I can’t believe I’m saying this: Dear Readers, I’d like to introduce you to Rental House #3. “But Paula, didn’t you just buy a house? A couple months ago?” Yep, it feels fast to me, too. Check out the pics, and meet me below the photos to hear the details. (If you’re reading by email,…
The biggest mistake I’ve made as an entrepreneur? Confusing my role as an investor with my role as the general manager. As an investor, my role is to infuse money into a project or a company. Then I kick back and wait for the returns. As the general manager, my role is to oversee the…
Conventional wisdom says that you should invest in the market in small bites. This is called “dollar-cost averaging.” Dollar-cost averaging is the philosophy of wading slowly into the market over time, rather than diving in. If you have a large sum of money — through a bonus, commission, gift, sale of a house or car, etc. —…
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,…