savings

June Financial Update

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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.

$1 million 401k before age 40!

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Mr. ODA’s retirement account surpassed $1 million last month!

Mr. ODA and I worked for the federal government. Our retirement account is called the Thrift Savings Plan, but it’s essentially a 401k, and includes a 5% salary match on contributions. My parents were adamant that I put at least the amount in to get the full match, and to increase my contributions as I received raises. Mr. ODA entered into my life and said I was to max it out no matter what, and so I did. The point here being he’s maxed it out from the beginning. I worked for about 11.5 years, and he worked for about 16 years. My last contribution was May 2019, and his last contribution was October 2025.

I share this background to make the point about compound growth. The max I could have contributed over my working time was about $190k. The max Mr. ODA could contribute was about $305,000. So that means that based on $305,000 of his own money, he now has a valuation of over $1 million.

May Financial Update

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After not wanting to know the details of March’s expenses because Mr. ODA threw me a surprise party, I was pleasantly surprised to see our spending in April. Now, with that said, while my categorization of expenses cover April 1-30, my stories here go through this date in May. And May has been a doozy.

We changed our insurance carrier as of May 1. We put a concerted effort into getting some routine things out of the way before our insurance changed because we weren’t too confident in the new policy’s coverage. Mr. ODA got a physical. I got an eye exam, which is more expense ($116) due to the contact fitting, and became more expensive when we moved on to acknowledging the astigmatism that we’ve ignored for the last 5 years because it’s so slight. Then that leads to buying contacts ($300). I do need to submit the reimbursement request for the contacts that I paid out of pocket for, so at least some of that should come back.

In mid-April, I started having chest pain. That lead to us wiping out the deductible. Such unfortunate timing. We could have walked away from that policy only needing a couple of hundred applied to the deductible, and then I didn’t take care of myself while sick, so the virus attacked the wall of my heart. Lovely. My first office appointment was at a new clinic, and they said if I paid in full, they’d apply a 10% discount. I’ve had to learn to navigate the world of medical billing (even more in depth than I already had due to poorly executed claims) because of the deductible concept. So the lady’s statement was correct – I still owed about $3000 on my deductible. That’s what she billed me. That’s a normal statement for me to hear. What I hadn’t thought about was – but who will get there first? If her claim wasn’t first in line, then my deductible payment wouldn’t go to her. Narrator: she was not first in line. So now I’ve paid $3k to this company, but I only actually owe her about $900. Meanwhile, the one who was first in line now wants their payment, understandably. I’m trying to hold off on that until after the 20th so that it’s on the next credit card cycle. And through all of this, I also need to fix my log in to my old insurance account to be able to verify that they’ve even accounted for my deductible correctly because I swear I’ve overpaid my deductible the last two years due to too many claims happening at one time, but it’s convoluted and I’ve just given up tracking it both years (I know, this is against everything I tell you to do, but shew, it’s been quite the year or so around here).

On top of that, Mr. ODA works at Lowe’s, and they have a spring holiday period where employees get a 20% discount. So now there’s a ton of Lowe’s transactions on our credit card that’s inflating our spending. While the details of that will be in next month’s update, it is reflected in the net worth calculation I have here since these are current numbers.

RENTALS

We got one house rented as of May 1. That was an anticipated project, and the tenant who left had lived there for 6.5 years. We were gone the first week of April, so we ended up losing the month of income, but the actual work to turn it over took very few hours (at least compared to most of the turnover we do). There’s one more house outstanding to know if she’s renewing, and there’s one house that will turn over at the end of June. That woman moved in over the winter on a 6 month lease. She’s been extremely difficult, and I’m not sad to see her go. For instance, it’s the 22nd, and she still hasn’t paid May’s rent. The good news is that the turnover should go quickly since we did a massive effort to spruce it up at the last turnover.

NET WORTH

The market has recovered a bit, so we’re trending up again instead of stagnant on the net worth. I categorized our spending for April, but since we took a trip, the ‘entertainment’ category is taking over the graph.

I took out the expenses related to our trip to see what was left. Entertainment is still high because we spent $785 on season passes for skiing next year. This also include our daughter’s gymnastics and our gym membership. Just funny that the graph didn’t change because our proportion of spending was the same.

Over the past few months, I’ve worked on increasing our monthly cash flow a bit with rent increases. This isn’t a money-maker, but just trying to stay on top of the routine cost increases (e.g., taxes, insurance) that are coming our way. Once all the increases go into effect, it’ll be another $400 per month. But that’s also contingent on what we get the house that’s turning over rented at. That seems like a lot, but you’d be surprised at what our cost increases are. I usually do a post comparing all those changes in the Fall.

This month our cash went down too because I had to pay the health insurance costs and three houses worth of taxes. I updated our home values now that it’s the spring market; I update these numbers about twice per year.

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.

April Financial Update

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March is always a crazy month. Busy is an understatement. Baseball starts, which means we’re at the field 2-4 times a week. Our extended family has a lot of birthdays, which includes the 3 of our immediate family. We had a freak snow storm on St. Patrick’s day. The city went into gridlock. Everything was ice and cars were sliding down any hill anywhere in the city. The kids were off from school, and our dog hit a wall in health unexpectedly, and we said our goodbyes that day. It’s been quite the month.

This was a milestone birthday for me, and Mr. ODA threw a big party. That’s outside my comfort zone, but it was amazing. For that reason, I’m not going through March expenses because I really don’t want to know what he spent on me. It felt like we were spending left and right all month long, but our credit card payments have tracked as usual.

On top of all the usual things, the kids had a skating session in gym for 6 weeks. Volunteers come in for assistance, especially with the younger grades who need help even standing up. Last year, I did one session. This year, I couldn’t make it to the first one, but both kids expected me at all the other sessions, and so I did. I think it’s so cool that they get to do that at school. We also had an event for 1st graders one night, career day, and my volunteering to manage the lost and found.

We went on a spring break trip to Kansas City. I have a separate post about that coming later, but it was a pretty low cost trip, and we just explored the city.

RENTALS

A tenant moved out on April 1. She had been hemming and hawing for years about moving out because her child’s father was going to get a place with them, but things kept falling through. She finally gave a final notice, but then back tracked saying instead of January 31, she would stay through March. She did a great job moving out. I expected things left behind, or a mess of some sort, but it was great. The carpet is well past its useful life, so we’re replacing that. The walls are gross, so we’re painting everything. Actually, it turns out that painting a one story ranch is significantly easier and less overwhelming than any other house we’ve painted. Mr. ODA is worried about timing, but I’m feeling good about it. We lost a week to spring break, but from carpet measurement to install is projected to be less than a week, so that’s great. We also have an applicant in the wings that we’re working through right now, so hopefully we’ll be down for one month.

We finished our taxes, which included verifying expenses last year. We were able to claim some costs in full instead of depreciate them this year, so that was a nice way to recoup that improvement. I’ve been working on rent increases, and there’s a big batch of renewals that need notification before the end of this month.

NET WORTH

I’m still struggling getting a few accounts updated since I changed my phone number in November. So this is not a completely accurate representation of our funds, but it’s pretty close. I can’t get into my retirement account, which is a significant chunk of money, so that estimate could be off by a bit.

Our credit cards are a bit higher because we paid for carpet replacement in the rental. We also had to pay homeowners insurance on a few properties, and I always pay with credit card when I can so we get 2% back.

We also paid a chunk towards our new van loan. We had financed it to get $1000 off the purchase price. I have an earlier post that dug through those numbers to see why it was worth the few months of interest to get that price reduction.

Overall, our net worth went up from last month, so that’s a win.

2025 Extra Income

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It’s been a while since I’ve talked about the credit cards we have and how we manage using them. I seem to be caught in multiple conversations around me lately about how people feel credit cards are bad, so they use debit cards. I understand that some people have a bad history where they weren’t disciplined enough, but don’t you think after several years, you’re older and wiser and could likely teach yourself discipline? My last post was about how you could make $500 in a year just by putting an expense on a credit card and paying it off each month if you have 2% cash back. So let’s dive in to what we made in 2025. There is one caveat: we have a lot of credit cards and we put a lot of effort into using the categories; I fully understand this is more effort than nearly anyone else is willing to put in. But hopefully you can take just one thing away from this teaching and information.

You need to find your why. Your why is your driving factor on everything. Put things in perspective of “if I hadn’t spent $10 on that coffee, what could that have gone towards to provide me with longer term satisfaction?” I admit that I’ll go to Starbucks for a drink, but I buy about 5 of those $6 drinks (I get a very basic thing) in a year.

INTEREST EARNED: $1,191.42

The easiest way to make your money work for you is through interest on a bank balance. Currently, savings rates are hovering around 3.25%. I’ll just jump right into it: compound interest. Even if you have $500 extra, put this money in a savings account. At this interest rate, you’re earning $16 in a year, but that’s $16 more than you had at the beginning of the year. The mentality that $16 isn’t “worth it” is the type of thought process you need to move away from. If that balance was $5000 instead of $500, then that’s $162 in passive income.

TREASURY DIRECT: $2,098.14

This is more advanced interest income. You can create an account here and invest your money in short term securities (think CD type things at a bank). The rate is currently about 6.25%. You’re tying your money up for a period of time (4 weeks through 30 years), and the rate is tied to the term of investment, but we are actively managing our investments in 4-8 weeks segments, earning about $50 at a time.

CREDIT CARD REWARDS: $1,947.75

We have several credit cards. Some are a flat percentage for all purchases, and some have categories that earn an additional percentage back. The amount that I have here is only related to what we cashed out. More was earned, but we keep some in our Chase account balance so that we can get a bonus if we book travel through their portal.

If you don’t want to manage categories, go for the Citi Double Cash card. It gives you 1% on a purchase and 1% on a payment. The key here is that you can’t claim a statement credit because that doesn’t count as a payment, meaning you don’t get your 1% on that amount.

Without giving too much away on the cards we have, here’s a snapshot that I keep in my phone to remind myself what card to use for each purchase. The 5% category there changes quarterly. Usually, if I can’t use my Citi card, then I’m checking this graphic to see what the next best percent back for “everyday purchases” would be.

SUMMARY

This is “passive” income we’ve made. We had other avenues that brought in other income, but this is where we basically just spent money or kept money in certain accounts and brought in an extra $5,237.31. That’s a big number, and I’m sure that type of money can make a difference in your life or pay for a trip you want to go on.

Money is Strategic

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I’m working with Keller Williams, and in a lot of ways, I see the parallel with Amway, which I also have experience with. People love to have their negative opinions about these companies, but both companies are teaching money management in a productive way if you’re coachable and paying attention. They’re teaching you to think outside the box.

I recently listened to Dianna Kokozska’s Ted Talk “Why Wealth Creation is the Ultimate Act of Love.” It makes the point that putting the effort in to being financially successful provides security, freedom, and opportunities for not only you, but others close to you in the event of a need. A phrase stuck with me: wanting money isn’t greedy; wanting money is strategic.

She shared how her son’s wife’s health was in trouble, and they needed money for a treatment. Not that everyone should have the ability to write a check for $35,000 on a whim, but do you have the ability to manage a crisis? Are you learning from others around you who have been successful? Are you keeping an open mind and actually making the attempt to build wealth?

Choose to be around people who challenge you. Look at your closest 5 people; are they where you want to be in life, or could you find a sphere of influence that can challenge you and teach you how to make money?

VICTIM MENTALITY

She quickly touches on the victim mentality. I see this around me at work often. People who seem to always have a crisis to manage. It’s in your head, and you’re focused on the negative instead of creating a positive outlook to be more productive with your money. Are you stuck in a spiral of “why does this keep happening to me,” or are you finding a path forward? Sure, we hit rough patches and things go wrong. The path forward comes in your decision as to whether you’re going to let these issues define you or if you’re going to find a way to make things better.

I have a family in one of my rentals that has both parents working blue collar jobs. He works in a kitchen and she usually works reception type jobs. I’ve known them since 2016. At that time, she delivered her 3rd child really early (I can’t remember, but it was like 30-32 weeks). There were extensive medical bills. They taught their children to work hard and to respect others. They had their own medical challenges. They lost several jobs over the last 9 years. They’ve had car trouble, making it a challenge to get to work. They ALWAYS find a way forward. If the car doesn’t work, they figure out uber and buses. If they don’t have money to pay bills, they tap into resources. They take initiative to find ways to get help with rent. I see a few splurges in their home, but they always seem like something they really appreciate. It’s not an excess of things that they’re spending money on. They communicate their challenges and let me know if something they’re working on is going to take more time. The rent they pay me is significantly under market value for that house, but I can’t bring myself to raise the rent that quickly or force them out to get it re-rented. They work so hard and are raising their kids to be resilient, and I just appreciate it so much. That’s the type of person who does not have a victim mentality.

While their efforts aren’t yielding them an extensive savings account or the ability to write a $35,000 check, they keep moving forward. Each set back is a lesson for them. They’re learning and growing. They’re not blaming others. They don’t tell me it’s someone else’s fault they don’t have money to pay rent on time.

POSITIVE APPROACH

You can be positive without being unrealistic. Optimism looks like focusing on the good in a situation, expecting a positive outcome, and approaching challenges constructively rather than ignoring them. There are many studies out there that will tell you having a positive thought process will lead to better stress management and overall well-being. It involves self-talk, reframing negative thoughts, practicing gratitude, and believing in your ability to overcome difficulties, fostering hope and improved health. 

If financials are a struggle, plug in with someone who is doing well. Surround yourself with those who are meeting the goals you have for yourself. By being around these people, you will pick up on their thoughts and actions and find a way that you can implement some of those actions in your own life to start seeing success.

March Financial Update

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Well, tracking spending is just bugging me. We’re over where I want to be in monthly spending. I registered the kids for summer camps, so that was $580 more than usual spending. I also paid for a kid to take swim lessons ($85) and our gymnastics cost went up because she earned a spot in an advanced class that’s a half hour longer. If I take out the camp registration cost, then our spending is about $1700. My goal is $1350 per month. That’s not what we can actually afford (Mr. ODA’s number is higher), and I’m learning may not be realistic, but that’s my general goal each month. I’m halfway into March and can tell you that we’re going to be nowhere near that number this month, which is frustrating, but also reality.

RENTALS

We had two service calls this last month. One was a water heater being out and the other was unnecessary but cost us $100. This lady has actually been a problem in this realm. She claimed the mail key didn’t work for weeks and took forever to respond to messages. Mr. ODA finally went over there and it turned out she was trying the wrong box and not paying attention to what Mr. ODA was telling her. Then she said the microwave wasn’t working. The circuit was tripped, and Mr. ODA let her know that she can’t run an airfryer and microwave at the same time. Then she said the washing machine wasn’t working. We had an appliance guy go out and he said, “it’s working fine. There’s not supposed to be any more water than this in a high efficiency machine.” So much fun.

I’m expecting a tenant to move out at the end of this month. I still haven’t heard the final information on that, which isn’t surprising, but that’s on the horizon.

I increased the rent on two units over the last couple of weeks, which is in addition to a raise I put into effect on another one last month. I also have let three renew at the rate they were at the past year (or more) based on their cash flow numbers and the tenants in there.

PERSONAL

I’m still working part time. Although, these hours are 50% more than I had signed up for. I’m helping get another office organized and training a new hire. It’s been a lot. I feel productive, but I want more hours in my day. Mr. ODA started a part time job as well. We’re on the hunt for insurance help. We’re paying out of pocket for the whole policy that we were under for the last 5-6 years. While we’re not expecting a lot of coverage to be paid by the employer, there is a benefit to having the funds come out pretax.

NET WORTH

Well, my update isn’t really that accurate. I’ve updated the numbers I could, but I’m already days behind on my schedule, so I couldn’t wait for Mr. ODA’s numbers anymore. We are still carrying half of the window order on credit cards (and that install should be next week… hopefully… it’s been pushed back once already). Our investments are down even more than last month, but I don’t know the extent at this time. Our net worth decreased from last month, with 10 accounts not updated, so I’d say it’s a substantial hit.

February Financial Update

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Before I get into an update, I have a quick perspective moment. Our preschool has a 3.5% processing fee to pay monthly tuition online. Tuition is $265, so the processing fee comes to $9.27. If I paid it online instead of writing a check each month, that would be an extra $83.43 I paid for basically nothing. For perspective, I spent $82 on a grocery run of essentials (e.g., dog food, paper towels, milk, eggs, etc).

RENTALS

I had to give notice to one household by 1/31 if I were to raise rent. Their lease ends 3/31, and that will mark 3 years with me. I was panicking because it’s our most expensive house (it’s also our nicest and biggest, and it’s fairly close to downtown). Rent has been $1750 for the last 4 years. Last year I missed the notification to raise it because a January deadline surprised me, but this year I put it on my calendar for January 1st to do. And then I dragged that calendar reminder through the whole month, only needing to then set an alarm to make sure I did it at 8pm on the 31st. I raised it to $1800 and they accepted within the hour. Phew. They’ve been late three times in 4 years and clearly communicated what was happening each time. We’ve had two major issues at the house that they rolled up their sleeves and helped mitigate the damage before the tech could get out there. They’re just really great tenants.

I had two tenants pay rent before the 1st and one partially pay before. That was surprising since the last two months I’ve had very late payments come through. I still have one person with a partial payment outstanding as of this morning.

We had a water heater go out on Thursday in one property, but otherwise I’m counting all my blessings that we made it through 2 weeks of below freezing without incident.

PERSONAL

I’ve preached monitoring your spending by writing it down for years, but I hadn’t done it. I had done it a few times retroactively, but I never made the time to keep on top of it to make pivots. With Mr. ODA leaving his career, that’s a high six-figure income that we’re without now. I’m working part time, but that’s basically a one-to-one ratio of income to health insurance. I’ve calculated that we need to be about $1350 per month in spending outside of the mandatory bills (e.g., mortgages, utilities, tuition, insurance). My threshold is lower than what Mr. ODA said is his threshold, so this isn’t a hard-and-fast amount, but one that is my “I feel OK if we’re close to this number” concept.

We screwed that up a good bit by purchasing a new vehicle and putting new tires on said vehicle immediately. We also had to pay for a previous heating issue fix in our house and a downpayment on new windows (which, quick side note, are glaringly needed as we go through 2 weeks of single digits and can feel the drafts). I’m also not counting the things that we do as mystery shops since those are effectively reimbursed (sometimes our cost isn’t fully covered since it’s a whole family outing and not a single person, but I’m not drilling down in that detail since I don’t have the specific break down of how Mr. ODA is getting paid). If I take those things out and remove expenses for rentals, then we spent $1597 in January.

This isn’t the best representation of our spending, but I’ll develop this information as I have comparisons month over month. I also can’t seem to pick a better color scheme without it being a very manual process. Grocery, Entertainment, and Food are our biggest slices there. The entertainment category is basically why I gave up categorizing things years ago. Here I put things like going out for a drink, because while it’s at a restaurant or bar, the sole purpose was to have a drink and hang out. It also includes going to a gymnastics meet with my daughter, my fitbit purchase (I guess because I’m counting it as extra spending and not a necessity), and gift giving costs. We spent $528 on groceries this month, which feels low. I pushed really hard to clear out the food we have in the house already during our 2 weeks of being snowed in, but I hope that this is an accurate representation of monthly spending on groceries.

NET WORTH

It is higher than last month, so that’s good. Credit cards are carrying $4500 worth of windows, so it’s nice how low of a balance those are outside of that 0% interest balance we’re holding onto. Our investments struggled a bit over the past month, but the payments on mortgages and loans helped offset that.

January Financial Update

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I have so much to say. January is a big time where people are willing to talk about finances, so many thoughts enter my mind that I want to squash some preconceived notions. Unfortunately, I just don’t have the time.

PERSONAL

At work, I’ve spent this year managing year end things and getting the 2026 processes stood up. I’m supposed to be part time, but I’ve been putting way more hours in because of that process. The guy who was helping me left for another position and was out of the country all last week, so I had to make sure I was extra on top of things. With all those actions going on, I also was pulled into hiring someone to be my assistant (for lack of better term… it’s not assistant as in answering the phone and getting the mail… it’s doing the daily bank reconciliations and those types of tasks so I can focus on policy development). This has taken a significant amount of my time, but hopefully this person will be on board to help in a week.

Our youngest started preschool last month. He only goes 2 days per week, and both are my work days. I’d really like to get to a point where I can actually take advantage of guilt-free, kid-free time.

I have a new years resolution that I’m keeping close to the vest, but one part of it is to walk 10,000 steps per day. I’m failing miserably, but it’s a work in progress. My 7 year old son asks me constantly if I’ve hit my step goal. So…. maybe I’m teaching him it’s ok to fail, but keep trying? His new years resolution is to get better at being his nicest, and that’s just adorable. He also says he wants to learn basketball, and I just can’t bring myself to do that. We are signed up for Spring baseball that should start in March. The youngest has to wait until next Spring, but I can’t wait to see what he can do. I’ll probably also be putting swim lessons back on the docket in the next couple of months. The youngest hasn’t had any lessons. The oldest passed the test for his yellow band, but he needs to have a free style stroke to get the green band. The middle needs confidence; she can absolutely swim, but she likes to pretend she can’t do things.

RENTALS

Last month I reported that at the end of the day on the 5th, I was still missing 25% of the month’s rent. As of 7 am on the 5th, I had only received 30% of rent. Many came through, but there were more than the usual amount that didn’t. For one, I had to manage a grant program from one of the places a tenant lives. The check finally arrived yesterday, but it’s dated December 12th. They mailed to my PO Box, in a town I left in 2020. I didn’t even know my lease had an address on it, but that’s how long these people have been there. The check was returned to them, so my tenant went down there to give them my new address. I don’t love these people having my address, or that they now officially know I don’t live in the same state as them, but I needed to get this check. I gave them the address over her phone and received confirmation she typed it in. Somehow the check was returned to them, so my tenant had to pick up the check and FedEx it to me (I told her she didn’t have to pay that kind of money for that!). I have a tenant that pays twice per month (and pays a premium for that); her second part of rent is due tomorrow, so we’ll see if I can finally be fully paid for this month by the 19th.

I have a tenant who fell into some unfortunate circumstances. Her current plan is to vacate her place by the end of March. She’s lived there since 2019 with a dog and 5 cats, so that place will need all new carpet and a new paint job, but hopefully will be ready for a May 1 rental. Because she’s always paid and I knew her financial circumstances, I’ve been slow to increase her rent. She’s paying $975, but the market rent should easily get at least $1200. The house is in really good shape and is newer. We had people fighting over the other house in that town at $1150, and it’s an older house with only one bathroom.

FINANCES

Well we traded in our van for a newer year, but that’s a story for another post. I also still haven’t fixed my retirement account access from when I got a new phone number, so that’s a made up number.

I’m going to be tracking our spending much closer this year. We’re generally on the same path with our spending, and I know we don’t do anything extravagant. With Mr. ODA’s lack of income, I just want to keep a closer eye on that and pivot if we need to.

Mr. ODA has a more exact approach to figuring out what we can spend per month without dipping into savings. I like my number better (and it’s lower). I took our rental income, deducted rental fixed expenses, deducted our typical bills, and was left with just over $1300 per month. That would go towards food, clothing, gas, etc. If I remove things that are offset by a shop (Mr. ODA is a secret shopper) and the long term investment purchases (i.e., car and windows), we’re at $987 as of the 18th.

NET WORTH

We put $1500 on a credit card and finances $7500 to be able to save $1000. We also put $5500 on credit cards towards windows, which is also another post that’s coming. Our net worth took a hit for both these things. I also wasn’t able to update 3 accounts, so they’re just estimates, but at least our net worth still went up.