I’m coming off another jam-packed weekend of 12-hour days fixing up our foreclosure house. Between our weekend warrior efforts and the nearly $5,000 we’ve paid towards labor costs, this fixer-upper is ready to go on the rental market! Want proof? You’ve seen the “before” video (if you haven’t, click here.) Check out these “after” pictures:…
The other day I saw this great graphic comparing How People Think Professional Photographers Spend Their Time vs. How They Actually Spend Their Time: (Click “display images” if you’re reading this by email.) People who work in “glamourous” industries often face these misconceptions. “Oh, you’re a journalist! You can jet off to Paris as…
Today is my first day back at work after a one-week “unpaid” vacation. I’ll earn less this month than I did in the previous few months, since I only worked three-fourths of the time. This is because I trade my time for money. I have a huge limitation on how much I can earn. Everything…
Yep, you read that headline correctly. We bought a foreclosed rental house! It started thanks to this website. A woman sent me an email saying she lives in Atlanta, she’s a regular Afford Anything reader, she owns two rental properties and she aspires to own more. Would I like to have lunch? Obviously I said…
Today, Afford Anything turns one year old. Exactly a year ago today I wrote my first post on this website, and geez, it was a terrible post. I’m too embarrassed to link to it. I had no clue what I was doing when I started this site. I didn’t know HTML coding. I didn’t know…
Forget fancy-pants calculus. The most important math is the stuff you learned in fourth grade. How do you know if an income property (rental property) is a good investment? In this article, I’m going to share three formulas I use when I’m analyzing rental properties.
When we first purchased a house, we thought the only expense would be the mortgage. Haha! Little did we realize that the mortgage is only the beginning. Homeowners pay for an absurd amount of operations, maintenance and repairs: Trash service. Water and sewer bills. Gutter cleaning. Termite treatment. Pest control. Power-washing. Replacing the siding, windows,…
The Law of Attraction says that if you think about something, you’ll attract it into your life. According to this theory, if you think about riches, you’ll attract riches. If you think about happiness, you’ll attract happiness. If you think about friendship, you’ll attract friendship. Of course, the Law of Attraction doesn’t explain everything. Sometimes,…
This was originally published in 2012 as a series of separate blog posts. For the sake of simplification, we have consolidated these blog posts onto this one page that you’re reading. Unless otherwise noted, the information has not been updated, so all numbers and information reflect 2012. I’m changing careers. Well, sort of. About two…
I spent the weekend slaying the distractions in my life. I flung the junk out of my file cabinet. I brainstormed goals for the New Year, ranked them, and eliminated most. Most of us are pulled in too many directions: too many goals to chase, skills to learn, career avenues to attempt. There are too…