On Simplifying...

I've been working on a few things to simplify my life.  I've always been a fan of focusing on what you are good at and eliminating or delegating the rest.

Real Estate

The house I listed in March is ALMOST sold.  The buyer's lender has taken a long time to get the loan in order.  Over the weekend the buyer offered to rent my house until she buys it.  I said "yes" right away.  The buyer will pay $500 rent every two weeks, plus I was able to take the utilities out of my name.  The house should close within the next couple of weeks, but it is quite a relief to add a little income while getting my buyer fully "bought-in" on this house.  There's no backing out now as far as I can see.

The plan is to methodically sell all my Birmingham properties.  I'm not in a hurry to do this, but whenever an opportunity presents itself, this is what I will do.

Finances

Recently I closed out one of the bank accounts I had opened as a mystery shop.  I also dejunked my wallet by taking out all but a couple of my credit cards.  The ones I am not using are kept in the safe.  There's something refreshing about having a nice thin wallet.

Work

Meeting season is kicking off tomorrow.  I'll be more picky this year about the jobs we do.  There's no reason to drive to Orlando for $100 on a busy Uber day when I could earn twice that here at home.  I've been keeping copious notes on when Uber/Lyft are busy in my area.  Tuesdays and Wednesdays seem to be the slowest days for rideshare.  I will continue to refine my work schedule so that I am only working when demand is healthy.  There's nothing worse than giving someone a ride 10 miles away, only to be stuck in that area for half an hour without another fare.

Life

Back at the homestead, we still don't have a kitchen.  The base cabinets aren't level, and it's been a real struggle.  I have to focus on a solution to this ASAP.  As far as recreation goes, we've taken advantage of our Busch Gardens passes twice.  We also planned an impromptu trip to Las Vegas later in October.  I found a cheap airfare combining flights on Spirit and Frontier and decided that getting out of town would be good for us.

Things are headed in a positive direction, and this is a good time in my life.  I'm finally seeing some progress on checking off my to-do list.