He constantly watches who comes and goes in his landlords unit, watching their relatives coming, them cooking big dinners, and how many dinners a week.

Dinner for both you and your wife is on me.

We have a dinner meeting there every third Tuesday of the month. 

I took the money that I used to spend on dinner out, movies, and other frivolous nonsense and put it into a savings account instead.

Hi Nick, great meeting you the other night at the investors dinner. 

Not all rents but enough that investors lost properties in record numbers.rents in Portland held did not really go up or down.. but Commercial got hammered I remember coming back from my exile in the deed south and going to dinner one night at my favorite Chinese place and the strip mall was 80% dark... go today and its 100% full.. 

This happened at 4 p.m. and Christmas Eve dinner with the family was scheduled at 6 p.m.  

Best being it left so clean you could eat your dinner off floor.   

Better yet some people  freeze the credit cards in the freezer and only thaw out in case of a true emergency.A new investor might be better off going to local investor meetings for their area and buying an experienced investor lunch or dinner,offering to run errands for them for free,etc. in exchange for a little knowledge to get started.    

In exchange I can invite you for coffee or dinner and tell you about the real estate market in South America and Europe. :-)Someday I would like to get some buy and hold properties in the US with good cashflow (maybe in the Midwest), buy I think it is easier for a foreigner to start with a genuine business.