Welcome to my new home!
Welcome, everybody to my “grown-up” blog! Hopefully you all had a safe trip from Blogger. I’ve gone from a Blogspot.com address to TrishaAllen.com (TrishAllen.com works too, if you get confused). I’m excited about the new…everything!
There are still a few kinks to work out. Yeah, my blog’s kinky-what of it??? For instance, the right sidebar goes clear under the middle part of the page if you shrink the window too far. It’s actually not our doing. It’s a “feature” of the original WordPress theme I selected. You should have heard Michael cursing from the other room while helping me get everything loaded on the page. “Why the freak did he code it this way?!?!? I have to widgetize the whole *bleepity* right sidebar!!!” So, we’re going to try to start from scratch with a basic theme and see how closely we can match the colors and layout on this one. You shouldn’t see any “interruption of service”, though.
Thank God for Michael, though. I may be the locomotive that pulls this train-but he’s the engineer!
As you all know, I’ve been blogging my own 30 Day Challenge of No TV. I knew I had to do something when, one day about three weeks ago, we spent a beautiful 73 degree day inside watching television until 3pm. Life’s too short for that crap! So, we’ve cancelled everything but the very basic channels (which we’ll need in case of bad weather). There were several days earlier on in the challenge that I really missed TV. But, now, I feel so indifferent about it, I don’t care if it’s even in my house at all.
I’ve come to think that TV is the unspoken bane of our generation. It robs time from precious lives. Did you ever stop to wonder what masterpieces are never going to be created because the next Michelangelo is glued to the boob tube?
Anyway, I have more time and creativity I didn’t have before. As a result, I’m revising and updating personal goals and the financial outlook for this year, which has given me ideas to flesh out my manifesting a free vacation goal. And, with additional time and creativity, I’ve been inspired to create this new home for my blog-and, even will be creating a different new blog for profit! I’m really fired up about that one. I’ll share more as things progress.
Everything being in limbo like it is with our properties right now, I’ve turned my attention to other ways of making money or accomplishing things to make myself happy (like the free vacation idea).
How did we get into this position, you ask? Well, we’re holding three houses that we’re now selling to our contractor, but making the mortgage payments all the while. At the same time, the appraisal for the House 17 purchase went wrong. The bank that owned it was telling me to “piss or get off the pot” since they were sick of holding the house for us and felt like we were ripping them off at that price (I got them down from their original price of $200K to $164K on a nine year old house!). So, I did like I’ve done before and wrote some credit card checks to our business to fund the downpayment-to the tune of $38,000. I knew House 17 was a good enough deal to warrant the pain. But, it has been quite painful performing all the remodeling tasks by ourselves while living on much less because we’re making those credit card payments. We’ve become much more frugal as a result.
We’re about 60% of the way done with House 17. But, we’ve got some pretty big hurdles to jump. The wood floors have to be installed-including the stairs. We’re changing the staircase to include a volute, too. Also, we’ll be installing the granite countertops ourselves. The bathrooms are being completely redone with new French-style granite-topped vanities and a brand new master shower (I’m thinking multiple shower heads). The upstairs is just about completely done, though, minus some small checklist-type items. I will be publishing the pics tomorrow!
Once we’re done with House 17, we’ll be going for a refinance in order to pay off my cards. I CAN’T WAIT. So, I’m working like a dog about 12 hours a day…doing construction…which is nothing like a desk job where my biggest effort used to be delivering a monitor or a laptop to somebody. Here’s the thing, though…. I like doing construction!
I am an odd duck, what can I say.
But, thank you so much for following me over here! Please click the icon/link over on the top right of my blog to update your feed readers. Otherwise, you won’t get updated and will miss the House 17 “before & after” photos!
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The new digs are looking good!!
So you finally got your own wordpress blog. One thing I’d suggest is to change your permalink structure to postname. Right now you have just post numbers.
Hi Trisha–
Congrats on the move and the new site — it looks great!
Alison
Love the new site, Trisha- looks great!!
Hey Trisha! Nice new site! I think the feed link isn’t working though..
New sites looks good. I’m curious why you buy and sell houses despite having cashflow on them? Is that just until you can get your first commercial property?
Thanks, Clifford! Your advice has been invaluable!
Hey, Kenric - I will do that. Thanks for the tip! Please feel free to point out anything else like that if you spot anything!
Alison - Thank you so much! I was worried that people might not like it. It’s been a lot of work over the last few weeks, too. So, thanks for the validation!
Steph - Thanks to you, too!
Shaun - Thank you! Well, are you trying to get the feed from work? Duh–of course you are. Michael told me he can’t hit the FeedBurner feed from work either. He can get it just fine on his PDA, though. Would you mind trying it from home and letting me know if the firewall at your office is blocking it?
Adam - Thanks! Oh, sure. I have a very easy answer for you…Profit! Let’s say all is going well on a rental and I cashflow $200/month. Well, it would take me approximately 100 months, or over 8 years to make the $20,000 I could make by flipping a property. Of course, there are other considerations, too–like mortgage pay-down done by the tenants and tax deductions like depreciation. But, that’s my general answer. I’m fortunate enough to live in an area where flips are still possible. And, I just really needed a break from landlording in a big way. I do plan to buy commercial as soon as prices look good again. Right now, it seems stuff is overpriced to me.
Strangely, the feed is now working.. I think it was a feedburner issue as the error I was getting was from feedburner. Anyway, it appears to be fixed!
Hey, I don’t know who worked on your new site, but I hear that dude’s a STUD. You should be a lot nicer to him
Shaun - Oh, good! I’ll ask Michael to try it again from his office on Monday. I betcha it was a Feedburner problem! Thanks for letting me know.
Congrats on the new site. It looks great. New beginnings.
Great work, Trisha! I like the black and red theme. A bit different.
-Grant
Trisha,
Congrats on the new site. It looks great! Welcome to the world of Wordpress.
Bruce
Hey Trisha,
This new theme is awesome! Your material at blogger has been really useful to me, and no doubt this new blog will do the same. Keep it up!
Hey, Mr Al! Glad you’re still kicking! Thanks for visiting. Hope you’re doing well!
Grant - Hey, thanks, Grant! Yeah, red and black are my favorite colors. I know it’s a little intense. But, I thought it might dazzle the eye, too.
Bruce - Thanks for the welcome wagon! Wordpress is not for the faint of heart. But, it has so much more functionality than Blogger! I was really surprised! And, I’m constantly surprised by what plug-ins are out there for it. I might be a plug-in junkie now.
Hey, Edgar! Thanks for visiting! I’m so glad you could benefit from my experiences as an investor. It makes learning all those lessons the hard way feel worth it. I checked out your blog–good job! I know you’re just getting started. So, feel free to chime in on occasion if you have any questions about something I’ve written. I’ll certainly explain something if you need me to. If there’s ever some personal reason I can’t answer, I’ll tell you that, too. So, don’t worry.
Question about your CC Checks. Is this corporate credit or personal? What have you found the benefit of CC vs. HML?
FlipItBig.com - They’re checks from my personal cards. I’m not sure what you mean by HML. But, I’m guessing you’re probably wondering why I haven’t used a HELOC or similar device instead of CC checks. You can’t beat 0%, that’s why!
Sure, I have to pay a $99 transaction fee for each check (there were two checks written). But, that beats the tar out of 7% interest on a line of credit any day! I do also have a credit card for the business–but, I’ve maxed it out, paid it off, and maxed it out again buying materials for the House 17 project. Another reason I didn’t go for a line of credit was that I had about 4 hours to come up with $38,000 or lose the deal and my earnest money. That short amount of time really limits your choices. But, since I’ve done this before with my CC’s for real estate deals, I’ve got pretty high limits now. My neighbor uses his for the same purpose and now has over $100,000 in credit card limits.
Great site, Trisha! Looks a lot more professional. Michael should be commended on his work, too! ;-P
Its great to see the upgrade, Trisha. As you know, I’ve been reading your blog for a LONG time now. Actually, you started yours only 4 days after we did at BiggerPockets. We’re both about to celebrate our 3rd year Anniversary, which means that we’re DINOSAURS! Congrats on the upgrade and 3 years!
Steve - Thanks so much! I was confused and thought you had stopped blogging! I’ll pass along the good thoughts to Michael. He really does deserve a big pat on the back! Or, maybe, I’ll just take him to get sushi.
Joshua! - Hey, how have you been??? I know, not many people can beat us on the amount of time we’ve spent in the Blogosphere (with no breaks, either)! Happy Anniversary to you, too! You’ve done really well over there at your site. I think Trisha 2.0 has similar potential. At least, it’s helped me feel renewed vigor for my blogging. I really do love writing. Thanks for visiting!
I’ve been well. Just very busy with the website . . . I’m glad to see that you’ve been quite busy as well. Keep up the good work! You should swing by and set up a profile on the social network . . . it would be great to have you!
Any blogging anniversary celebration plans?
Joshua - Sorry, I checked out for a little while there. Yep, I have a special post planned. Happy Anniversary to you, too!