2/12 - Equity Rich

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Monday, February 12, 2007
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I’ve never mentioned this before, but we own a rental property of
our own. When my sweet wife and I were first married, we bought a
cute older house on a 2 lane street. Over the last bunch of years,
it’s turned into a 5 lane busy main thoroughfare. So, we’re glad
we don’t live there anymore. Well, when it was time for us to
move, we just sort of fell into the rental business and have been
landlords ever since. Anyway, our latest renters, after 8 years,
just moved out. And boy, I tell you, it’s sure a mess. I don’t
think they owned a vacuum, a mop or even a dust pan! After having
to replace tons of light bulbs, broken windows, broken doors,
linoleum, carpet, fixing gouged out walls, painting every room in
the house, and then having to pay their utility bills, I suddenly
remember that being a landlord can be an expensive proposition!
And I actually thought our renters were good, clean, honest
people. But each time I go out to clean up, I just shake my head.
But, enough of that stuff...

Each month we’ve used about half of the rental money for
groceries. And this month since there’s tons of money going to fix
the place up, and zero dollars coming in; it’s been, well an
interesting couple of weeks. Now we’re using our Food Storage. My
sweet wife has made fresh home made bread from fresh ground wheat,
and home made granola from our big bags of oats. On average, she
used to buy 3 or 4 loaves of bread each week. But since we have
fresh bread, the boys wolf if down fast! It’s really good stuff!

Son #4 likes the bread, but doesn’t like the granola for cereal.
He told my sweet wife last night, “Mom, I’ll give you some of my
money if you go out and buy some food... I don’t want to be poor
anymore.” ~Ouch~ that kinda tugs at your heart strings. It’s hard
to explain to a little one the difference between equity rich and
cash poor, or that you don’t want to touch your savings unless you
really ~have~ to. He said he wanted a cereal with marshmallows in
it. (Marshmallow Maties) He also said he wanted the ‘Chips of Joy’
(Chips Ahoy). So, I scraped up our pennies and gave my sweet wife
a little coin to buy cereal, eggs, and milk.

Enjoy today’s Jokes!
Marty

p.s. Remember the KSL Primary Children’s hospital Radio-thon last
year? This year they’ve invited son #4 to be on the radio! (With
mom and dad of course...) We’ll be on about 10:40 AM (Mountain
Standard Time, -0700GMT) on Wednesday the 14th on KSL radio. (1160
AM 102.7 FM or ksl.com on the web) Get your check book out and
listen.

p.p.s. Big shooting in Salt Lake today. About 3 blocks from my
office. Good thing I wasn’t around!

p.p.p.s. Son #4 has another MRI on Friday. Wish us luck!


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During a county-wide drive to round up all unlicensed dogs, a
patrolman signaled a car to pull over to the curb. When the driver
asked why he had been stopped, the officer pointed to the big dog
sitting on the seat beside him and asked, "Does your dog have a
license?" "No," the man said, "He doesn't need one." "Yes he
does," answered the officer. "But," said the driver, I always do
all the driving."
~Wanda D.

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Showing his friend around his home, Fred started to point out all
of the collectibles he and his wife had acquired over their long
years of marriage. "The day before I die, I'd like to sell every
piece we've got just to see how much it's all worth." “But you
couldn't possibly know the day before you were going to die, so
how could you sell it." "Simple... If I sell it, my wife would
kill me!"

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Seen in the parking lot of a brand new department store, painted
on the ground at a crosswalk in letters 4 feet tall: YELD Close,
but not close enough. The next week I drove through the same
parking lot and found it was changed. They had painted an I
between the existing letters. Now it read YEILD. About two months
later they finally fixed it. The old lettering was painted over
with black and freshly painted on top of that was the word STOP.