Hey, Big Spender

February is done and I have $30,512. With the owner financing deal out the window, it’s good to know that I’ll have at least 10k after property Charlie is acquired to either fix up the property or to build towards Delta and sweet paycheck retirement. That made me feel good. Too good.

Yesterday, I went to the mechanic to get my inspection done on the GMC Jimmy. I figured it was going to be easy after all the money I put into the thing, but it wasn’t. After 45 minutes of waiting, the mechanic comes out and tells me that my vehicle cannot pass inspection. He said that the E-Brake of the back rear axle is missing, which meant that… ugh, I don’t remember exactly what the problem was, but it was expensive. He said it would cost $1,081 to fix everything. So I said okay, let’s do it. I always took pride in maintaining my GMC Jimmy, so I was all set to do it. Then I saw the guy that was working on it and called him over to me. I asked him that, with what was wrong with the vehicle, am I still able to drive it? He said yeah, only that I shouldn’t use the 4-wheel drive. He then said, “Yeah man, a thousand dollars is a lot of money, man. I know I wouldn’t be able to pay for that right away.” And then it hit me.

I was so ready to spend the $1000 to fix it because I HAD $30,000 backing me up. I no longer had to use it for owner financing, so what’s the big deal in spending a thousand dollars to get my GMC Jimmy running and inspected, right? Wrong. Just because I have the money, doesn’t mean that I have to spend it right away. That’s been my problem for a long time. Whenever I get a lot of money, I’ll spend it on something that is of low priority, or misspend it without thinking of the bigger picture. So I cancelled fixing the Jimmy and left the place. It turned out that I definitely needed to do that because I had to pay for repairs for property Chi.

No springs on the right

Rotted springs on the left

All done

The garage door of property Chi’s garage hasn’t been working in months, and I had to fix it before winter was over. Chi is located right next to a rowdy bar and, when the winter is over and the weather gets good, their ghetto patrons will sometimes run a muck and break into nearby vehicles. So I called a garage door company and they came and fixed the problem. The right side of the garage’s door had no springs to pull the door open, and the springs on the left side were rotting away. So I had the springs replaced and it cost $200. See, when it comes to real estate, I can spend a moderate price because that’s the cost of business. It’s all part of the budget. But in my personal life, if it’s not entirely important, I shouldn’t be so quick to spend a thousand dollars on an unnecessary repair just to get some stupid sticker on my car. I drove without a license or registration for 4 years without getting into trouble, so why would I be afraid of getting a ticket for expired inspection? The next time a bill comes up in my personal life that has nothing to do with real estate, I’ll have to ask myself: “Would a normal security guard making $9.46 an hour be able to afford this?” If I do that, I should be okay. I also made another big decision: it’s time to say goodbye to the GMC Jimmy.

The poor bastard has 165,000 miles on it and, no matter how well I take care of it, there will always be expensive problems from here on out. Last year I spent $2000 on the damned thing, and now they want me to spend another thousand in 2013? Nah, it’s gotta end.I've been so blind and thought that if I take care of the vehicle well, it could last forever. But I didn't take into account that that saying is best when I had the vehicle from the beginning. So I’ll use the Jimmy until the end of the summer as it is, then trade it in and get another used SUV, something with less miles. Maybe a Ford Escape? Maybe a Lexus RX300? Whatever it is, it must cost less than $6000, less than or at 120,000 miles, and it must have a history of reliability. I’ll trade in the Jimmy and pay the remaining balance, either all at once or with large monthly payments.

It’ll be tough to say goodbye to the Jimmy but it’s a good decision for the long term. Another good long term decision is to always ask myself whether I’m spending too much when buying something, both in my personal life and my business life. Costs go down and profits go up—that’s the natural order of things. When I have a lot of money, I have to think like a $9.46 an hour wage slave security guard, not the ego and ambition driven landlord with big goals for the future. Having that “big spender” mentality can only mess things up.

P.S.: I just read this post again. Did I say that I have to start making unnecessary purchases, and then suggest my next vehicle should be a Lexus in the same post? Ugh, I never said unnecessary spending was going to be an easy habit to un-learn.