- "The best way to spend your money is to spend it on time, not on stuff." http://su.pr/2tr5iP #
- First bonus by stock options today. Not sure I'm impressed. #
- RT @chrisguillebeau: US border control just walked the train asking "Are you a US citizen?" Native American guy says: "One of the originals" #
- @FARNOOSH My credit score is A measure of my integrity not THE measure. in reply to FARNOOSH #
- I'm listening to a grunge/metal cover of "You are my sunshine" #
- There's something funny about a guy on reality TV whining about how private he is. #LAInk #
Disclosure
I’m not terribly commercial, but I do enjoy making money.
As such, it is safe to assume that any company, entity, corporation, person, place, thing, or other that has a product, service, post, or link has in some way compensated me for said product, service, post or link. That compensation–direct or indirect–may be in the form of money, swag, free trips, gold bullion, smurf collectibles, super-models, or just warm-fuzzies. That list is NOT in order of preferred method of compensation.
To reiterate: If it’s commercial, and it’s here, I’m probably being paid for it.
A Well-Trained Husband
- Image by Getty Images via @daylife
I am so well-trained.
I was more than a bit wild when I was younger. For the most part, that ended when my son was born. When you procreate, it’s time to put the wild on a shelf and become a reliable provider. That’s just the way it is. Anybody who prioritizes the wild over the progeny needs to be forcibly sterilized and exiled before be sold for parts.
When my mother-in-law got a membership to Sam’s Club, she gave my wife the second card, so we effectively have a membership. For those who don’t know, Sam’s Club is a warehouse store that has some incredibly good deals and a lot of things that look like good deals because you are buying in bulk.
The thing I hate most about warehouse stores is the default accusation of theft when you leave. They require you to line up so the the person by the door can look at your receipt and pretend to count what’s in your cart while they are really scanning for the most-stolen items in the store and ignoring the rest. The only thing they really accomplish is making all of their customer feel like thieves.
I used to bypass the line and the checker and just leave. My wife got sick of the indignant screeches coming from the store as we left. Eventually she got me to stop.
Last night, I went back to pick up supplies for a fund-raiser I’m helping to organize on Sunday. I went with one of the other organizers, who had some personal shopping to do later. We checked out using his account and he paid, while I took the food home to keep until Sunday. Since he’ll be getting reimbursed for the food, he kept the receipt while I headed for the door. Anybody see the problem here?
When the receipt-checker challenged me, I docilely stepped to the side and called my friend to bring the receipt to the door. I hate the feeling of submitting to authority, especially when the authority is pretending to be customer service. I just calmly did what the door-cop told me, just like my wife wanted, even though she wasn’t there.
I hate warehouse stores.
Phone Insurance
Thursday, at parent/teacher conferences, I sat on my phone and broke the screen.
Not just the glass, but the LCD.
Not a problem. I pay for Sprint’s repair plan.
Little did I know that Sprint–in their infinite #$!$%#$%–considers a phone unrepairable if there is more than one crack on the screen. That effectively means that any broken screen is a total loss.
It’s good to know my $4/month has been wasted.
Other than a phone I had stolen last year, I still own every phone I’ve ever owned. None have had water damage or anything catastrophic happen to them, so I didn’t get the replacement side of Sprint’s insurance plan.
To summarize:
- I broke my phone in a way that Sprint won’t fix, even though I pay for the fixit plan.
- My phone costs $600 when you aren’t signing a new contract.
- My phone has the most expensive LCD to replace at the moment.
The Total Equipment Protection program costs $11 per month. Given my history, that’s a waste of $11, though it would actually be a waste of $7, since I have been happy to pay $4 for the repair plan.
$7 per month since I got my first smartphone in about 2008, means I’ve saved $420 in insurance fees I haven’t used.
Today, I paid $298 to replace the LCD on my phone. That includes overnighting the part to the shop since it’s not stocked and I’m leaving town tomorrow.
An insurance claim from Sprint comes with a $150 deductible.
All told, I’m $270 to the good.
Would I get the insurance if I were signing papers today?
Probably not. A $7 monthly bill doesn’t hurt, while a $300 surprise does, but that’s why I have a repair fund.
Do you have insurance on your phone? Have you used it?
The Story of Sammy: Complete
This is the complete collection of the Story of Sammy. Sammy is a guy I met after my mother-in-law died in the spring of 2012. My wife and I decided to help him launch a….
Read the stories. It’s better that way.
Part 1, in which we meet Sammy, learn of his dreams and offer to help.
Part 2, in which Sammy jumps into business with both feet, teaching teenagers the value of work.
Part 3, in which Sammy shows us what crackheads and the homeless can accomplish if given the chance.
Part 3.5, in which…holy drama, Sammy!
Part 4, in which I am disappointed.
Property Managers
As of last Monday, we don’t have any tenants in our rental house.
That makes me sad.
It makes me sadder that we were too nice and gave them an extra week free to get their stuff moved out.
Now we get the fun job of painting, replacing the linoleum, and probably cleaning the place up to get it ready for new renters that we haven’t found yet.
New renters.
Ick.
Now, we could put an ad on Craigslist and try to find renters ourselves.
Background checks.
Credit checks.
Interviews and walk-throughs.
Then, when we find someone, we’ll be collecting rent and dealing with any whiny issues that come up.
Yuck.
Or….
We can hire a property manager. The big name property management company in our area charges a $99 set-up fee plus $80 per month.
That covers:
- Rent collection
- Coordinating maintenance
- Accounting
- All of the other mundane details
If we add on the tenant-finding service, we’ll be paying them one-month’s rent, but they’ll handle the showings, advertising, background checks, and the lease. And their average tenant placement is 19 days. Another house in the neighborhood that used them had the house rented in about a week.
That moves our landlording firmly into the passive side-hustle category and all it costs us is (essentially) one and a half month’s rent with the added bonus that we’ll be asking the right amount for rent according to the market, instead of guessing. Our last tenants were probably paying $300 too little.
I think the property managers are the way to go, but I have absolutely no experience here.
Have any of you used a property manager? Was it good? Bad? Hell-on-Earth?
