Often that leaves me with a current budget so small I only eat lunch and dinner to save money.

Happy to go to lunch or dinner and discuss local real estate.

Would you rather eat steak at a steakhouse or a dinner?

I am hoping to get a biggerpockets dinner together one night.

Gift card at the local grocery - - helps enjoy dinner with friends and family - - tell'm out right, "Thank you for being with us, Happy Holidays to you and yours".  

It is a lot like ordering dinner at a restaurant.

Personally, if you are looking to invest out of state, I recommend grabbing lunch/dinner with someone here who does it (and does it well) to try and learn about the process.

The fact that it looks like you don't have any debt will help for sure.. your investors won't get wiped out by senior loan.. .plus you would have a hard time getting loans on that asset class for more than about 50% of your true costs. as to tax benefits depreciation on on a 10k investment will hardly buy you a dinner in a year.as to others points if your really looking for tax write offs then owning the asset 100% and using leverage will maximize that tax benefit.

But I take the wife to dinner, we mingle with friends and I have pulled deals from those times.

Take an NOI of 4100/mo less mortgage PITI of 1500, that's still a positive cashflow of $2600/mo - - that's a lot of nice dinners, trips to Europe or whatever floats your boat.