I’ve written before about the perks of the FIRE lifestyle, such as getting to do weekend activities in the middle of the week, beating the crowds and perhaps scoring some bargains. However, you don’t need to wait till you’re financial independent and untethered from a traditional job to live the FIRE lifestyle. If you negotiate for more flexibility at work, you can stay at your job while enjoying the autonomy to schedule differently. Here are six steps to negotiate for more flexibility at work: Working from home or working from a regional office where your group isn’t based are examples [...]
Scott recently ran the Maine Marathon in Portland on a Sunday so we turned the trip into a four-day, couples-only weekend (a perk of the FIRE lifestyle!). We both love the water, and Maine has plenty of that, so we planned our pre-marathon Saturday around different water views – The Giant’s Stairs on Bailey Island, Two Lights State Park. By the end of the day, Scott had already taken over 100 photos! We have this problem with every trip, from the short weekends away to our 2.5-weeklong trip in India in 2017. At this stage, we have our photos saved [...]
I've written somewhat tangentially about running the Maine Marathon last week. In the lead up to that race, a few weeks ago I ran an 18 mile training run. Since my summer training had been so bad and I had a hard time getting long runs done in the abnormally humid weather, I needed to downgrade my runs and incorporate regular walking breaks. I set myself up to run 12 minutes then walk 2 minutes, and then repeat, and during each of the walk breaks I took a photo of my location. My running app has a great feature that allow [...]
I recently wrote about how I go about finding the best AirBNB unit for a trip, when planning to visit Portland. Well, that trip finally came around this past weekend, so that I could run the Maine Marathon. Sidenote - the Maine Marathon is a great race. Super friendly people, beautiful course, and we lucked out with some great weather. My race wasn't great because I've dealt with recent injuries and my summer training wasn't great, but I now have state #14 in the books! The race has a half marathon option as well as a relay option if you [...]
In a previous post, we wrote about why we are considering selling some of our rental portfolio, specifically our properties in Indianapolis. One of the alternatives to selling outright would be to change property managers. While we wouldn't realize cash from a sale if we continued to hold these properties (one of our key reasons for selling is to deploy the cash from a sale into other investments), switching out property managers may solve one of our main concerns – that the properties require more of our attention than we are willing and able to give them. With more responsive [...]
Scott and I are divided on whether to sell our Indianapolis rental real estate. I’m on Team Sell, and since I tend to blog more frequently, I have already posted the bundle for sale.😊 Seriously, for marital bliss I wouldn’t recommend marketing property you own jointly with your spouse while you still disagree! I did check that Scott is on board with at least exploring a sale (hence the post). However, I can tell he’s not 100% on board with actually selling, and our back and forth inspired this blog post. Please write in if you have thoughts on how [...]
UPDATE 2: we ended up selling this portfolio in mid-2019. It is no longer available. UPDATE: as of October 2018, we decided to keep these properties, deciding instead to change property management companies. ====== With properties in four cities and internationally, it is time to streamline. Our Indianapolis rental investment portfolio is our strongest-performing group from a cash flow perspective. However, we have five properties in Indianapolis, which is more than we would like to manage. Indianapolis is also the furthest city from where we generally travel. Read here for more of our rationale on selling these properties. Our properties [...]
We had a few hours to kill on Sunday and the weather was finally starting to turn a little cooler. We've been pleasantly surprised at all of the great places we've found to visit within an hour of our apartment, and we were hoping to find another one. Google Maps searching turned up the Donald M Kendall Sculpture Gardens, which is in Purchase, New York, on the grounds of the PepsiCo world headquarters.
After a year of being focused on the 'hosting' side of AirBNB, this week I was able to focus a little bit on the 'travelling' side of AirBNB! We'll be spending a few days in Portland Maine in the end of September for the Maine Marathon. Since hotels are expensive we found a great AirBNB. Read on for tips on how to narrow the fire-hose down to a just few options that would be perfect for you.
We just completed a bathroom renovation for our primary residence in New York City. Updating our 5x8 bathroom set us back almost $15,000! We replaced everything, so labor is the bulk of the cost. Our fixtures and finishes are pretty standard, and this kept the total budget down – yes, $15,000 is still a standard bathroom renovation for NYC. You can find a handy remodel calculator on HomeAdvisor. Did we need to renovate our bathroom? $15,000 is a down payment on a rental investment in some parts of the US. It is a year of tuition at a public college [...]
