financial update

November Financial Update

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A day late, but here we are. The market has gone up a bit, so that helped our net worth increase, even though we had a $10k increase in our credit card balances because we replaced the carpet in our house. Again, we opened a new credit card for this large purchase, which will give us 15 months of 0% interest. While we could pay the balance now, it’s a strategy to allow us to keep more liquid cash and earn interest on the money.

We have a tenant that only recently paid October’s rent, and has paid about $200 towards November rent as of today. I’m frustrated, but I have another post that will go into all the details for that. I can be understanding and work with you, but only if you talk to me. She doesn’t communicate, and she hasn’t upheld any part of what she said she’s going to do about payments.

I had one tenant ask me about moving out early, but we haven’t pursued anything yet. I have another tenant who is under contract on a house, so we’re waiting for notice from them. We knew they were looking for a house to purchase, so we structured our lease to allow them out of the lease at any time. It’s unfortunate for our timing that it’ll probably be a January/February rental now, but I’m happy for them moving on to their next phase of life.

I had to pay two small tax payments to a local jurisdiction this month, and then also paid taxes on one of our properties (luckily they still take credit cards with no fee, so we get rewards for that payment!). I’ve had to pay several medical bills (for myself) over the past month, which has been annoying. All that money to bills, only for there to be no answers.

We went to a local ski mountain to look for ski boots for my new-to-me skis that I purchased. In the process, we ended up buying the two older kids skis and boots, along with season passes for the family. So medical bills, ski equipment and passes, tax payments, and Christmas gifts have our credit cards high now (even without the 10k+ for carpet).

October Financial Update

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Our net worth took a hit this month, over $96k less than last month. I updated the value of each house we own. I don’t do this regularly anymore because it doesn’t change significantly month-to-month and it’s very time consuming. The market is cooling from the multiple-bid market we were in over the last few years, so home values are starting to come down ever so slightly. They’re still much higher than what they were 3 years ago (and I have tax assessments to prove the pain of that), but it does affect our net worth this month since it’s lower than it had been.

Also affecting our net worth is the market itself. It’s down, which it does around this time every year (confirmed through the history of my financial update posts). Our investment accounts are slightly down, our cash is significantly down because I paid off a large credit card balance and because Mr. ODA has transferred to a Treasury account for some of it, and our investment property values are down.

We opened a new credit card this month because we have purchased new carpet for our house (our entire second floor except 2 bathrooms, the stairs, and the living room all add up very quickly). As I’ve shared numerous times, when we’re about to have a large purchase, we look to open a new credit card that we can use as a loan. Sure, we have the cash available to pay this immediately, but wouldn’t it be nice to earn interest on your cash balance for 12-15 months and get some sort of sign-on bonus from the company?

I paid off our last 0% interest credit card at the end of September. But our credit card balance is still slightly higher than I’d expect because I haven’t paid last month’s statement on one, which is almost $3,000. I used to try to pay off all balances before doing a net worth update so that it was the most accurate, but now that we’re keeping Mr. ODA’s paycheck separate and trying to capitalize on interest to earn, credit cards aren’t paid until the last minute. We’re also still carrying about $30k worth of insurance money that we can’t seem to spend because State Farm is doing their hardest to drag their feet and restart our claims process each week.

I have a house that hasn’t paid a penny towards rent this month. She did let us know that it’ll be paid in October some time (no date or expectation given to me is infuriating). If she doesn’t pay something tomorrow (assuming we’re two Fridays into the month for pay checks), I’ll give a warning about the notice of default being given.

September Financial Update

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RENTAL FINANCES

It’s the calm before the storm with rental payments. We’ll owe multiple jurisdictions’ tax payments over the next month. We only have 5 houses with an escrow account, so I’m responsible for insurance and tax payments on my own. I don’t mind it because that means I don’t have to keep money tied up in an escrow account balance, but it does mean that there are large outlays multiple times a year that need to be properly accounted for.

I recently made a post about late rent payments this month. The one who I continue to charge late fees didn’t even pay on the day they said they would. I despise having to hunt tenants down for payment. She emailed me that “September 5th payment” would be late (ugh … it’s due on the 1st, maybe plan for that day instead), she said it would be paid on the 8th. I had to ask on the morning of the 9th where the payment was. I was giving her a few hours to respond and planned to send a notice of default. Lucky for them, I got distracted and busy, and I didn’t get around to it. They finally responded Saturday night that they had lost power and were distracted, but they sent payment then.

I paid out the invoice from our handyman that I had been waiting on, which was $810. I had mentioned that I’m waiting for an invoice from our HVAC guy, but I think he’s not charging me for the service since he had to go back after installing a new condenser. I’m STILL waiting on the roofer to complete the job on one rental. I signed the proposal on July 5th. He finally started the job at the end of August, but decided to change my scope of work without approval. That delayed the project another week. Then I have no idea what has happened over the past week and a half, but supposedly it’s finally done.

A plumber came out for a hot water heater issue at one of the properties. The tankless water heater wasn’t powered on. I don’t even know how that happens, but it seems like something that may become a bigger issue. The company even said they don’t service or work on electric tankless water heaters, so I don’t even know where we would go from here.

PERSONAL FINANCES

In my last financial update, I mentioned that our insurance adjuster had finally came out, three weeks after the tree falling on our deck. He took a week to get us the estimate. We then responded the next day with all the errors and omissions in the estimate. It then took 3 weeks for our email to be acknowledged (even with multiple phone calls). We finally escalated this two weeks ago (State Farm doesn’t make it easy to escalate beyond your desk adjuster answer the phone), had an estimate redone by our adjuster (supposedly) about 12 days ago, who then told us the supervisor approval process would be 3-4 days. Giving the holiday of Labor Day and benefit of doubt, we didn’t push it until Monday, hoping they’d do the right thing and get us information. Mr. ODA saw that we had been reassigned a field adjuster on their portal. So guess what? For an event that occurred over 10 weeks ago, we’re starting over! Lovely.

I paid the kids’ tuition for preschool late. Luckily there’s no late fee charged. The school “opens” links each month. I tried to pay it around the 20th of August for September because I knew the last two weeks were going to be crazy with visitors. When I couldn’t pay it that day, I completely forgot about it. I was part of the “hey, you didn’t pay” email from the director – so embarrassing. Our oldest is going 5 days a week, so now his tuition is $350 per month; our second’s tuition is $175 per month.

Our 0% introductory interest rate on our credit card we opened 15 months ago expires at the end of this month, so that’s over $5k that needs to be paid. Then our credit card statement balance owed on our regular card is about $4,800 because of large rental property expenses. I haven’t paid it yet because I need to transfer money from savings, so I’m waiting until the last minute to do that so we can earn interest on that amount.

NET WORTH

Nothing too exciting to note here. Credit cards are still high, but that will be significantly different next month with our 0% interest card being paid off.

I asked Mr. ODA for his 401k updated amount yesterday, and he made a comment that I should wait to update until today because the market went up yesterday. I had already done the majority of the work, but an ailment and children meant I didn’t get to posting yesterday. So this morning, I updated just our investment account totals to see the difference. The chart above is yesterday’s numbers. Today’s 401k, IRA, and taxable investment account totals are $10,000 higher today than yesterday. That means that if I had updated the numbers today instead of yesterday, we’d be showing an increase in net worth from last month’s update by about $6,000. Instead, I’m showing a slightly lower net worth by about $4,000. It just goes to show how much the market can affect the numbers on any given day, and my net worth in trending generally upwards, but it may not seem that way because of one day’s market closure.

August Financial Update

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It’s getting to be that time of year when large payments need to be made. I’m projecting out our account to cover several tax payments in October and December. I’m also paying insurance amounts, such as $1500 for two houses that’s currently on the credit card. We also have about $5,000 sitting on that 0% interest credit card that will need to be paid off by October 1st (when the 0% incentive expires).

Our credit card balances are higher than average because of rental payments. In addition to the insurance payments, we had an invoice come in that I knew was going to be high. We paid for the water line from the street to the house on a rental to be replaced, which was $3,080.

June and July were rough sick months on us, so now I’m paying those medical bills almost daily it seems. We reached our deductible early this year, so these are just the coinsurance amounts; those $5-20 payments add up though.

Our insurance adjuster finally came out, three weeks after the incident. He literally said “I’m not a contractor, and I’m not from here so I don’t know the codes,” and then proceeded to do the estimate wrong. He was missing items, called things the wrong thing (like a Trex water proofing system that costs $1500 just for materials, he called it a “vapor barrier” and put $190). Now we’re waiting on a second adjuster to come out and meet the deck contractor to go through what actually needs to be done. All the while, our 3 year old keeps sadly saying “I don’t like our broken deck.”

I had to call a medical provider and get some money back. I told them I didn’t want to pay in advance because then I have to call them to get my money back. They said “we’re good about sending it back” and said “it’s simple, it’s just 5% of the total cost.” I said “the total cost isn’t what the insurance allowance is, so whatever I pay you will end up being less.” So now I had to take time out of my day, after giving them a month to do it on their own, to call with 3 kids in the background making noise, and get my $5 back. But then there was a surprise where another urgent care that we saw almost a year ago sent me back the $20 I paid them. That one had slipped through the cracks on me. I had noted that I overpaid them, but then I had a baby!

We had two rentals not be able to pay rent on time this month. One was able to pay on the 12th, which they did. Another paid what they could, and I’m still waiting on the rest. I actually told them to catch up as they could because I didn’t want them to not be able to get their 3 kids ready for school. I’m waiting on an invoice from our handyman for work he’s done on multiple houses, an invoice from an HVAC guy who did work weeks ago, and a roofer to start his job that’s been two months in the making.

Our overall net worth went down slightly from last month because of market fluctuation. Our cash increased by over $30k, but that’s because we received a check from our insurance company to replace our deck after a tree fell on it last month. Some of that is going towards replacing furniture that has been bought already (so it’s on a credit card), and some of it is a reimbursement for the outlay I already made to remove the trees that fell on the deck and fence, but some of it is still to be paid out when the deck is replaced. In the meantime, we’re earning interest in our savings account on it at least.

July Financial Update

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I looked back to last year’s July to see what was going on.

We had just bought our new house, demoed the master bathroom, and started painting a bunch of the new house. We were transporting two toddlers back and forth for all the work to be done. I was also talking about a vacant house and being rid of a non-rent-payer. The tenant that moved in then caused tens of thousands of damage with a burst pipe, and now we have a new renter in there.

And now…

We had a big wind storm come through on the 2nd. It knocked down several trees, including one on our deck. We’ve had 4 companies come out for quotes for replacement, and we’re waiting on the adjuster this week.

I have a whole separate post regarding all that’s going on with the rentals, so I’ll leave that for a separate post.

Most interesting to me is that in the last year, without any major moves (like purchasing a new rental house or paying off a mortgage), we’ve increased our net worth by over $300k. Looking back at July 2021, we’re almost $900k higher than then.

Since last month, we paid out a $22k bill that was owed from January for cleaning up the house that got flooded (there were several delays in insurance agreeing to the company’s invoice), but the market increases have netted us a gain of $16k still.

June Financial Update

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Gosh, where did I leave off?

Our savings account is still earning over 4% interest. Therefore, bills are being paid as close to the due date as possible, while we manage to keep the savings account balance higher. Back in December, we had a pipe burst in a rental house. The insurance quickly paid out on the estimated damages, but we didn’t need to pay the repair company in full until last week. Additionally, there was an issue with the invoice from the company that cleaned up the water, and so that was only just set to be paid today.

When we have large purchase(s) looming, we look to open a new credit card with rewards and 0% interest. We opened one last Fall, and I pay $500 towards it each statement cycle. I believe we have until October to pay in full before interest begins accruing. I’ll continue to pay $500 until I need to pay it in full in a few months (or if we need to reduce our debt usage because another house purchase is to be made … not that we have any plans to, but Mr. ODA is always looking).

We have a few projects lingering out there that will cost us a decent amount to accomplish (e.g., water main line repair, tree removal, new roof). We also don’t have any plans to make big financial moves in the near future (e.g., no home purchases, no loan pay offs).

The market has recovered in the past few months, so our net worth has made a jump. It’s the first decent increase in a while. Our cash has decreased, logically, since we were holding cash that was for accounts payable. Our credit card totals have decreased substantially since February as well.

Hiatus Update

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Over the past year, I tried really hard to stay on top of sharing content here, until I finally had to throw in the towel. It started because we were renovating a house while I was pregnant and had two kids to take care of, so my posts dwindled down to just the net worth updates. Then Mr. ODA started investing in treasury accounts. There was so much movement of money in so many different accounts, that I couldn’t quickly update our net worth anymore. Other than updates of the net worth and rental property work, my last post was August 2022. I feel like I have the bandwidth to finish several posts that I’ve started, so I’m back.

NEW HOME

In May 2022, a house went on the market in our desired area of town. We weren’t ready to leave our house since we hadn’t owned it for two years yet, but this was an opportunity that was hard to pass up. We closed on the new house in June 2022. We floated the down payment through a Home Equity Line of Credit that was paid off through the sale of our house.

We spent the whole summer traveling back and forth between our then-current house and the new house because we had a lot of work to do on the new house. We demolished the master bathroom and started rebuilding that. I painted almost the entire house. We did a lot of little projects. It was a tiring time that culminated in having to do the physical move in the Fall and get the new house organized and set up.

NEW BABY

I was pregnant through all of the home renovations and move. Our son came 3 weeks early on Thanksgiving day. He was generally healthy, but he required extra medical attention than we weren’t used to with the first two. On top of that, he wanted to be held to be asleep; babies sleep a lot. Mr. ODA and I were taking turns holding the baby and sleeping. The two older kids basically survived on tv shows and chicken nuggets during this blur of life. Going from 0 to 1, and from 1 to 2 kids was pretty easy, but this 3rd kid was a new ballgame. Once he was 5 months old, I started working on getting him to sleep independently. Now that he’s 7 months old, he sleeps well in his crib for his naps and through the night; he’s happy during the day and plays well; and now I feel like a new person for actually getting rest and not being tied to a couch all day everyday. Mr. ODA took a lot of time off to help me through that phase. As he started working again, it was an adjustment for me to learn how to manage all 3 kids and the household.

PERSONAL

We had several trips last summer on top of the renovations that we were working on. Those created delays in us having the house ready for us to move. Then our oldest got sick and it turned into an issue in his leg so he couldn’t walk at all for about 2 weeks and couldn’t walk right for about 8 weeks. It was a rough time. He got better just as I was about to have the baby.

As we started to get into the swing of things with all 3 kids and coming out of winter, my mom got sick. She went downhill quickly in March and ended up passing away on my birthday this year. That was unexpected and emotionally draining. We just got back from a trip to see my family, and I feel like I’m more put together than I had been over the last 3 months.

In April, we had to submit our taxes. This is always a several hour process. I had documented in the past, but I just didn’t have time to juggle it this year. I have to verify that I’ve recorded all expenses, that I haven’t recorded expenses that aren’t supported by documentation (e.g., receipt), that my summaries are logical, and then it takes Mr. ODA and I 5-6 hours worth of entering data to actually submit.

Then we added swim lessons and soccer for the kids. We quit soccer early because it just wasn’t fun for our oldest (or us), and 3 months of swim lessons are over. Now our only commitment is whether or not we want to attend library story time for a half hour each week, and I’m appreciating the open schedule.

BUSINESS

The rentals have required a lot more than usual attention from us in the past year. We had a house flood from a burst pipe, so that had to be cleaned out, renovated, and re-rented. We had several plumbing and HVAC issues among multiple houses, as well as a raccoon removal issue. We had roof damage to a house, a tree fall on a house, and another tree fall in the yard of three different houses, all because of storms. We had to turnover a house, where the tenant had lived there for several years, had made changes that were not appropriate, and would not communicate effectively on her status of leaving. It has been a lot more than usual, requiring a lot of time to manage.

On top of the maintenance requests and the usual management of the properties, I also took over the management of the properties that are in Central KY in February. I was spending so much time managing the property manager, that it was finally time for me to just handle it.

Not that you needed all this background, but I felt weird just jumping back into content. We’ve been very busy in general, but adding a 3rd kid into the mix was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I finally feel like I can manage everything again, and I’ve had more and more thoughts for things to share.

February Financial Update

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Well, Mr. ODA didn’t like that I shared I didn’t know where our money was last month. They’re all kinds of Treasury accounts, and I’n just logging the transactions and leaving him to it. 🙂 I don’t have a lot of bandwidth these days, but I’m learning to juggle 3 kids and our finances.

PERSONAL FINANCES

We bought a new van this month. We’ve been wanting a new one for a while now. We bought our 2017 Pacifica in September 2020. It was a great deal, and it was a necessity as we were about to spend 7 weeks “homeless” and AirBnB/couch hoping. The car had some defects. We decided we’d keep an eye out for a newer version. Suddenly, Mr. ODA found a good deal on a 2020 Pacifica that had more options than we were actually looking for. We drove to Ohio about 36 hours later. They made us a good deal for our trade-in, and we went home with a new van! We put some of the purchase on two credit cards and then the balance with a personal check.

We’re currently paying close attention to credit card deadlines and our savings account. Where I used to pay a credit card bill almost after the statement closed so that it wasn’t hanging out there and I wouldn’t accidentally miss a deadline, I’m now leaving money in our savings account as long as possible. Our savings account is now earning 4% on the balance, so we’re seeing a significant amount of interest each month. I’m juggling managing our bills as close to their due date as possible, while also projecting future bills necessary since there’s a limit of 6 transfers out of the savings account per month.

All that was to point out that our credit card balances are high right now because of the van purchase, but the credit card statement hasn’t closed yet. Instead of paying the credit card balances down right now, the money is sitting in savings earning interest for 4-6 weeks between the purchase, to the statement closing, to the statement’s due date. More directly, we put $3,000 on one credit card for the van purchase. That was on 2/7. That statement, once it closes, will not have a due date until 4/20. That means that the money put on the credit card can sit in savings earning interest for about 70 days.

We also had to pay the initial payment for the restoration services on the rental that had a burst pipe. So while the insurance company sent us a check to cover the cost of this work, it’s still $17k sitting on our credit card, not being paid until the last minute. I should also note that our cash balance is inflated by about $50k because it’s the money from the insurance company that we’re waiting to pay the contractor as milestones are completed.

Had I seemed nonchalant about the plan? Because I’m definitely not. 🙂 I need to stay on top of how many transfers happen per month out of the savings account (while Mr. ODA randomly pulls money for investments), and not miss any deadlines and cost us interest charges or late payment marks on our credit. It’s stressful! Since we’re not doing anything that requires our credit to be pulled right now, it’s fine. If we were having our credit checked, having multiple cards nearly maxed out would be a problem. But we know we have the cash available to pay off all the credit cards if we needed to.

RENTAL FINANCES

I finally got through to someone on the issue with the improperly installed water heater. He says he submitted all the paperwork to send us a check for $200 to cover the plumber we paid to fix their issue. I haven’t seen any paperwork, nor have I received the check, but I’ll keep it on my radar and follow up in a couple of weeks.

I made all the decisions on the restoration of our flooded house. We’re expecting to hear a timeline for work to start next week, and then it’ll take about 40 working days to get the work done.

I paid a warranty for termites on another house. We had an infestation when we purchased the house, but we didn’t pay the warranty information. Our tenants found swarmers, and when we called to ask about treatment, they said they’d let us backpay the warranty and invoke that. We have a good relationship with this company and appreciated that offer, so we’re staying on top of the warranty payments now. The payment is $98 per year.

We received a surprise in the mail – the tenant had turned off the electric in the flooded house back on January 12th. The power company is supposed to notify me. I received an email on February 6th notifying me of an action on the account. So this was in my name from 1/12 to 2/1 for me to be billed $255 without my knowledge. Not to mention, there’s a bill hanging out there from 2/2 until the present that I’ll also get billed for. Mr. ODA sent our property management excerpts from the lease indicating that the utilities must be in their name for the entirety of the lease, that they’re responsible for this bill, and that they must get it back in their name immediately. We’ll see how that plays out.

RENTAL WORK

I picked up the keys from our property manager for the 3 houses I took over managing. I also worked on a rental here in town this week, which took about an hour including travel time, and I have another to work on later this week, which will be about 2 hours worth of work.

I sent a prospective tenant the pre-application we have, which he passed, so I sent him the application to submit. If all goes well, we’ll have that house re-rented with no vacancy period.

We have 3 leases that end at the end of April. We put a requirement that tenants give us 60 days notice, or that we give 60 days notice of any changes. That means that these leases need acknowledgement by the end of this month. So I ran the analysis on those 3 houses. We decided to increase the rent on 2 of them by $50 per month, each, and we’ll keep another house the same since it was increased last year. One house actually had an increase last year, but that house is well below market value, so we’re offering them to continue the lease with an increase because if they were to move out, we could get even more from the house based on it’s size and demographics. The 2 houses we’re increasing have a property manager, so she’s responsible for notification and signing an addendum before the end of the month. But once again, I need to manage the property manager and ensure we have action on time.

NET WORTH

January Financial Update

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Life is different these days. Our 3rd child was born on Thanksgiving, and we’ve been finishing up some projects around the house. We’ve had a few things happen with rentals, and, basically, I’m just tapped out to keep up with blogging. Mr. ODA asked me what our net worth is at these days, and so I’m updating our spreadsheet.

“JANUARY”

It’s January, so that means I have to create my two main Excel workbooks for the year: the paycheck to paycheck monitoring of our expected income and expenses, and the management of each rental property. The paycheck to paycheck spreadsheet is where I have a line item for each house’s rental income each month, each house’s mortgage payment (where applicable), and then all our bills owed (credit cards, utilities, investments). I break this down by paycheck because that’s the easiest way for me to make sure I have enough income to offset the bills owed during that two-week period. That worksheet in that workbook feeds my net worth calculations, where I also update loan balances. There is actually several tabs in this workbook, but those are the main two. I finally got that all set up today. I haven’t even started creating the investment property workbook.

January also means I have to go through last year’s investment property workbook to verify all the expenses listed are supported by receipts, that all receipts I have are recorded, and that my income is accurate. Then I read off the data to Mr. ODA, who enters it into an online tax portal to file our taxes. I haven’t started that daunting task either.

RENTALS

We had one of our properties flooded by a burst pipe. That’s a mess and is hardly making progress because the tenant’s renters insurance can’t get the tenant property out of the house. We had an electrical issue with a hot water heater in another property. That got fixed, but now I am in a position where I have to fight Home Depot about their shoddy installation a year ago and have them reimburse the cost of rewiring. I finally moved forward with the judgement against a tenant for destruction of property, and our attorney established that collections account.

Surprisingly, we didn’t have any issues with rent payments in December or January. Usually I hear from one or two houses that they need a couple of weeks to pay all of rent. While not everyone was on time, they communicated well and were only a few days late. One tenant reached out and asked if they could pay rent on the 6th (since that’s Friday, and pay day); I told them not to worry about the late fee and that would be fine. Little gestures like that can make a big difference for your tenant’s life.

I sent a letter to our property manager for the KY houses that we’re releasing them at the end of this month, so that’s a new development that is taking my time as well. You’d think my property management company would have a way to communicate this change with the tenants, but alas, that would be too logical. Wish me luck while I add 3 more houses under my own purview. While we moved to KY two years ago, it was easier to maintain status quo with having a property manager. Unfortunately, it has taken too much of my effort to manage the property manager and to fight for our money.

PERSONAL

We finished our master bathroom in the home we bought over the summer (and the room we gutted immediately… only took 6 months to get us to the finish line… and by finish line, there’s still paint touch ups to be had). We bought all the supplies to gut and renovate the basement bathroom in this house. Mr. ODA built a bench for our kitchen table so that we have more seating easier. We made the plans to get the mudroom bench and shelves in, and hopefully those supplies will be bought this weekend.

Truthfully, while I updated most of my net worth spreadsheet in December, I never posted it because I don’t even know where all our money is. When we sold our personal residence at the beginning of November, we were handed a large check. In the past, that check type mostly went towards a downpayment on a new house, but that wasn’t the case this time. Mr. ODA immediately started investing that money in short term treasury accounts that I can’t even begin to explain. Between that account, another savings type account, and our regular investment account, I can update what I see online, but I don’t know what I may be missing. I’m hoping Mr. ODA will chime in soon to describe the type of investment decisions he’s made.

NET WORTH

Several property value assessments declined over the last couple of months. So while our investments are on the upswing from November’s update, those updates to property values have caused a decrease to our net worth.

November Financial Update

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Phew – 3rd month in a row of only a financial update. My apologies! Again, we’ve been juggling two houses, construction work on the new house, two toddlers, and my being pregnant (and exhausted).

At the beginning of the month, we closed on our old home. It wasn’t an easy process (as usual) with the title company, even down to having the wrong amount on the check at the closing table, but it all worked out. Being free of that burden has been lovely. We immediately cashed the check, but it’ll have to be a separate post for what we did (and are planning to do) with those proceeds.

RENTAL PROPERTIES

We had our court date on November 1st for the tenant that left a house with garbage and damage. She didn’t show (after providing us a fake address), so the judge ruled in our favor for the full judgement. She then has 10 days to appeal. We’re beyond that window, so I now reach out to her to establish a payment plan. If she doesn’t respond, then I file it with our attorney to proceed with garnishment.

We had a few small items to pay for with the rentals, but we have everyone’s rent that was due by now. I typically expect to see more late payments in December and January with the holidays.

NET WORTH

We’re still carrying a high balance on a 0% interest credit card. I did pay off a card that had a payment plan on it (it was free, and why not … except, I was tired of figuring out and managing new purchases versus the payment plan portion, so I just paid it all off once our proceeds came in; it was about $1100).

Our investments recovered in the market from last month, and we significantly increased the balance in our taxable accounts and cash due to investments from the proceeds of our sale.