Ahh well this is a little drama update so that everyone out there can shake their heads and say they are glad they didn't lend these people money...

Regarding the guy in CA who purchased our business and owes me money. He was supposed to pay me $25k in one large upfront payment and $3k a month for 10 months.

It took him 3 months to pay $24,800. As it turns out he could not make 1 large payment as he promised me- It was coming in chunks as he was able to pay it.

Then about a month ago I reached out several times to get a gameplan for the remainder due. No response. After a few weeks of reaching out- I contacted his business partner and then his brother.

His brother responded right away and told me the person had been institutionalized! Supposedly it was regarding some DUI stuff and needing to go through this to get his license back...sounds shady but I really don't care about the story if the bottom line is he is out of the picture.

Brother is trying to handle his brother's businesses now. Brother is aware of debt owed to me and asked for a few days to get a plan in place.

Meanwhile the business partner called me back and went on a rant about how the partner owed so many people money (including him) and institutionalized himself to get away from creditors and regroup for a few months. And left everyone in a big lurch for leaving so suddenly. But this partner acknowledged that he was aware of the debt owed to me. He said he will personally pay me half of the remainder as that was his original plan until his partner said he would cover the full debt to me as a re-payment for money owed to the partner. He asked for a few days to get a plan in place.

The brother contacted me a week later and promptly sent me $3k. The brother then alluded to the new business partner buying out the original partner and so the original institutionalized partner and brother would no longer be a part of things. Since everything was so up in the air I am giving it some time to settle before trying to figure out who will pay me the remaining amount.

So as of a week ago I started calling the new business partner to get a game plan in place. No response.

I also talked to an old employee who is working there but plans to move on soon and he said things are going ok but not great. The people in charge are leaving less competent people to run things and laziness is starting to take over.

Not great for me as I would love for everyone to be really happy and making great money so they can pay me my remaining money. I don't like that people are giving up (even though that's what I did).

So now on a semi regular basis I am calling and leaving escalating-ly concerned messages for the new business partner.

Sigh. I am getting a lot of experience as a bill collector. Re-affirms that I don't want to ever get a job in the collections industry.

On good news- the baby is doing great.

"It's always darkest before the dawn." I came here yesterday complaining about my baby putting up such a fight at her evening bedtime and what do you know? Last night was a DREAM evening.

8.5 hours of sleep! (Not in a row)

But she ate at 8pm and fell right asleep. She woke up at 11:30- ate and was right back to sleep. She woke at 3:30am and then she was AWAKE after so much sleep- but after an hour of looking around and playing with her hands she fell asleep. Then about 6:30am she woke and it was time to start the day.

I dont know if that was a fluke or the start of something. I have a party to go to tonight and I'm debating skipping it to not derail her progress. I was going to go for about 2 hrs between feeding sessions- but I worry my anxiety to "hurry up and fall asleep" will transfer to her and cause another round of crying and wailing. I'll spend the day thinking about that one.

Financially related we have 2 parties interested in the vacant apartment.
One group of guys who are waiters at some well established resteraunts downtown want it for Jan 1. Not ideal because then the place was empty for 3 months.

One group of college kids wants it for Dec 1. But they have been flaky about communicating with us and have already asked about 6 month leases / subletting because they will be going home for the summer. They want it but have not really been actively calling and trying to get the process complete. They seem to think we will wait on their timeline to get leases signed and stuff. Not a great impression of their maturity or stability.

Husband and I decided to go with the waiters for Jan 1. If it was rented in December that would financially be more profitable- but not if we are going to have drama come the summer. And also not if these kids are habitually late on their rent or disorganized about payments.

Anyways, that's whats going on in this household. Well rested and hopeful that we can repeat the sleep schedule tonight!

Ok baby Charlotte is over 3 weeks old and my days have just gotten more consumed by her as she gets older. As she is growing, she is sleeping less, eating more and crying A LOT more. Constantly wants to be held. Makes it so hard to get anything else done.

We are experimenting with various sleep methods to get through the night. Given that she sleeps periodically and pretty contentedly in the day (she just falls asleep every few hrs wherever she is)- I have NO IDEA why her 8 pm feeding (last feeding before I go to bed) turns into a cry fest where she feeds herself to sleep but wakes within minutes of being put in her bed and cries until she is picked back up. This cycle continues for up to 2 HOURS with me drifting off for 10 mins and then she wakes- realizes she is in her bed and screams bloody murder.

After that first nightmare shift when we FINALLY get her to sleep- the next 2 feedings are usually quiet with her feeding and falling back asleep within an hour.

Around 6 am she is UP. Wide awake, in a good mood. I wish she would do one more sleep shift and be wide awake, in a good mood around 8 am, but oh well.

Does anyone know WHY my baby refuses to be put to bed after her 8pm feeding? I just keep picking her back up, feeding her more, wait for her to fall asleep and put her down- just to have her stir and start wailing.

Ugh - I would be fine with the current sleep arrangement if she would give me those two hrs between 8 -10pm to sleep and not scream.

I had an interesting moment occure today. A woman knocked on my front door and said she was looking for someone affiliated with XX LLC (our LLC for the rental properties). I told her that she had found me and she said she was interested in buying one of the properties. She named the house number and I filled in the street name for her. She said she noticed it was boarded up and abandoned. I interupted her to say my property is not boarded up, its currently rented. This confused her and she said the property she is interested in is a duplex. Mine is a duplex. She said it was a pale yellow color. My property has green paint. So we were stumped. Then she said it was by the train tracks. My place is no where near train tracks. So I finally figured out she meant #xx EAST street name, and my place is #xx WEST street name. So my place is not what she wanted to buy after all.

She didnt understand why the city had my LLC listed as the owners of the property but I told her the city makes mistakes, but I am definately not the owner. So she was back to the drawing board.

I ended up going online to the city tax assessor website out of curiosity. I am NOT listed as the owner. This woman must have mistakenly typed West when she meant to type East and gotten my info.

The place has an owner listed, and he bought it in 1996 for $20k. The property is nice and big, but the picture online shows it to be abandoned, boarded up and neglected.

I suppose this woman is a flipper going around looking for potential properties. I thought it was interesting having a first hand conversation with someone in an industry I am thinking of one day breaking into. I guess maybe one day it will be me knocking on a door wondering if an owner is interested in selling their property.

Hello!
Trying to get back into the blogging habit. Charlotte is doing well. All house guests have finally left and we have peace at the house. (The chairs all held up well- all new chairs were used.)

I'm finding myself googling about newborns a lot more than saving money.

Now that we have bought everything for Charlotte, I don't see her incurring many additional expenses for the next few weeks. So our budget will stabilize now.

We are still short monthly from our rental income to our monthly expenses. But it's not much longer until that reverses due to husbands disability court hearing in December, and new cheaper health insurance kicking in January. So January should bring in a whole new budget!

Still pondering what to do with money that has come in specifically for Charlotte. Thinking Cloverdell might be an ok option. Or I still might just open up a 1 yr CD to give myself some more time to research it. I appreciate all your responses to my request for advice. I need to re-read them as I read them before but cant really remember the details (sleep deprived).

Ok, so this was not a great post. But its a start to get back in the habit. Going to check on the baby now.

Charlotte has received $950.00 so far from friends and family. I have not yet deposited any money because I'm uncertain the best place to put it.

If it goes in a savings account then it will get spent. And not by her.

I am open to an education fund but am leery of them as well. I feel like the 529's and such are new-ish products and worry about how great of an idea they will be 16 -18 years from now when we use the money. I have heard some limit the colleges she can attend, some have large fees if she does not attend college, and some have fees just to invest the money.

And we are uncertain about putting her into a private high school which is currently costing about $8- $10k a year on average here in my town. So we might want to use the money when she is about 14 yrs old towards her private schooling.

I looked into TIAA Cref and they seem pretty standard. As I understand it, the money is currently accumulating 1% interest, and that is variable. The money has a 10% penalty when not used for school. And we get a $2k tax credit per year for investing the money. If money is used for school we pay no taxes towards interest accrued on account.

But I worry things will change once the money is locked up. Like the govt has discussed making ROTH's less attractive, and cutting Social Security, and all the other programs the govt changes it's mind about.

Do you guys have any opinions or advice?

At this point I am thinking of opening a 1 year CD and spending the year thinking about what to do with the money.

8 days ago I had a baby. Her name is Charlotte. She is healthy other than jaundice and we love her very much. Husband has stepped up to the plate and he is as hands on as possible. He is physically pushing himself beyond his limits but not complaining at all. We are exhausted. I'll post more another time. Thanks for thinking of us!