loss of income

Year in Review

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MY YEAR

This year was nothing like I expected it to be going into it. I’m not usually one to say it’s been a hard year or look for a “new start” with a new year, but this last year was challenging. For one, raising 3 kids is not for the weak. But I started the year on an HOA board, working as a financial consultant for a few hours, and serving on the city’s Landlord Advisory Board. I eventually handed the Landlord Advisory Board off to Mr. ODA and let go of the financial consultant work, but ended up on 3 HOA boards. Lucky for me, one of the boards has someone who works even harder than me, so that’s requiring very little time of mine. The last board sucked me in because the same management company works with me in my own neighborhood, but that also doesn’t take much time. And with all that, let’s not forget that I took on a part time job.

When I left my career in 2019, I had no intentions of working “long term.” That was the goal from the start – get rental properties to cover my salary, and not work again. Well, it turns out, my brain likes a challenge (and a different one than figuring out why a child is whining for the 687th time today). I’ve held several temporary positions (e.g., Census, horse race meets) that fill some time, make a little money, and then I move on. When I was approached with an offer to work in an office on a set schedule, I cried. That was the furthest thing I wanted. I laid out all my expectations, particularly that my kids come first and I quit working so I could be at all their activities, and they obliged. I’m severely overqualified for the position, but I know I’m helping. I have a strong desire to help people. Ten months in, and I’m still there about 22 hours per week. It doesn’t seem like it’s a lot, but it takes away my flexibility. Having to coordinate that I want to be at a kid’s activity during work hours is frustrating. The work that I’m doing have daily deadlines, so even on the day’s that I’m only supposed to be putting an hour or two in, I still have that hanging over my head.

On top of all the things I was managing, Mr. ODA took the Deferred Resignation Program. He stopped working on April 30th, and we collected a pay check until the beginning of October. It was a blessing that he wasn’t working because we didn’t need to figure out childcare for the kids over the summer while I was working part time. But it’s had its own challenges navigating the change in expectations and daily dynamic that we’re still learning.

FAMILY

We basically let the kids do one activity each, but there’s wiggle room. So during the last school year, our oldest did an after school activity that met once per week (e.g., checkers, kickball) and baseball. I absolutely love going to the ball field. Our middle has held steady at gymnastics for just over a year, which is once per week. Our youngest is gigantic and athletic, but he only just turned 3 so he hasn’t been eligible for any sports yet. His big news of the year is that, after being waitlisted at the start of the school year, he’s now going to preschool twice per week. He started that in December, and it’ll go halfway through May.

We tried our hand at camping with the kids and dog, and it went very well. We went on a cruise and visited western KY, WV, NY twice, and OH. We took the kids skiing multiple times, and they did really well.

FINANCIALS

Mr. ODA had a 6 figure job with the government. That pay check, as I mentioned, covered through the end of September. I worked as a consultant for a school startup, worked part time nearly all of the year, and subbed a few times at the kid’s old preschool; these things brought in over $22k.

We did quite a few things to bring in extra income throughout the year too. I consigned some of kids things and brought in about $800 to offset Christmas. The credit card rewards we took in was over $2k. Mr. ODA does ‘shops’ (secret shopper), which brought in just under $1500. Some of that payment accounted for food reimbursement, but we see it as a way to eat at a restaurant as a family of 5 without it being ridiculously expensive. Then other random reimbursements from companies that we were owed are added in, and our “additional income” (i.e., income that I did not project at the beginning of the year) totaled over $43k. Each year, it ends up being around this number that we bring in outside of wages and rental income.

SUMMARY

This is really just a way to account for the crazy that was 2025. We accomplished a lot. It came at a cost of family dynamic and happiness. But now that we’re a few months into 2026, I see a light at the end of the tunnel. We have some changes that we’re making, and I am hopeful that I’ll have my flexibility back, and the ability to do things that brought me joy back in 2024.

Tenant Abandonment

mrsonedollarallowance2 Comments

Most lease agreements state that you’re responsible for the entirety of the lease term, even if you try to leave early. Most landlords are willing to work out an agreement if you have a reason to leave the house early. We’ve let several people out of their leases early to either move out of the area or buy a new home (those are just the reasons we’ve dealt with, not saying those are the only reasons we’d let you out of a lease).

We usually default to two-months worth of rent as a “lease break fee.” You leaving early has increased our projected expenses for the house because turning over a house is expensive and you’re asking us to have more time without rental income. With that said, we’ve also left it at “you pay rent up until we get a new tenant in the house.” I’ve never taken more than a week to get a new tenant set up in a house, but my property managers (through companies, not the individual person we use in Virginia) consistently take 2 months to get a unit rented (I don’t get it!).

Then there are some people who just leave. No notice. No request. They abandon the property and stop communicating. Surprisingly, we’ve dealt with this twice in the last 6 years.

The positive, they’re mostly out of the house, and we can take action to get it re-rented, which is better than them living in the house while not paying rent. The negative, we’ve had no warning of their intent to stop paying rent. Plus, if a tenant is willing to just walk away from a house, s/he may not be leaving it in pristine condition.

ABANDONMENT #1

The first tenant abandonment ended well. In Virginia, if the house is abandoned for 7 days, it automatically returns to the landlord’s possession without the court getting involved.

I received a call from the public school system. They asked me if I was the owner and if so-and-so was living at this address. I truly could not answer. My property manager did the background check and set up the lease. I basically look at the lease to ensure the dates are correct and that all the initials and signatures are in place, but I certainly don’t commit names to memory. I gave the person my property manager’s contact. Connecting the dots, she must have confirmed the name of the tenant and the address because the tenant received notice that his children were no longer allowed to attend a school they were not districted for. This happened years ago. I always thought it was odd that they called in April to verify such a thing, when there was 4-5 weeks of school left. But then I was just telling this story last night, and someone said that if the kids are not causing trouble, they typically look the other way. So perhaps there was an underlying reason for the school system to go digging.

Well anyway, in true logical decision making, he blamed us for getting his kids kicked out of school. If I didn’t know his name, I certainly didn’t know how many kids he had or where he was sending them.

He let us know he was moving out, but he wasn’t cooperative. He said he’d be out by a certain date in May 2017, but he didn’t have everything cleared out. We finally got stern with him. By the end of May, he hadn’t paid what he agreed to, so we filed with the court.

We worked to get the house turned over in the last week of May, and we had new tenants move in on June 1st. We were only out 1 month worth of rent along with the costs of turnover. His security deposit covered a majority of the balance owed, so it wasn’t an immediate hit to our finances.

The court granted us the judgement. The total he owed was $1,074.76. Unfortunately, the judgement just writes the amount owed and whether interest is owed, but it doesn’t give a deadline for payment. The system expects the two parties to work together to make a payment plan. If he doesn’t live up to the payment plan, then we can go to the court and file for another judgement. We received $200 immediately from him, and then agreed to $200 every other Friday for the remaining $875.

He missed the second payment. We sent an email explaining that if he doesn’t reach out, our property manager will go to the court to file, which will then lead to a credit report hit and collections. He eventually started making a few payments, but I should have stuck to my guns and required 4-5 payments. In mid-November, he still had a balance owed of $685, plus 6% interest from the date on the judgement. We eventually got all the money he owed, but it took a year, and it was frustrating to constantly have to track him down and push him to finish the payment plan.

ABANDONMENT #2

The second abandonment just happened. In March, our property manager was tipped off by a neighbor that our tenant was moving out. Our property manager asked if he was moving out, and he denied it. Then he didn’t pay April’s rent, so she continued to follow up, but received no responses. I am not clear why it took until April 12 to decide to post notice to enter the property, and then why she didn’t actually enter the property until April 18, but that’s what happened. That’s 18 days of lost rent and lost productivity for us to turnover the unit. That’s $555 worth of rent that is just lost. We could have been working on cleaning out the house during that time.

Our property manager entered the unit and took pictures. She found that the tenant had left some furniture and garbage behind, but it was clear enough that he left and wasn’t returning. The house was also in bad shape. All the walls required a new coat of paint. The floors were filthy, as if things were spilled all over, never cleaned up, never vacuumed, and he left all the windows open for water to leak in. The kitchen was covered in fruit fly type bugs. The bathrooms were so horrendous that I refused to even be in the house until they got cleaned. It was impressively dirty. I always wonder how people live in such conditions. This is YOUR toilet. Why would you enter this room and think “yes, this is where I want to sit!”

The property management company had their staff remove the pieces of furniture and garbage from the house. Then they wiped down baseboards so that I could start painting. It was so bad when I entered that I had them get a professional cleaner in there before I’d spend much time there. I painted all 3 levels (including two stairwells), except for 1 bathroom and 3 closets. Then we got carpet cleaners in there and some maintenance items taken care of.

It was an extra 3 weeks worth of work that we did ourselves and coordination with contractors to get the house turned over. We lost April’s rent, and then we were set up to lose May’s rent. We didn’t get the house listed until May 6th, and then we didn’t get a confirmed renter until May 25th, for them to start a June 1st lease.

The silver linings here are that we improved the condition of the property over those 3 weeks; we could have lost even more weeks of rent, but we were lucky to find someone that wanted it nearly immediately; we have the unit rented $275 more per month than we had it leased for. Had we kept it rented through the end of the lease, we would have brought in about the same amount for the year that we’re bringing in now with the increase in rent, even though we lose 2 months worth of rent.

The tenant’s final cost, being billed for April, May, and June rent (I don’t know why the management company chose to include June), is $3,868.12. That’s after applying his security deposit to the balance owed. We probably won’t see a dime of that. If a tenant is willing to lie that they’re moving out, and then not respond to anything being sent after that, they’re not willing to work with us on a payment plan. We didn’t have any maintenance issues with the house, and we didn’t think he was unhappy with anything. Granted, I don’t know if our property manager was not responding to issues, but we weren’t aware of any. This house is in Kentucky, so we don’t have a grasp on how the court system works like we do in Virginia.

While it’s stressful and frustrating, eventually you move on. Once the house is re-rented, you start to feel better about the situation. Each day that you’re working on the house and each day there’s no application received for the property, you just keep building anxiety. While the first situation ended well in that we eventually received all our lost money, I don’t expect this second abandonment to end as well. Our long term (or more like 1-2 year short term) plan is to sell this property, so we’ll recoup that in the equity made over the last 6+ years with the house.