In terms of ll'ing, everyone's tolerance for risk depends on their circumstances. Age and health are two big factors. Geography is another factor. Local economy is a third factor. How much cash cushion you have is a fourth factor. I'm sure there are six or seven other things to take into account--- but it's easier to say, "Buy what you can afford to pay for now" rather than "Buy what you can afford-- unless w, x, y, and z, in which case, go ahead and get a mortgage."

So-- take Detroit, for example. How many landlords were wiped out around 2010-2014? We don't expect to deal with urban decay. Yes, suppose you had 50 houses in Detroit that you owned free-and-clear... that would be massively stressful, but you might find a way to keep yourself afloat until things even out. What happens when you have mumblemumble mortgages? There's no way to keep things afloat and ride it out.

That's not to say that the only reason to avoid a mortgage is "what happens if your area economically implodes." But there are plenty of other reasons why people can fail.

"Too many renovations running, and not enough income coming in to cover the renos and the mortgages" is one that affects one local ll. That one went to jail. I ended up buying one of his places from the bank.

Another one in my area is "not putting aside money to cover the failure of a major system in an emergency, and thereby getting a vacant house because a tenant doesn't want to live in a compromised house". Although the person I'm thinking of owned their houses free and clear, having a mortgage would only have added to the financial stress of keeping their biz afloat. That person burned out and sold us most of their stuff for next-to-nothing. They kept their best house, because it had a tenant... but put nothing back into it. The roof failed. And now she wants to sell-- I would have loved it in 2016, but in 2019, my plate is full.

I've got one house that's been off the market since mid-September, and another house that's been off the market since early December. I needed to entirely replumb and reroof and refloor one of them; the second needed totally new flooring, plus resolving some major plumbing issues. If I'd had mortgages on either of them-- how easy would it have been to keep up with the mortgage for seven or eight months, and the other for four, before I got them back on their feet again? That's a whole lot of lost rent that I need to absorb... having two mortgages hanging over my head would have been crippling while I tried to wrangle those major repairs.

So-- having a mortgage gives you one more layer of risk to worry about. But owning things free and clear is much more straightforward-- just keep up with your annual property taxes.

But at the same time, we buy and/or sell more houses in a one-to-five-year period than a lot of people ever buy or sell in their lifetimes. Usually, it turns out well, because we're buying houses that work for us, and actively bring us income, not houses that we merely want to live in. Sometimes, we buy with our hearts, not with our heads, and then we get to deal with the repercussions of our emotional decisions. If there's a mortgage tied to that emotional decision, that's just one more albatross to deal with...

Calculated risk is good; a lot of people would never have grown without it. But the same people whose priorities or judgment may be lacking, who rely on Dave Ramsey to get them out of a bad financial situation, are probably the same people who would get themselves into another bad financial situation by carelessly buying a house they can't actually afford, for whatever reason. Having an arbitrary rule-- "Be able to pay cash for what you want to buy"-- whether it's an RV or a house or a boat or a vacation or a college degree -- helps protect them from their emotional impulses.

from what I heard Dave Ramsey has been challenged number of times to show that he is is getting 12% returns on his Mutual Funds

Michael,

I have paid the banks MILLION$$$ in interest thru MY hard work. The bank always makes money even when I was losing money in RE.

BRAD

I think Dave Ramsey’s advice to live within our means is brilliant for all and potentially life changing for the 50-60% of Americans who can’t seem to build net worth. For those of us who can save...his advice to buy real estate only with cash is just not the model that most use to become financially independent.

Brad, you have probably spent big bucks in property taxes, too. In good financial times and bad So what? Both taxes and interest are the costs of doing business in growing our real estate empires.

Those for whom investing in real estate without debt is their defacto religion...I wish them well and would’t argue with them any more than I would argue with my religious friends about the existence their God.

It’s all good. Take the advice that is meaningful to you and leave the rest.

My wife and I started buying RE in 1986. We didn't have a pot to _____ in or a window to throw it out of. I think, if you really want to attach wealth, there is no way a common person can do it without debt. People don't just give you Sufis. Not in the 30+ years we've been doing it. We had 80 SFH's (with mort's) at one point and sold 17. We currently have 63 with only 5 mortgages left. Had we not brought on debt and in a big way maybe we'd have 8 or 9 property's right now--THATS A BID MAYBE.

Managing the debt for business purposes is the key. BUSINESS PURPOSES!

Michael....YEEEESSSS!!!!

So now there are about half a dozen of us on this site who "get" Dave Ramsey's advice. Ignore the naysayers. It isn't our job to convince them. They'll do it their way: fine and dandy. But let's explore HOW to do it Dave's way vs. making sarcastic quips about tables knives. ;-)

I became a big fan of Dave's back in 2008...3 years AFTER starting in Real Estate. So I still have some debt from back then. It's paying off steadily, but as of today we're in Baby Step 6b (personally debt free, but working off the rental mortgages) AND we're growing our investing portfolio with CASH!

Our model had to change.

1) Only do the best deals and focus on maximizing cash flow. I use the 2% rule and buy Class C houses. 2% rule means monthly rent must be AT LEAST 2% of the "all in" costs (purchase + closing + rehab). That way, we get all our money back in 7 years or less and can buy the next house.

2) Asset snowball. Every time you buy a new debt-free house, it CUTS IN HALF the time to buy the NEXT house. So the first one takes 7 years to get your money back. Buy house #2...now it takes 3.5 years to get your money back. Buy house #3....now it takes 1.75 years to get your money back. Buy house #4....it takes about 9 months to get your money back. Etc.

Instead of snowballing DEBT, you're snowballing ASSETS!

If you follow this model, in 20 years you'll have 9 free and clear houses without having borrowed a penny or taken 1 ounce of debt-risk. If you go 30 years...you'll have 35 houses...never a penny borrowed.

I get it that you're retired and the time horizon looks short. But that also means you have less time to recover from mistakes/market downturns completely out of your control. Will you risk what you've built over a life-time? That's your call.

I just demonstrated how it is possible to be a debt-free real estate investor. Not everyone will agree to do it, but they must agree it is possible. I'm doing it RIGHT NOW... today!

It may be harder to follow that strategy where they live due to higher prices and lower rent yields. There are ways around that, one of which is to invest out of town/out of state. Lots of folks do that, and while it may not be the optimal strategy it is a workable one. If you buy correctly, hire competent help, and keep an eye on it, no reason your market must limit you.

There are other debt-free strategies we can discuss if you like, such as partnerships, equity sharing, syndicating, etc. if you like. Bottom line: when you take the lender OFF THE TABLE, suddenly a new world of possibilities emerges.

Listeners that discover its all about their Behaviors,

are the ones who are most likely to succeed.

(The way in which one acts or conducts oneself)

I think the sarcastic quips are better, so...

"Don't let Dave Ramsey's very GENERAL advice intended for a mass audience CONTROL your personal actions and goals."

As several have said, Dave's advice of living within your means makes good sense for everyone. But most of his advice about debt is aimed at the vast majority of people that aren't good with money from the standpoint of making wise decisions. So, it is just EASIER to say to EVERYONE to not go into debt for anything.

That rule doesn't necessarily have to apply to everyone. Landlords tend to be a different breed when it comes to how they use and spend money. We are not necessarily Ramsey's target audience.

- John...

And, I know this is a bit harsh -- and I really like Sid on this forum -- but I'll say it anyway... We have some people here that SAY that they follow Ramsey and SAY that everyone can do it debt-free on Ramsey's plan and SAY that you should too... But didn't DO it that way themselves and, in my opinion, aren't DOING it that way now.

I personally think that Ramsey would have told Sid to never buy another rental until all of his previous debt was paid off. Or, even worse, I think Ramsey would tell Sid to SELL other assets that he had to get all of that previous debt paid off -- and THEN he could move forward with buying debt-free.

But Sid hasn't done that, right? He still has debt from YEARS and YEARS ago. I don't think that is the Ramsey Way, but that is just my opinion.

Again, I don't want this to sound too harsh against Sid -- because I really like him and I even like most of his Ramsey advice. But I don't know if we have a single LL here that actually DID it that way. We have some "Do as I say, but not as I DID" people here, yes. And have some "Do as I say, but not as I'm DOING now" people too.

Can it be done? Absolutely -- I agree with Sid that it CAN be done. Does that mean it is the only or even BEST way? No, I don't think that is necessarily the case.

- John...

I want to know where the money for the first one comes from. And if you don't sell the first one, where does the money for the second come from? Yes, the first might be "paid for" in 7 years, and 3.5 years and so on...but where does the actual MONEY to get started come from?

Of course we started with borrowed money - I think you have to unless you were born independently wealthy.

I think John said it all that Dave's advice is targeted at the majority of people and those people are not good with money, finance, goals, controlled spending. That is why they are in the situation they are and need advice to get out. Renting and LL is a business. That is different than personal finances.

There is no one way to do things. Everyone has a different amount of what makes them rich, what they want to spend their money on. As long as that is recognized and a plan to reach that goal is in place, you are on your way. That is something lacking for a lot of people. The latest iphone gets in the way of the retirement goal.

What hog wash. You want to accumulate wealth-- then you need debt. We're talking people here on this site that had to earn everything they have. Wealth isn't one or 2 rental or even 8 or 9. You can get more by being smart and MANAGING your debt.

We had nothing in 1986-- NADA except 4 kids. I did have a great job though and a partner (my wife) who could squeeze a nickel of of a turnip.

We purchased 80 SFH's - 6 FHA foreclosures and the rest VA foreclosures. Most $0 down. Not much equity but my take was you can't eat equity so who cares. By 2001 we got down to 63. Now only 5 with mortgages (1 of which is our home).

I'm here to tell you if you want quantity and you have nothing starting out buying 9 in 20 years is not the answer-- just so you don't have a mortgage?

Homer TX your what I'm talkin about.

I've said this here before Mickie Dee's makes .01 cent on a burger-- but when you have 1 Billion sold-- its all about quantity Homer? isn't it?

Love your story and the point.

JB, Ric might be, but our experience with his company left something to be desired. His office was in our local area back in the day, we were impressed with his expertise on the radio at least, and decided to hopefully sign on with his firm. We made an appointment as potential clients.

PMH, you said this: "I borrowed $50k..."

Many here don't believe in ANY leverage or ANY borrowing or ANY mortgage.

We too borrowed from various sources to buy various places.

So focus on low class houses with good cash flow so you can rebuild your cash reserves and buy more quickly?? What about appreciation, just ignore that?? The low end stuff gives good cash flow, also more tenant drama and little appreciation. It HAS to provide better cash flow or else no one would buy it. Loading up on low end stuff is a good way to end up in 15 years with a portfolio of paid off poop.

Our low-end houses rent to the same folks who WANT to rent nicer houses but simply can't afford it here. Wages have not kept up with housing prices.

We don't care about appreciation because we are not going to sell, that's for our kids to deal with.

No one (Sid? Brad?) has answered my question about how you buy that FIRST house, all cash. Or the second one in 7 years. Have a paid-off house does not mean you have cash in hand - unless you re-finance to pull equity out.

WMH is right on with the question that no one (sort of) is answering. "WHERE DO YOU GET THE MONEY FOR THE FIRST HOUSE"?

The point is unless you HAVE the money to put it down (which, for the MAJORITY OF PEOPLE you DON'T have ANY money to do so). You HAVE to borrow it. Yes, you can use "other people's money"... that can be a "friend, relative, other investors" OR A BANK. The money itself is "someone else's".

In all honesty - if you "borrow" from a friend, relative, etc you SHOULD be paying them interest. So instead of going to the friend or relative and potentially "ruining" that relationship - got to a bank or other investor and pay them.

THEN use that money that's left over to pay down (but most likely SAVE is the better thing to do) towards another property.

WMH, we built our rental properties completely debt free.

When the stock market and the RE market crashed 10 years ago, we had real jobs. The employer provided simple IRA's through our jobs. We had always invested the maximum allowed in the IRA's. But, when the market crashed, we saw our IRA value dropping every month. Our 30 years of IRA savings lost half of it's value!

I thought I would never be able to retire!

So, we combined the money we were going to contribute in the IRA's that year and used that money to pay cash for our first rental house. I thought RE that was "on sale" was a better investment than Wall Street being on sale. There were some really great deals on Wall Street, but, I wanted to try a different type of investment. I wanted more control on my investment than I could get with Wall Street.

We paid $20,000 (my IRA contributions and wife's IRA contributions) for a 4 bedroom house in a class c neighborhood that was already rented for $700/month. Two years later, we had saved enough rent to buy a $15,000 property that would rent for $650/month. The third house was less than 2 years later. The snowball continued to the point that we have 21 paid for properties.

Once we saw the power of RE investing, we did supplement the RE investment fund with a couple more years of additional "IRA money" until I went full time RE.

I am still a big fan of IRA accounts and encourage my kids to max out their plans. But, smart RE investing is better.

We used the low end properties to get started (8 properties purchased for less than $25,000 each) and create great cash flows. The other properties are nicer class C properties.

All the properties meet or exceed SID's 2% rule.

Even with today's RE prices, debt free real estate investing is still possible.

Debt free real estate investing takes a completely different mindset and a different approach.

I was not a follower of Dave Ramsey when we started buying RE. I had played the finance game with a small business and realized that for me, there are better ways to build wealth instead of going in debt.

For the ones who successfully use debt to build wealth, good for you! I am glad it works for you.

But, it is possible to buy RE without debt.

Curious, MMIT: how old were you when you bought the first house?

I am 63. We bought the first rental about 10 years ago.

Yes, I wish we had started RE sooner, but, I was not comfortable with borrowing for the rentals. Jumping from job to job during my working career, my pension is worth about $500/month. The 401/IRA funds were our retirement account that we took from job to job. Until the market crashed, I never thought about not contributing to the 401/IRA and using that money to buy RE with cash.

The kids have been “off the payroll” for about 5 years. I went full time RE about 5 years ago. My wife still works part time which covers most of the household expenses. Most of the rental income can be plowed back into the business.

We might start that process, MMIT, but in some ways, I don't care if my kids have to pay taxes after I die on money they got for just being my kids ;) After all, they are getting the houses at a stepped-up basis so no capital gain if they sell them!

So, the one example that we have here of someone that actually did it debt-free is someone that was able to buy a place that already rents for $700/month for only $20k. Who the heck sells a rental that brings in $8400/year for only $20k??

Sure, those deals might exist here and there -- in SOME areas -- but they are few and far between. And likely not even possible in many markets regardless of how lucky you are.

So, that still seems like a stretch to me. I mean, congrats to MMIT for finding some incredible deals and doing it. But I'm still not convinced that means it is a good idea for everyone.

My best deal so far was a house for $24k that rents for $700, so I agree that you can find them -- but that's the best deal I've ever found in 15+ years of watching -- meaning that I'm not convinced that it would have been good to wait to get started until I found something that good!

Also, just to note it in our Ramsey discussion -- my GUESS is that Ramsey would have told you to NEVER not fund your IRA because you were buying a rental instead... So, I'm still not convinced it is even a single example of someone actually following the "Ramsey way" and doing rentals.

- John...

WMH,

My kids said they did not care about the Roth vs 401. They are not interested in an inheritance. They said send it all before we die!

Our net income will be very high (according to our standards!) once we reach the RMD age. At 70.5 years old, we will have rental income (we could have a nice rental income if I did not spend it on fixing up the next house), RMD from the IRA's, SSI for both of us, and 2 small pensions.

Last year I made a 20 year spreadsheet with our projected income and expenses per year. This showed me when the best time to start each of our social security, pension, and that we would save hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes if we did the IRA to Roth conversion before we started the required minimum distributions.

Also, the kids all have very good jobs and are in a higher tax bracket than we are in.

Wife wants the money now, but, we will continue doing the conversions.

Michael,

I hope you got the answers you were looking after sifting thru all the responses. As several of us have showed, debt-free real estate investing CAN be done.

In 2008 when I heard of Dave's plan, I knew something had to change. So I cashed in some stocks from an employer when I re-started my investing strategy--which, btw, totally follows Dave's advice as he's not a fan of single stocks generally. That gave me seed money. I used that to flip 7 houses via "wholetaling"....Basically, I spent a few years building up my "war chest." In 3 years, I had what I needed to start down my new path.

I went to the Mr. Land lord Convention and learned strategies to super charge income above the 2% rule: pay day rent plan, pet registration, pet fees... along with Jeffrey's tried-and-true "would you like fries with that?" strategy.

I've learned how to do partnerships, equity sharing, and recently have been studying up on syndication to get into larger scale deals. All with cash. Zero debt.

So now that several of us have showed you how we have changed our investing strategy going forward, I encourage you to go forth and conquer. Those of us with a like mind are out here rootin' for you and ready to lend a hand when times are tough and critics chafe you like underpants woven out of 40-grit sand paper. ;-)

All the best!

Where does the money come from?

Our first tenant was at the tail end of 2010, so our first full year of landlording was 2011, and we had four houses online by Christmas that year.

Our first house was $7k. It was a dinky little 1/1 fixer-upper from a burned-out landlord who didn't screen. You could smell the carpet from the street. I had been encouraging DH for years to get into rentals, but when we walked the place, I thought, "Surely, he's not going to go for this crummy place." So I didn't even pay attention to anything while we walked through it, and when he said he was willing to risk $7k to give this ll thing a try, I couldn't remember a thing about it beyond "Ew." :) We renovated it ourselves. We bought it at Easter, 2010, and had our first tenant in November, and our first turnover in November as well, when she got picked up on outstanding warrants that didn't come up when we checked the criminal database. :P

Source of funds-- I'd left a job in 2006 about a month before I vested. I had thought about using up my vacation time to wrangle an end date that was favorable. One of the guys who was on that Board was a Division Manager in my Department. "Don't worry! Go ahead and cash your vacation out. I'll make sure you vest!" and of course, he didn't. I'd left my retirement account floating with them in the hopes that something nice would happen, but they sent me a letter saying, "Time's up. Cash it out." So I did-- and I plugged that money into this renovation.

It took 8 years to gross back 4x its purchase price. (About 2x the all-in price.)

Our second house was our previous primary residence, a nice 3/2/2. We had followed our current place for about 2.5 years through the foreclosure process, and watched it go up for auction a few times, both online and in person. It was always overpriced. We eventually got it at a steep discount in 2010, moved in at Halloween, and had our old house ready for a tenant in November, 2010. When we bought our first primary residence in 2006, we had a 50% down payment and had to take out a loan for the remainder, which we paid off in about 2 years. For our second primary residence, we put down about a 30% down payment, and had to take out a mortgage on the remainder. We paid that off in about 2 years as well.

Source of funds-- we already owned it. We had taken on debt to purchase it originally, and took on debt to buy the house that replaced it.

It took 7 years to gross back its original purchase price. But it had been purchased as a place to live in, not as an investment. It's not the price point we normally shop at... because it takes so long to recoup our funds.

Our third house was a relatively nice 2/1.5. It had been extensively renovated; all that was needed was paint, new locks, and a sign in the yard. It had been a bank foreclosure. A local ll had gotten overextended, with too many renovations, and not enough income coming in. He was a RTO guy who didn't do RTO correctly... and ended up in jail. The bank wanted, like, $60k, then $40k for it. It sat unsold for 2 years. We put in a lowball offer of $8k. They countered at $13k, or whatever. We offered $10k, final offer. They stuck at $13k. We walked. We eventually thought better of it and said, "Ok, $13k." And they're like, "No, $13k was 2 weeks ago, back when everyone was snowed in. Now it's $15k." So that was a lesson learned as well. :) We signed papers in March, 2011.

Source of funds: I'd left my former job to be a SAHM, and since I hadn't vested, I had to cash out my retirement. It came to about $12k. So the other $3k came out of our savings.

It took 7 years to gross back double its original purchase price.

Our fourth house was a crummy little 2/1. We bought it in October for $4k from an out-of-town house flipper who had bought the note and then discovered he had a crummy house in the middle of nowhere and was anxious to be rid of it. We renovated it. Our first tenant squeaked in right before Christmas. It earned $100 its first year in pro-rated rent. :)

Source of funds: We had about three houses working at that time, so that really helped defray the renovation expenses.

It will gross back 10x its original purchase price sometime this year. (About 3x the all-in price.)

After that, we were pretty much out of our cash reserves-- especially since our focus was now on aggressively paying off our new primary residence. That was when we experimented with taking on a loan to expand the biz the next stage... and found that we didn't care for it. 2012 was also the year we dealt with our first bedbugs, our first house fire, and our first major abandonment, so yeah, it was a rough year overall, and having to deal with financial commitments to other people was a little stressful.

I don't poo poo on anyone's strategy as there's no one way to approach anything. I wanted to work through the cash buying strategy as applied to my area. You are going to be very hard pressed to find a SFH for much less than 50K in my area now. I remember seeing a few here and there for 35K, but they needed work. Let's assume I could get a SFH in my area for an all in cost of $ 45,000. Rent on that place would be about $ 1200 a month. Assuming expenses at 40%, would leave annual NOI of 8640. If you banked all of that, you could accumulate another $ 45,000 to purchase the next place in 5 years. With two houses working, you'd able to accumulate another 45K in 2.5 years. Now with three working, next one can be gotten in 1.7 years. So in 9.2 years, you will have acquired 4 houses generating free cash flow of $ 34,560 but with very minimal buildup in equity. I understand that's generally not a concern however, equity growth is as much a part of investing as cash flow is.

Now, lets assume that you took the initial 50K and bought a commercial MFH (5+ units) for $ 250,000. Let's say gross rents are $ 2,910 a month and with expenses at 40%, NOI is 21,000. You've got a mortgage of 950 a month, so annual cash flow is 11,400. Rents are under market and you get them raised to market in a year which brings gross rents to 4255 a month. NOI is now 30,600 and free CF is now 19,236. Assuming a 10% capitalization rate, you've forced $ 78,000 of equity that be borrowed to do the next deal or you can use your free cash flow. Three years of banking the free CF would yield nearly 60K for the next deal. A twist is you could go the SFH route at that point taking on no additional leverage or continue with MFH and leverage. Leverage gets me there much quicker but with some risk.

Every investment has a risk reward ratio. You need to understand the basics of investing.

Debt (leverage) both increases risk and reward.

I've lived in major metro areas most of my life. Honestly, I don't see $20K houses that will generate $8.400 gross income. I'd like to understand the NET income on those deals.

When real estate is cheap because the market is in a down turn, there are great wealth opportunities. One example:

Purchase in 2011 for $201K with 25% down (about $50K)

Rent through mid 2017. Net profit on rental income 23% not including depreciation.

Sale in Jan 2018 for $328K.

I think that is something like a +250% return over 7 years.

Can this happen on every deal? Maybe not, but it emphasizes the need to make money on the purchase.

Does debt (leverage) increase the risk on this deal? Yes

Does debt increase the return on this deal? Yes

Does debt minimize risk exposure on this deal? Yes, I'm all in at 25% of total exposure on this deal

Just my 2 cents.If you are all in to the debt free thing, this will seem crazy risky to you. Just wanted to share a different perspective.

I made my investment decisions based on what I was comfortable with before I learned about Dave Ramsey.

We put money into our IRA's consistently for 30 years. When the stock market crashed, I wanted a more secure investment, so, I switched to buying low end class c properties with cash.

The first house we bought was from an old landlord who wanted to get out of the business. He auctioned 20 houses that day. We bought the last house on the list.

I got very lucky with my timing on the RE market. I watched the market for 25 years. Many times over the years I tried to find RE deals I was comfortable with (class b properties with a mortgage) but could never make the numbers work for me. But, with the RE crash, class c properties exceeded my goals.

I have not put any more money into the IRA since the market crashed. That money has been invested in RE (until I quit and started RE full time).

The IRA accounts have bounced back and look good. However, my RE is doing much better.

I did want to mention that sweat equity was a super-important element in our first several years-- and continues to be a super-important element to this day. In the last two years, I've had the luxury of hiring out more grunt work, to take some pressure off DH.

There is an argument to be made for spending $x to save $y in lost rent, just to get it done in a timely manner. But sometimes, when you don't have that $x to spare, you do as much as you can the slow way, over weekends and evenings.

But that's why, for our first house, we bought it early April, but didn't get it tenant-ready until after Halloween. We were the ones demo'ing the decrepit, replacing windows, painting, flooring, hanging doors, mowing the grass, changing light fixtures, etc.

All the low-hanging fruit has definitely been picked by now, and the market reflects that-- the cheapest house for sale in my area right now is $100k. A lot of our good opportunities and growth between 2010-2015 came from the fact that we have an isolated market; it was a time when no one else was in a position to buy; there were no other big fish to compete with; and people were anxious for cash instead of a sad little house they had no need for and didn't want the headache of dealing with.

But although stepping back and being more of a hands-off investor is an attractive thing-- it's also a luxury that you pay for. And how much you're able to hire out varies at different points in your path.

I spent yesterday pulling staples out of our last place that once had carpet. My kids were digging a hole for a rosebush and picking up sticks and moving stones to put a nice border back in place. Today, DH is on his third straight day of installing Allure in a 1400-sf 3/2. We could have hired out all those things-- but instead, I'd chosen to use my hire-it-out budget on some window installs on Friday, some insulation installation on Saturday, and some brush-clearing in preparation for exterior painting on Tuesday. I've also got a water line from the house to the meter that I need to replace, and a rotoroot and a kitchen sink that need tending to.

My DH is definitely still spilling sweat on our places. You just can't hire the help we need, just as Deanna described above! I've stepped back from the physical labor part after a shoulder and a hip injury (now healed but I'm not taking any chances!) but he is still in the game.