Discouraging Housing Signs
Let me preface this post by saying that it’s been over 100-degrees every day for the past week, so this may be contributing to my negativity. With that said, the more I search the homes for sale, the more I think, “Why do I continue to live in Los Angeles?” I’ve been browsing multiple websites for both land and home sales and let me just say $275,000 doesn’t get you much of a house, or any house, for that matter. Earlier in the year, there seemed to be a much...
Read MoreWhat to do with late paying clients?
My husband and I have run our small business for 10 years. I help him with small projects, big projects, and I also do all the invoicing and accounting. Most of the time, our great clients pay promptly and return to us with their next project. Every so often, a new, small job, goes south and I have to write a small amount off as a loss. However, this happens very rarely and it’s never for a very large amount. But, recently, with the economy in the doll-drums, our largest client who we...
Read MoreBudgeting for the New Year
My husband and I are trying to cut expenses where ever we can so that we can save more money. Budgeting our monthly expenses is one way to see where we spend frivolously. I use two methods to do this. The first one is to list all of our expenses in an excel spreadsheet, this gives me a baseline of our monthly expenses, and where I can possibly save money. The second method I use is looking at QuickBooks reports. I use QuickBooks for my check register and for invoicing clients. The income to...
Read MoreDilapidated Houses..oh my!
This weekend my husband and I decided to drive past a couple of houses that were in our price range: between $190,000 – $250,000. What we saw was very depressing. The first house we drove past was one right up the street from us. I had a feeling it needed a lot of work based on the low price of $190,000. We like the street its located on, so we stopped and took a closer look. All I can say is, “Wow,” you don’t get very much for $190,000 here in suburban Los Angeles....
Read MoreLose the Lawn, Save Money
When my husband and I first moved into our rental house a few years ago, we had lofty dreams of fixing up a house that hadn’t been taken care of in 20 years. We were excited to begin painting and carpeting our new rental. Our friends thought we were nuts! Yet we hadn’t discussed purchasing a home because it was during the peak of the housing boom; starter homes started at $550,000. So our original plan was to live in our rental home for many years. One area that desperately need...
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