Hi Jockewing, Along with the others, my condolences for you & your family with your Grandmother's passing. Some basic rules of thumb for your financial management; A) "Reserves rule" and you want to initially have, at minimum, safe & liquid funds set aside in an account that cannot lose money to the markets, equal to no less than 6 months of your total costs of living (and preferrably 12 months,) B) I suggest your "longterm goal" to be to grow your investments to the eventual point where they can throw off enough passive cashflow (without eating into the principal) to cover 100% of your living expenses. This, of course, is the definition of "Financial Freedom." C) As long as your after-tax interest costs on leverage (loans, mortgage, etc.) remain less than your after-tax average rate of growth on investments, leave the leverage principal alone, and direct every additional discretionary dollar you can into your growth accounts. D) Yes, you will want to build a "risk/reward pyramid" distribution of your newly acquired assets to fit your stage and profile in life (which considers far more than merely your age... but family status & plans, career/educational status & plans, likely longevity (family history,) personal financial attitude, and other factors.) All of this, properly done, will likely require the oversight of a good planner... and even then you're going to see significant differences in planning styles, so its a good idea to take your time to interview various planners (and I suggest from various different "financial cultures." Talk with securities-oriented planners, insurance-oriented planners, legal/tax-oriented planners... get a rounded exposure.) REGARDING YOUR NEW 2nd HOME: Renting it out is more than simply "renting it out." It is more than simply "taking tax-advantaged cashflow" from your held appreciating asset. Doing so is a decision to enter into the business of being a landlord. It is crucial to understand the gravitas of this, as a decision. (Personally I love the business of being a landlord, for so MANY reasons... but as an Advisor myself, I know too many individuals who never realized it is a business, and have financially suffered because of that.) NOW... regarding cleaning up your credit. Contrary to the advice above, DO NOT try to go it via any generic "rules of thumb." You *DEFINITELY* want the guidance of someone who understands how to read the reason codes of your current tri-merge credit report, and translate them into priorities and actions to be applied. The people who can generally guide you on this the best are mortgage brokers (even if you are not going to do a refi.) The "clean your credit" businesses are more often than not a scam. Retail bank loan officers generally don't know or care about the intricacies of credit improvement. CFPs, CPAs, Attorneys, etc. are virtually *always* clueless about how the credit bureaus report their specifics, and how to use the reports as an action plan. Your standard individual Mortgage Broker will be far more likely to dig in & help you work through your plan (even if it takes 2, 3, even 6 months) to get your credit in shape to get a great refinance... and they'll usually do it for no charge (just your honor of doing your refinance with them when (and if) you actually refinance.) Kind of a service "loss leader" for them. To recap; RESERVES RULE! Everything else *AFTER* you've locked-out sufficient reserves. SAFETY FIRST! Get the "guaranteed money" foundation of your risk/reward pyramid in place #1. SHOP PROFESSIONALS (not investments.) Be sure to shop differing "financial cultures." Hope that's helpful! Dave Donhoff Leverage Planner

This type of scenario is perfect for someone who wants to have a home occupation and needs the exposure. For instance, a one chair home salon, is regulated by the State in most states, under the Department of Professional Regulation, and in Florida we are required to have only 200 square feet of room, a separate entrance and a bathroom. So, if have a door that opens up to a room, say maybe a carport door opening to a laundry room, then you can have a salon setup situation, because you have plumbing and a buyer may only need add a bath. For someone who wants to work from home, they will do whatever they need to make the extra income on a regular basis. You could advertise that an outbuilding is perfect for a hobbyist, or cabinet maker, pottery barn. THINK BIG, use your resource, which is EXPOSURE and easy access clients. You need only get the permission of your neighbors to do this by having them sign a petition for you. Would that be a possibility for you?

We offer first to family/friends. If nobody wants it, it goes to charity. My MIL was sure her house stuff was worth money. It wasn't. However, family members were happy to take the big furniture, so she didn't feel bad. Oddly, the various tschotskes DH and I couldn't stand, made her several hundred $$$ from an estate liquidator. Who knew, LOL? There is a wonderful charity here run by our city. They collect ONLY business clothes - cleaned, pressed, on hangers - suitable for job interviews. Low-income residents can go to their various training classes, which include what to do/not to do on job interviews and how to properly fill out job applications. For those attendees who don't have nice clothes for interviews, the charity allows them to pick two outfits for free. When my DH and I retired, we brought them enough to fill an 8' clothes rack. My MIL just passed away and I realized many of her clothes also qualified as "interview ready". DH and I cleaned out our closets again. His was clothes that had gotten too small or shrunk (he's fond of 100% cotton and some of that stuff shrinks more than others). I had hung on to some of my favorite work clothes, including some designer stuff, but finally decided after five years of retirement it was time to pass them along. So there went another 8' clothes rack out of the house last week! We also sorted through our books. We have around 2-4,000 books at any given time. Out went a load of those yesterday to the local library for their monthly sales. But the core of our collections remain: my art books, his hobby reference books, and the fiction novels we deem worth keeping and re-reading. Of these, only the art books are worth anything, and only to collectors. After I sorted through my art books we asked a couple of friends if they were interested in any that we planned to get rid of. They took two paper bags full. They were happy and so were we! Our collection is valuable only to us, especially since much of it is out of print. I used to give very elaborate dinner parties in the '70's. I had six different sets of interchangeable dinnerware and handmade bronze flatware, with lots of serving pieces collected from various places. Entertaining has changed and nobody does this stuff any longer. The main part of the dinnerware was a classic Mikasa bone china with an embossed gold rim, in a service for 12. None of my Millennial friends was interested in it, but fortunately one of our younger Boomer friends was complaining about her grandmother's soft-paste china. Such patterns can't go through the DW so she had to hand-wash it, so as a working mother (she was the breadwinner, in fact) it was too time-consuming to use often. She was familiar with our china and said she would be thrilled to have it. Made her ecstatic, and opened up space for new plain china for us. Yes, I still have the bronze flatware. Nobody else wants it, like silver it has to be kept polished or in bluecloth. Doesn't take up much room in a drawer. Oddly, one of the modestly valuable things I own might someday be thrown out by some relative who doesn't realize what they are. Back in the psychedelic '60's when impresario Bill Graham presented unknown local bands at the Winterland ballroom in San Francisco, for publicity they did not only posters, but fliers and postcards. I have half a dozen pristine, unused postcards of concerts listing Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, Cream, Moody Blues, Blue Oyster Cult, etc., stuffed in a box in the garage.

My advice.... is either listen to Joseph Corlett advice and do as he said OR sell your lot now and run. If you decide to press forward, please do yourself a favor and go TALK to people at Lowe's, Home Depot, wherever that work at these stores. Millwork will tell you they can't get doors and windows. Lumber will tell you the prices are up 3 times normal... on the lumber they CAN get. Kitchen cabinets will tell you their normal lead time of 6-8 weeks is now 4 and 5 months possibly longer. Appliances will tell you there is very limited options available due to severe supply chain issues. Flooring will tell you... well, you get the idea. Don't take our word for it... go ASK the employees in these places and CALL electricians/plumbers/HVAC people and see if they are even taking jobs. Builders/contractors where I'm at in South Carolina are booked through this entire YEAR and well into next year with all the jobs they can handle. I believe this is true in many parts of the country as people have sat home for 12 months looking at Houzz and thinking "I want to renovate NOW". Best of luck to you...