Lessons learned: Don't overlook the amount of the late-payment fee. My debtors are late every month with their payment, and all I get for my troubles is a lousy $15 fee. That's a nice little bump of $180 every year, but it hardly covers the extra time I spend for bookkeeping. Recalculating the totals every month is a hassle. And $15 per month doesn't "incentivize" them to pay on time.
Insist on a late-payment fee of at least $25, but why stop there? Go for $35 to $50, and you'll see a much-improved on-time payment performance.
Sunday, April 29, 2007
The couple who owns my old house still has to make monthly payments for another four-and-a-half years. Seems like forever.
I used to write to them every month to urge them to take out a bank loan to pay off their loan in one lump-sum payment. Would have been nice to get a that $10,000 chunk of change in one check. But now, I've become accustomed to getting that little $210 monthly bump in my checking account. Why not? I can always use the extra cash, and at the end of the year, I've earned $750 in interest payments from them. Profit's a good thing. (Right, Martha?)
I used to write to them every month to urge them to take out a bank loan to pay off their loan in one lump-sum payment. Would have been nice to get a that $10,000 chunk of change in one check. But now, I've become accustomed to getting that little $210 monthly bump in my checking account. Why not? I can always use the extra cash, and at the end of the year, I've earned $750 in interest payments from them. Profit's a good thing. (Right, Martha?)
Tuesday, November 09, 2004
Why, oh Muse, did I ever abandon you? Or this blog?
The more things change, the more they stay the same. A lot can change in a 18 months, and just as much is same as it ever was.
After a couple months going the FSBO route, through mid-August of 2003, I learned that a friend of a friend was opening a scratch-kitchen Italian restaurant in a lodge overlooking tranquil Lake Hebgen, 15 miles west of West Yellowstone, Montana. The question was put to me: Did I want to come out to the mountains to
- Wait tables a few nights a week for killer cash?
- Be in charge of building a winning wine list?
- Spend my off days mountain biking in the 12 million acres of Gallatin National Forest, hiking in Big Sky, and soaking in the hot springs west of Bozeman?
Hell, yeah.
And so a day later, I signed a deal with a local realtor (owned in part, it turns out, by the same Liffrig schmuck who lost the senate race to Byron Dorgan) to promote the house, heaved my clothes and my cats into the Ford product, and headed west.
The last phone call I received before locking the house was from Nicole Flournoy. Why am I abandoning her and Randy? They really, really, REALLY want the house! Hey, toots, if it ain't sold by the time I get back, you can make me an offer.
[to be continued]
Wednesday, July 16, 2003
the house is the house. Its condition IS its condition, and it will appeal to whomever it appeals to. Beyond that, I have little to say about when it will sell and to whom and for how much. I've been beseiged lately by certain family and friends to give accurate estimates as to when it will sell. Like most home sellers, I want an offer THIS WEEK, for FULL PRICE. ALL CASH. NO CONTINGENCIES.
And like most home sellers, I will feel a twinge of bummed for not getting all of the above. Predicting tides and lunar cycles is far more reliable. All I can say is, I will do my best to market the house, and sell it for as close to the asking price as possible. It's not a science. Wake up with a pang of anxiety coursing through your body, and you just might be more inclined that given day to make concessions. Other days, brimming with confidence, you easily resolve to stick to your terms.
What can I say? It will sell when it sells and for the price it commands. That is the only thing I can promise. And everyone involved will wake up one day and receive a call from me bearing good news. Now can't we all just get along?
And like most home sellers, I will feel a twinge of bummed for not getting all of the above. Predicting tides and lunar cycles is far more reliable. All I can say is, I will do my best to market the house, and sell it for as close to the asking price as possible. It's not a science. Wake up with a pang of anxiety coursing through your body, and you just might be more inclined that given day to make concessions. Other days, brimming with confidence, you easily resolve to stick to your terms.
What can I say? It will sell when it sells and for the price it commands. That is the only thing I can promise. And everyone involved will wake up one day and receive a call from me bearing good news. Now can't we all just get along?
Friday, July 04, 2003
Dia de Independence. Hehhh. The holiday with which I'm least impressed. Bemused is more like it. Nay, cynical.
An unending medley of Harleys, duellies, and sirens -- police and ambulance -- providing the background drone to my morning coffee klatsch (total attendance: 1; served in the garden) The latter, no doubt, in response to a variety of DEA intelligence reports, en route to bust yet another meth lab, as well as to ticket and transport to Mercy Medical Center the early Jack-and-12-pack imbibers who, in propelling their Dodge Ram 1500s into drainage culverts on the way to the 4-Mile Bar to shore up supplies of smooth-drinking Busch Light before gunning it out to Lake Sakakawea, have thus further thinned the fast-shrinking North Dakota population and strengthened the available gene pool.
Perhaps another nonogenarian resident of the Kensington House had played her very last game of whist, forcing the EMTs to abandon their flag-unfurling duties (temporarily, of course).
I considered darting up to Canada today to get away from all the blindly patriotic nonsense, (fer Chrissakes, how long must we Support Our Troops?! And just HOW, exactly?) but I'd have to risk taking to the highway that passes the 9-Mile Bar, the 29-Mile Bar, and the Ammex Bar (a.k.a. the 53-Mile Bar). Would my insurance and dual air bags be enough reassurance?
Anyway, I'm well stocked with Canadian pilsener, and there's a decent '98 Sonoma Cab on hand, should I choose to go that route tonight.
But what a glorious day to stay home, read, water the garden (the lettuce, arugula, turnip greens, and bok choy are all ready to be transformed into a glorious meal), and write the disclosure statement.
They (the people who predict this sort of thing for a living) say we might be in for a thunderstorm tonight, the ferocity of which would draw Clay Strauss Jenkinson to lie naked on the Prairie, the kind that might inspire a genuine fear of God.
If they are right, I'll risk the drive to the 4-Mile junction, where I'll turn south, ford the Mighty Mo (whose local floodplain is at least six miles wide), ascend to the apex of McKenzie County bluff, ("up on the Bench," in local parlance) and park it next to the rusty swing at the dilapidated but stubbornly erect Rosseland Lutheran Church. There, I'll strip to my skivvies, spread a blanket, lie down, and wait for a sign from Him (or is that just the cloud-seeders?)
If not, I'll skip the fireworks and the street dance and everything so I can bag another 50 pages in "Remains of the Day."
I'd like to say "Have a Great 4th!" but that would lack the sincerity called for on a national holiday. How about, "Stay home, skip the parade, and if you're gonna drive drunk, try not to visit any tragedy on strangers."
- Air
An unending medley of Harleys, duellies, and sirens -- police and ambulance -- providing the background drone to my morning coffee klatsch (total attendance: 1; served in the garden) The latter, no doubt, in response to a variety of DEA intelligence reports, en route to bust yet another meth lab, as well as to ticket and transport to Mercy Medical Center the early Jack-and-12-pack imbibers who, in propelling their Dodge Ram 1500s into drainage culverts on the way to the 4-Mile Bar to shore up supplies of smooth-drinking Busch Light before gunning it out to Lake Sakakawea, have thus further thinned the fast-shrinking North Dakota population and strengthened the available gene pool.
Perhaps another nonogenarian resident of the Kensington House had played her very last game of whist, forcing the EMTs to abandon their flag-unfurling duties (temporarily, of course).
I considered darting up to Canada today to get away from all the blindly patriotic nonsense, (fer Chrissakes, how long must we Support Our Troops?! And just HOW, exactly?) but I'd have to risk taking to the highway that passes the 9-Mile Bar, the 29-Mile Bar, and the Ammex Bar (a.k.a. the 53-Mile Bar). Would my insurance and dual air bags be enough reassurance?
Anyway, I'm well stocked with Canadian pilsener, and there's a decent '98 Sonoma Cab on hand, should I choose to go that route tonight.
But what a glorious day to stay home, read, water the garden (the lettuce, arugula, turnip greens, and bok choy are all ready to be transformed into a glorious meal), and write the disclosure statement.
They (the people who predict this sort of thing for a living) say we might be in for a thunderstorm tonight, the ferocity of which would draw Clay Strauss Jenkinson to lie naked on the Prairie, the kind that might inspire a genuine fear of God.
If they are right, I'll risk the drive to the 4-Mile junction, where I'll turn south, ford the Mighty Mo (whose local floodplain is at least six miles wide), ascend to the apex of McKenzie County bluff, ("up on the Bench," in local parlance) and park it next to the rusty swing at the dilapidated but stubbornly erect Rosseland Lutheran Church. There, I'll strip to my skivvies, spread a blanket, lie down, and wait for a sign from Him (or is that just the cloud-seeders?)
If not, I'll skip the fireworks and the street dance and everything so I can bag another 50 pages in "Remains of the Day."
I'd like to say "Have a Great 4th!" but that would lack the sincerity called for on a national holiday. How about, "Stay home, skip the parade, and if you're gonna drive drunk, try not to visit any tragedy on strangers."
- Air
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