It may have been some of the truly entertaining photos,or the fact that I’ve been guilty of close to 50% of these at some point.
Although… I’d be surprised if there’s someone out there who hasn’t committed any of these no-no’s!
I’ve left the original number as they appeared in the slide show, but reorganized them by severity.
My name is Mike Choi and I look nothing like this photo, but I do run a little blog over at rentingoutrooms.com, which is my story of renting out my individual rooms to roommates. The idea is if you own your home, you can rent out an individual room in exchange for rent. This whole idea started when I decided to go back to graduate school, but I didn’t want to take on additional student loan debt to what I already accrued from my undergraduate studies. Today, I’m here to share my story of work involved making money from your extra bedroom.
Being a “live-in landlord”
I call myself a live-in landlord because a traditional landlord is someone who owns a piece of property and rent it out to tenants. However, my case is slightly different – I live in my residence and rent out the individual rooms to roommates. So that’s why I call myself a live in landlord, which is like a separate sub species of landlords.
But when the European Debt Crisis fully erupted in the spring, the global economic recovery began to show signs of faltering. Then in June and July, key economic data out of the United States disappointed to the downside quite strongly. By mid-June it became very clear the U.S. recovery was in trouble, and in late July Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke basically sealed the deal and removed all doubt from the market when he stated before Congress that the economic outlook for the United States in the 2nd half of 2010 is “unusually uncertain.” It was official—the Federal Reserve had no clue how bad things were going to get.
When you’re young, you don’t go any more than necessary. Occasionally you’ll stroll in for a check-up to make sure everything’s okay, but that’s about it. As you age, and you’re financial health becomes more complicated, it may make sense to go with something more regular.
There are those special occasions though when the advice of a professional is recommended – one of which is marriage! I’ve been scouting out resources online for newlyweds, but have been thoroughly disappointed with the results.
“ELIMINATE DEBT”
“START BUDGETING”
“SAVE MONEY”
and the worst…
“PAY OFF THAT HONEYMOON!”