My finances feel cluttered. I have been feeling this way since we closed on The Impulsive Purchase. I have been able to ignore it till about last night.

Last night I watched Suze Ormon and her show combined with a very expensive St. Patty's celebration week (numerous people came into town- it's the 3rd biggest St. Patty's celebration in the country behind NY & Boston) made me want to get the finances back on track.

I didn't get anywhere other than realizing the next few months will continue to get murky. So bear with me while I try to at least get the facts down:

On April 1st I will owe my first mortgage payment on The Impulsive Purchase. I will also be trying to collect the rent from 3 different sources before the payment is due. That should work out ok. I will still need to cough up $85.00 because the property is not completely cash flowing due to the ridiculous low rents these tenants pay.

We have the upstairs tenants of the 1st property moving out in the end of May. Have not yet decided if I want to pour about $500 into the place to smooth out the plaster walls, paint and replace bedroom carpeting so I can charge more. But then the place wont be rented for about 2 weeks and that is lost rent. I think in the condition it is in now I can raise the rent...$50 a month. With the improvements I might be able to get out another $150 a month. Trying to be conservative in this recession. I prob should do the work- but the upstairs rent pays my whole mortgage and it might be a bit painful to cough up that payment right now- having just bought The Impulsive Purchase.

The California property is going to be $400 short this month. It was $400 short last month. The fridge broke down and the tenant got a new one for $720 plus taxes and haul off fee. She is splitting the bill in half each month so I don't have to deal with the pain of being $800 short in 1 months rent. But no matter how you slice it the shortage is still painful. But the new fridge is a tax write off- next year I will reap the benefits.

I seem to have entered wedding-land. I have 4 out of town weddings this year and 3 are in Mexico! BB will be accompanying me to 3 of the 4 so then the cost doubles. Just weighing on my mind. Especially because I committed and purchased plane tickets for a Vegas trip in May before I knew about 3 of the weddings. So not sure where the money for all this is coming from. Just gotta keep in mind these are short term obstacles. And 5 vacations in 1 year is very excessive but I guess a good problem to have.

So that's whats on my mind. I am going to be entering a few months where I will be borrowing from one account to pay bills for another...I don't like living that way- I like saving money every month- not going into the red- but I think it cant be helped until maybe July or August.

Then once September rolls around we start trying for the HELOC on The Impulsive purchase so we can convert it into a SFH and move into it. OIY. That will be 2 oir 3 months of having The Impulsive Property vacant while work is done but still being responsible for the mortgage and also living in our 1st property so it cannot be rented out to cover the Impulsive Properties mortgage. Messy messy times ahead.

The only positive is that I am back to E-Baying. I made $300 this month and have more items to list. I am going to try and use that money to make up for the shortages.
So the finances are cluttered. Messy. Not even blogging about it has helped.