My uncle is visiting us. We mostly have been eating out (mostly uncle's treat) but really only doing one meal a day. Last night I was hungry for dinner and neither N or uncle was all that interested in a meal. No big deal, we have plent of food at home. I took a look through the pantry and ended up making linguine with pesto, artichoke hearts and black olives. A pot made 4-6 servings and probably cost $7 total. Probably less because I know I used ibotta and Kroger cash back rebates for the pesto, and bought most if not all the ingredients during mystery shops.

My biggest accomplishment today was putting together a hallway storage bench that I got for a mystery shop. I needed to take a picture of it for the report. I am excited to put it up in my room and have some hidden storage.

Yesterday I sold 3 items on Mercari. I took them to the post office today. I will get about $35 for them. One was a mystery shop item I have already been reimbursed for, one was an old video game and the last was a set of patches. Last fall my goodwill had a ton of these patches and I bought about 2,000 of them for $220. I see them for about $5 each. I have already made my money back. 

No progress on the apartment. It is my uncle's last day here and I/we will get to work in the earnest after tomorrow. At least we did not spend much today. 

I really want to get back into the habit of writing here, especially because I need some encouragement/accountability. 

Since we moved to Cincinnati, we have expanded our real estate holdings by a lot. I had already owned a rental property in California, we own a house where we used to live and then in 2019 we bought a commercial building (storefront + apartment) and a single family home we moved to.

In 2020 we bought a church and the parsonage next door.

In 2021 we bought another single family home that we moved into, and let N's sister's family move into our old home so they could reno and sell their home and buy a bigger one (their family has outgrown their house.)

In 2022 we bought another commercial building-a store front and two one bedroom apartments. 

Right now our cash flow is...not great. We have potential but aren't there yet. And as a result of renovating the first commercial building, Covid, quitting my job because of Covid we have more credit card debt than I would like. And I am ready to get serious about tackling it. 

My two big goals are to increase cash flow and decrease credit card debt.

Right now 3 of our apartments are empty, one house is occupied by family rent free (they do pay utilities) and one house is rented to family at a lower rent. The one rented at a below market rates we plan to sell this summer, once Kid graduates college and the leases are up for the other two housemates. 

Two of the empty apartments need some work done (new floors and bathrooms and kitchen appliances) so that is on hold until later in the year.

The last empty apartment we are furnishing to rent out to travel nurses. So goal 1A is to complete furnishing it and get it rented ASAP. I want to put a deadline of May 1 to finish furnishing it and getting it on furnished finders. 

Goal 2A is to tackled my lowest balance credit card. Right now it is at $3,357.75. Since I am embarassed about my total debt I don't want to share it (that may change in the future) but I am chugging away. Right now I pay the minimum + $100 on my cards, with extra going to this lowest one. Unfortunately, there isn't much extra lately due to the cash flow issues, but once we started getting our apartments rented and the out of state house sold, that will change. 

So here's to more regular blogging, an increased income, and credit card debt free in my future!