate frisbee for multiple summers on the beach there. It was a cool experience, and I wanted to do it with my kids. Originally, I had planned to pick a hotel we had once stayed in. I figured we’d walk the boardwalk, get dinner at one of the diner type places, and then just swim in the pool at the hotel. Well, the weather had other plans. Severe storms were descending on us. We grabbed the picture of the kids in front of the Wildwood sign and decided we didn’t want to ride out the storms in the little motels, so we booked the last ferry out of Cape May.

We grabbed some McDonalds just before the ferry. Since our ferry was at 6:00, we arrived around 5:15. There’s free putt putt and a playground there while you wait, but the putt putt had closed at 5 (I was also happy that my kids were not going to be holding a metal stick with lightning strikes nearby). We drove onto the ferry just before the rain started. As we’re waiting for the final loading of the cars and people, everyone’s phones start alerting to a tornado warning. The captain had tried to pull out and get through the storm, but he ended up saying we were going to ride it out back at the dock. We stayed awkwardly near the dock but not actually docked through the worst of it. A tornado came onshore right near the ferry terminal while we were sitting still at the dock, but the rain and wind was so bad, I didn’t get to see it with my own eyes! By 6:22, we were on our way to Lewes, Delaware.

SUMMARY

Look, I hate to make a part 3 on this, but I’m tired. The Capitol tour was so egregiously bad that this post got longer than I thought it would. So here’s the update for the two days in NJ, and next week I’ll finish up our Delaware activities. For a hotel, food, and gas, we spent $315 while in NJ plus $63 for the ferry.

Big Summer Trip: Part 1

mrsonedollarallowanceLeave a comment

We took a 17 day trip, and it went much better than I thought it would. There wasn’t any reason it would go poorly, but we’re managing 3 kids and a really long time away from home, so I was reasonably worried. We usually go to NY to visit my family each summer. It’s an easy time to get there for a solid week and make the 12-14 hour drive worth it. This year, I decided I was finally up for the adventure of visiting Mr. ODA’s friend in Delaware too, so we locked it in.

TRAVEL TO NEW YORK

My niece was getting baptized and turning 1. My sister had planned a few options for her baptism, but there were some snafus, and it ended up working out that she could plan both events on one day. It just so happened that these events fell the week before a family wedding in NY as well, so it solidified our travel plans without much effort. The only problem was that the two older kids were in camp until 5 every day the week before. So we needed to get from Central KY at 5 pm on Friday to Long Island by 12 pm on Saturday. No traffic, no incidents creating longer stops out of the car, etc. and it’ll take 12 hours to get there. And that it did.

We picked the kids up at about 4:45 pm. We drove a few hours until it was time for dinner. We made a quick stop for food and then drove until 9:30 when we stopped for gas and got the kids situated for sleeping in the car. I was worried it wouldn’t go well because there’s a history of kids crying because they can’t move freely once falling asleep, but they made it the whole night. I was very happy and impressed. Mr. ODA drove from then until just after 2:30 am. I probably got an hour of sleep that whole stretch. Then I took over and we pulled into my dad’s house at 4:45 am. I was worried about getting there before the sun came up so that the kids wouldn’t think it’s day time and would go back to sleep, and we were cutting it close. I put the two big kids in a room with it fully blacked out and then I slept with the youngest in a twin bed to make sure he understood the assignment. He struggled, and we had light peeking in at 6:15, but we got back to sleep until 9:20.

NEW YORK ADVENTURES

Baptism and first birthday party took the whole first day, and the kids actually did pretty well considering the lack of sleep. Then we spent the rest of the week either in my dad’s pool or at a beach, except for the one night we went to a wedding. We traveled to Fire Island for a day to visit family friends. My dad has ferry tickets from his days working on the island, so that didn’t cost us anything, and we just paid for parking. The family that is there vacationing offered us lunch, so there weren’t any costs for being there.

While in NY, our costs are usually minimal because we stay at my dad’s, and the goal is to just be around family, so there aren’t huge expenditures. Our total spent in NY was $400. Just under $100 was gas, and $25 went towards EZ Pass (who knew that starting our EZ Pass journey in NY when we lived in Albany would pay off for so long because now we have a NY-issued pass that gets us discounts for traveling over NYC bridges).

Our biggest expense was the night that Mr. ODA and I went out for dinner in a waterfront town. We had dinner and drinks and spent a whopping $135. It’s super out of character for us, but, on that note, it’s also nice to spend time just the two of us, which is rare. My dad and his girlfriend took the kids for the night. They had the time of their life! I was really nervous, but it was totally worth it for them, even if they didn’t get home until nearly 10 pm! I love that they have those memories.

We didn’t make it to NYC. We had planned to be in NY for a couple more days than we ended up doing. We also didn’t plan to have so many activities while we were there. Being that the first two days were significantly busier than I anticipated after a night of overnight travel, I wanted that Monday to be more relaxing on the kids and not so stimulating. Then we planned to go to Fire Island on Thursday, and I was worried about dragging them through NYC and all that walking instead of resting. As Mr. ODA started mapping out a plan, it seemed the costs were going to be higher than he thought. So between the cost and the anticipated kid behavior, we didn’t end up making it there.

TRAVEL TO NEW JERSEY

For the second phase of the trip, we spent two days in NJ and then moved on to Delaware. We had originally planned to be in NY until we went to Delaware on that Wednesday, but Mr. ODA thought we could use the opportunity to explore some areas we typically wouldn’t. Usually we’re just trying to get home, which takes a whole day, so we don’t make stops near NY. It was definitely worth it, but that’s a story for the next post.

SUMMARY

The whole trip only cost us $1350, which included two hotel stays. We were entertained the whole time and the kids had fun. All the time in the pool ended up giving the kids some new skills. The littlest one started swimming independently. The two bigger ones grew so comfortable that they started working on dives and flips into the pool. They also were diving for things at the bottom of the pool, which was fun to watch, and not something they felt comfortable doing in the past. It may be time for us to invest in our own pool. 😉

July Financial Update

mrsonedollarallowanceLeave a comment

We’ve been on a 2+ week trip, so I didn’t get around to this update. The financials are mostly updated, but I didn’t seek out a lot of details in the investment side to change those. The investments are down from the last update. We had quite a few “big ticket” items purchased for rentals over the last month, and we traveled, which added to our spending.

RENTALS

We’ve having more and more late payments with rent. We had one house have several issues and she texted nearly everyday. We have another house that didn’t pay June rent until July 5th, and when asked if she had a day she’ll pay, she said, “yes.” That’s like someone asking if they know the time and you respond yes. Is that the intent? Can you extrapolate the need for information? When Mr. ODA pushed, she said “well I just paid rent with my pay check, so this pay check had to go to other bills.” Having a roof over your head should be a priority. Another house paid $1150 out of $1400, but then didn’t pay the final bit so I did enforce the late fee on her, but I cut it in half. Another house pays twice per month because of their history of not paying for a long time, and so then they’ve now paid two late fees this month since each payment was late. At least I have them talking and letting me know when to expect rent.

One house wanted the side yard cleaned up. It’s always had trees in it, but the house next door sold and put up a fence. So it was more clear what was their property and they wanted space for the kids. I said I’d contact someone, but it was nearly impossible to get someone out for the job. He finally looked into doing it himself and I agreed they could pay half rent for that effort.

Another house had the stove go out and the toilet needed a new piece. The stove arrived dented, so we had to get it re-delivered. Another house had the HVAC go out, so that was a service call.

Another house had a compressor failure in their HVAC. We plan to sell this house, so we went for half the cost for the fix, but that was still $3,500.

I paid two home insurance bills. These houses aren’t escrowed, so they fall on me to manage, which is actually my preference.

PERSONAL

We registered for fall sports, which isn’t a small penny of a process. Our oldest is going to try out soccer. We’ve had 2 failed attempted when he was really little, but he’s been playing at recess for 2 years and seems to have grown a [slightly] thicker skin. Mr. ODA and I have played against him in the yard a bit, and we’re impressed by his ability to block the opposition, so maybe it’ll actually work out. Side note – he’s a really strong swimmer and treader of water. Someone last week said he could do water polo and a lightbulb went off. He probably would really enjoy that! Well, we live in the middle of the country and that’s not a thing (although I don’t get why because it requires a pool and not an ocean).

Our final payment for the cruise in October was due mid-July. As long as you don’t make final payment, they’ll adjust the price. We had a huge adjustment back in the black Friday sale timeframe, but I was holding out for even a little more. So I made the payment at the last possible moment, but that was a huge chunk added to the credit card.

School is just around the corner. Luckily we have family who buys clothes for our kids year round, so there isn’t a major “back to school” clothing shopping experience in our home. I need to buy a few supplies, but that needs to wait until next week when I can inventory what I purchased last year. I bought in bulk last year for two reasons: 1) if the teachers needed more supplies during the school year, I could just throw them in a backpack; and 2) supplies don’t expire, so I’d be ahead of the game for this year. It just requires me to know what’s there and what is still needed. Open house is the first week of August, so that’s my deadline. We do have everyone’s backpacks and lunch boxes ready at least.

NET WORTH

The market went down this past month, which is where the difference is in our net worth. We also increased our credit card balances a bit with the rental work needed. So the net is slightly lower than last month, but much higher than where we were a year ago. That’s the perspective I keep because the month-to-month fluctuation doesn’t matter that much.

June Financial Update

mrsonedollarallowanceLeave a comment

We have been busy! The kids ended school the first few days of June, we’ve taken two trips, and one kid is has done a camp so far. The rest of May had finished up graduation and baseball things. I’ve taken a step back from work a bit. I’m not on a schedule going into work now that the kids are out of school, but I’m helping train the new girl. I eventually will get the chance to step out of the day to day, and then we go into a mode where I do more behind-the-scenes work.

PERSONAL

I started working less. At least that’s the goal. I had been working part time, and for a long while, there was another guy there to fill in my absences. He left a few months back, and it was becoming too much to manage. Even if I logged 20 hours per week, there was the weight of feeling I had to check in on things and needing to be responsive. Then there were all the random texts or calls that would take my attention, even if they were much less than they ever were. The office was in the process of hiring a full time position person for that role, but I wanted out. I wanted to enjoy my summer with my kids and not have the pull to be there. I tried to quit twice. They pushed forward the position that we had been discussing for a year and made it official, while calling in a promotion with no added pay (I guess the increased flexibility will be the benefit). The new person started on the 15th. She has been really great, but I’ve still put in more hours than I wish. The good thing is that I stepped foot in the office for the first time this week for a couple of hours yesterday. My general goal is to get to like 15 hours per week, and my tasks will be organizing financial data and not agent-facing anymore.

I’ve been working on getting my things in order as a notary. At work, we have our own title company, and there have been several issues with the closings. Their work load is down, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s because our own agent investors are tired of the problems and letting their clients go elsewhere. It’s quite frustrating to see. Well, I’m a fixer and helper. I wanted to get my notary so I could manage these relationships better. I got the main paperwork in order, but now I need to do the classes to be a title closer and get myself registered online so I can be selected for business. It wasn’t that expensive. I’m all in for about $120 once I buy a stamp (more if there’s a fee for the classes). Supposedly one closing could bring in that amount, so we’ll see.

Mr. ODA is working still, and it’s going better than it was. It’s become less of a hurdle to figuring out the schedule and conflicts with baseball season and end-of-year school activities out of the way. Now the hurdles are the swaths of days off for our trips.

We’ve taken two trips so far this month. We have another one next month. We’ve also gone to Kentucky Kingdom on our season pass for a day, with a few more planned for the summer. Our trip there was awesome. The kids had such a great time and everyone was in a good mood all day. We did the regular rides and were there for about double the hours I had expected because it was going so well. Our next trip will explore the water park, and I think it’ll be a perfect day for that next week in the 90s (our last trip was 73, so we intentionally didn’t plan to get in the water).

We have one camp week of the summer done for one of the kids. Two big kids go to an outdoor camp soon, and then there’s a half day camp for the oldest later this summer. This week’s camp has been across town. I was looking forward to getting things done with 2 kids in tow instead of 3, but I haven’t been able to prioritize playing with them and running errands like I had hoped, which you’ll see why in the next section.

RENTALS

Well, this post is late, so technically the blog world shouldn’t know about the week we’ve been through yet, but let’s lay it out. I actually had quite a few people pay rent late this month, but everyone communicated their issues and timing, so it worked out fine. Two people paid a late fee because they didn’t tell me the right information or told me late (and they’re repeat offenders on poor communication). If you communicate with me and give me the right information and uphold your commitment, I won’t charge you a late fee. That’s not income I’m expecting, so it does more to a tenant’s life to not have that money going out than it does to my life to have the money coming in. However, if you can’t tell me the truth or communicate clearly, I need to protect myself. I don’t want to set a precedent that you can walk all over me or pay whenever you feel like it because I still have my bills to pay for that house to stay standing. Anyway, with that rant out of the way, one house has not paid rent still.

We have a tenant who fell on hard times in February. She intends to pay June rent on July 3rd. She has been consistently later and later in paying her rent. While we work with our tenants regularly, they have to do their part and show their effort to prioritize us. It will never cease to amaze me how many people do not prioritize the roof over their head. Her financials were questionable when she applied, but she technically qualified for our list. The fact that there have been no partial payments and she continuously tells us a date she’ll pay, but she doesn’t pay then, has made me lose patience. She said she prayed on it, and she wants to stay in our place for another year. We said we needed to see rent paid, and if she could make a partial payment on the 12th, then we’d consider an extension. No payment. And then when I finally got Mr. ODA to take the hard stance in their communication, she tried to guilt us that she did tell us she’s working on it, and he had to explain that she in fact did not follow through on what she’s been saying. She was supposed to vacate June 30, but now that this has dragged on, she’s vacating July 31, which makes me mad. I had purposely put her as June 30 so that I wouldn’t be looking at an August rental period with back to school for a house that is notoriously hard to get rented because of all the stairs, and now here I am again. Oh well, I have no control over that anymore and just need to get through it.

Last weekend we received inches of rain. One of our KY houses has a history of water intrusion at the back door. We can’t figure it out, but the lack of lip/sill/curb because the door was installed at concrete level is really the issue. We probably need to install a curb and get a smaller door in there now that I think of it. Well, the tenants have been really patient with the water intrusion and they just lay towels when it happens. Last weekend, it was way worse. They had water in two spots they never do, and a lot more water than usual by the back door. It happened on Monday, and on Thursday, I could still get water to come through the floor boards. I started pulling the LVP out. As soon as I got everything exposed, it dried really quickly. The problem was that the washer was blocking my ability to get anymore boards out. I tried to get a board out of the middle that I could just reinstall with wood glue down the road, but my utility knife was useless. The board was eating more out of my blade than the blade was doing damage to the board connection. I regrouped. I went to Lowe’s and got a new tool and a different kind of blade for the utility knife. We’re heading over there today to get some more flooring out of the way. While this sounds awful – for me to pull out the floor at the back door, where there’s been consistent water intrusion, and not see any mold, was absolutely the best thing on my day yesterday. There was mold behind the baseboard in the drywall at the back door, which wasn’t surprising in the least. I threw that away and will be able to install new stuff. We’ll likely go with the plastic version of that so that it keeps the water away better because this isn’t a problem that’s going away any time soon. There’s a flood advisory for the next couple of days, so it’ll be good that the floor is out of the way for a bit.

So while Mr. ODA and I are grappling with next steps on this basement water issue, a tenant in VA texts me. I love my tenants that apologize profusely for telling me something is wrong. I promise, it’s OK to report that there’s an issue to me! This is the house that had MAJOR termite damage (look, another storm we’ve weathered!). She reported that a burner on the stove won’t turn on anymore and that the toilet in the bathroom is taking a long time to fill up. I texted my handyman buddy and he said he could get out there. That’s off my plate now. I’ll just pay an invoice when it comes in.

And finally (dare I say, this is the last issue of the month??), a house in KY also apologized profusely, telling me the AC is out. I checked my maintenance log, and while I’ve managed issues at this house for the AC, it hasn’t been replaced. Knowing the house, this HVAC guy this morning is going to tell me to replace the whole thing. HVAC is one of those things that I can’t do a single thing to trouble shoot it, so I just contact “my guy” and he’ll tell me what’s next. This is definitely a “throw money at the problem” situation, but it doesn’t take any of my time, and that’s the priority to me these days.

SUMMARY

Over the years, I’ve learned to just get through things. I’ve learned that even the biggest seeming problems subside. A tenant trashes a house; we get junk luggers out there and replace everything. Our wallet hurts for a bit, but then you move on. A house floods; insurance kicks in, and we basically did nothing except send a few emails. When I started my job, there was a bison on the front cover of my welcome binder. They were pointing to the fact that bison will walk into a storm because the fastest way through a storm is through it, not trying to outrun it. This thought consumed me. I had heard it before, but it didn’t stick like it did then. So while there may be juggling for a little while, it’s not the end of the world.

NET WORTH

Because of the things I’m juggling these days and trying to prioritize time with my kids, I don’t have a break down of our spending since the last update. Mr. ODA also asked me to split out our Roth IRA accounts from the investment line item because we’re going to be doing Roth conversions. Maybe I’ll do a post about what that is, and that’ll help me finally know what that even means to us. I’m a very visual person, so once I start seeing the implications of that, I’ll understand it better. He’s been managing that and how it affects our money/income/taxes all along.

Our credit cards are $3k less than last month, and the majority of the balance is because of the windows we replaced in our personal residence. We paid the deposit back in January or February. They came and replaced the windows in March, but there were two broken frames and several sashes with imperfections. They came a couple of weeks ago with the replacements, only for one sash to have broken glass. I had also found the same etching on the inside of the glass in the mean time, so they have two sashes to bring me. For some reason, they haven’t come looking for the balance owed while they’re still not installing complete windows, which I appreciate, but also would have understood if they wanted their payment. At some point in the near future, about $5k will be added to the credit card balance for that. It’s on a 0% interest credit card so that we can manage our cashflow and not have to pay that off until the promotional rate expires (this is a regular thing we do, and I have posts about it). It would seem there’s a high probability our next promotional rate credit card we open is for braces because we’re at that age now – eek.

This past month, I paid multiple insurance premiums for rental properties and our car insurance (which is paid twice a year). In May I had paid just under $2k for taxes on rental properties. But overall, our net worth is higher than last month.

Now I’m off to make a lunch for my camp kid, get her across town to camp, tear up some more tenant basement flooring, play some pickleball, and maybe lay on the couch for a quick minute before I go across town for her camp pick up and a 90 minute gymnastics sessions.

Kansas City Trip

mrsonedollarallowanceLeave a comment

After we take a trip, I like to document our spending and activities. For one, it helps me keep track of where we’ve been and what we did there. But also, it’s meant to show that you can take a trip without extravagant spending.

Mr. ODA and I have a plan to see all the baseball stadiums. I’ve been to 15. He has a few more from childhood. He thought it would be good to get to a new stadium as our Spring Break travel. Kansas City is about 9 hours away, meaning it’s driving distance and we don’t need to pay for 5 flights. We didn’t do much research, but found things to do there. We also took a day to go to Topeka and see the Capitol, which is another favorite thing for me.

WHAT TO DO

Topeka was just over an hour away, so we went there for a day. Honestly, Kansas City was so sketchy feeling that it was a nice break to be somewhere else. We visited the Capitol and did 2 tours (Dome Tour and the regular free historic tour), both of which were free. We then stopped by the Brown v Board of Education site, where we spent a considerable amount of time. We finished up with a stop at the airport where they had an Army museum.

For the Royals Game, they had a Sunday family pass where it was $20 per person. That included upper level seats, a hot dog, a soda, and parking. There’s a monopoly on parking there, which was $21 on it’s own. So we spent $100 on the tickets. Then we spent $6 on coins for the outfield experience, where the kids were able to play putt putt and ride the carousel, which was adorable. We like walking around the whole concourse at stadiums. I was nervous that there wasn’t much to see at this stadium, but the outfield experience was a nice surprise out there. On Sundays, they also let the kids run the bases, so that was a fun experience for them. They went from 1st to 3rd and got a coupon for a free ice cream cone at the end.

There was a WWI Memorial Tower, which was $6 per person to go to the top. I thought we were climbing stairs, but it was an elevator ride. Kids 5 and under were free, so the total cost of this was $18.

We went to the money museum in the Federal Reserve building there. That was really cool, free, and definitely worth the visit. We got to see the vault and how they count money.

Street Car is free. Our house was 2 blocks from the stop. It would have been an easy walk if there weren’t 3 little kids involved. The first block was really long, and the second block was straight up hill. So we opted to drive the two blocks and park right by the stop, but that saved us from paying for parking downtown. Although, there were hardly any people there, so it wasn’t like we would have struggled to find parking, just that we’d have to pay for it.

We tried exploring the city. We stopped at the river walk. There’s a nice mural down there, but otherwise not much of interest. We stopped at the library. It was pretty, and the kids appreciated the ability to play in the kids section and read some books. They were fairly disappointed that they couldn’t check out a book!

We stopped at the art museum. It was free, but it was a real art museum, which is not conducive to 3 little kids. They did great, and they’re not crazy. But man… you don’t realize how many times a kid just casually rubs their hand along something until you’re in a place where you can’t even touch the walls that are holding the art! They had a sculpture garden, so we got to run and have fun after the tension of being inside. There is also an art alley in the city. It’s graffiti art and worth a look, but it doesn’t feel safe when you’re there, so keep your head on a swivel.

We walked the mall, which had a cute little dinosaur exhibit for the kids to play at. And we walked around Union Station. If you have time to kill and want to spend money, there’s plenty for families to do there, but that wasn’t of interest to our type of trip (e.g., childrens museum).

TOTAL COST: $1,577

The AirBnB was a struggle, but it ended up costing $1,077. We had a place booked for about a week, and then she cancelled on us at 6 pm the night before our arrival. The silver lining was that we didn’t get there and have to move to a different place (which we’ve done before). She said the house was without water, but we weren’t able to corroborate that with the city’s water outage map. We contacted AirBnB to address the fact that this was a huge inconvenience, and that there wasn’t anything else in the same price range and location that we wanted. AirBnB was amazing (albeit slow) to work with, and they were very helpful. We were awake until 11 pm trying to solve that situation. They gave us a huge credit to a place in the same location to bring it to about the same price as the original booking. Note that AirBnB owners are able to charge whatever they want under the ‘tax’ section, and that’s not dictated by the area they’re in, which I find fascinating. One place had a 28% tax added, even though everyone else in the area was around 16%.

As we drove in, we were a bit concerned about the area. Houses were boarded up and the whole area just looked desolate. When we got to the house, I happened to check a window and see that it was unlocked. I then proceeded to check the rest of the windows only to find that in a 3 story building, only 3 windows were locked upon our arrival. That gave me an eerie feeling and clouded the trip. One window couldn’t even be locked because I could hold the locking mechanism in my hand. It took them until the last full day of our trip to get there with 2 screws to put it together, so that was annoying. We also had a weird experience on the last night where it sounded like someone was trying to enter via the key pad. That brings me to another AirBnB complaint: there should be a way to lock guests into the house at night. I don’t like that there’s no extra locking mechanism on top of the keypad once I’m inside.

Kansas City gas was $3.29-3.39, while Lexington KY was sitting at $3.99. That was a nice surprise when we got there. Our total gas cost was $125.

We eat most of our meals at the AirBnB when we travel. Three little kids who are picky eaters just doesn’t yield to much fun when we go to a restaurant. We did travel into Kansas for a BBQ meal. Otherwise, we grabbed quick meals on the go or ate at the house. This kept our eating expense to $251 for a family of 5, gone for 5 days.

OVERALL

The officials there seem to be working on the city. I don’t know if it’s related to FIFA hosting or just a general need to build it back up, and what this place may have been a few years ago. The city itself is actually very clean. There wasn’t trash and graffiti all over. But it gave a very heavy ‘abandoned’ feeling. There were hardly any professionals walking around during the work day. There were hardly any cars parked on the street or in the garages. The Census claims over 500k people in the city limits, and I absolutely didn’t get that feeling. There was a large homeless population. As the week wore on, I realized they really kept to themselves. They weren’t asking for handouts and they just existed around us, but it was overwhelming when we first got there.

We’ve been really busy around here, so my goal of the trip was to relax and not feel rushed. We brought the kids’ scooters and let them play outside at the house a good bit. We never felt rushed to get to the next place and were happy just seeing the sights versus doing things that we could do at home (like a childrens museum).