In order to prevent Tenants from "nickel and dime-ing" you to death, your Leases should state "Tenant is responsible for first $xxx.xx of incidental repairs." 

I do not need to go over all of the eviction details but the first tenant was basically ghosting and I will never see another dime from him so before saying go after him for money that is not an immediate option.I then finally had a renter who passed the backgroud, credit, and application process and wanted to move in.

Personally, I'm not a fan of nickel and diming contractors on their work because well...they will end up nickel and diming me on the quality/effort they put into the job I've found. 

Most of these people will give up before they make a dime.

I was going to bootstrap every dime into my real estate business, and I was going to put myself out of the picture as something of a liability in the operation.2013-2015: It took 2 years, but I completed all projects and towards the end I continued expanding the portfolio some more to 12 bldgs and 15 doors.I am often told that my projects often reflect myself in a very clear way: I had never been comfortable in assets or projects I wouldn't be willing to "eat my own cooking".

I personally like it, makes life simple, no nickel and diming after a deal has been reached.

The nickel-and-dime thing I was about to do, in retrospect would have been tripping over pennies on the way to dollars.

It's a serious, serious waste of time and money (I'm being redundant here, I know)I've assigned slightly over 75 lease option deals in 10 different states, and not once have I ever spent a dime of money marketing my deals (okay, this might be a bit of a stretch, because I've spent money on local proxy IP's and local phone numbers to create a new craigslist phone verified account, in order to keep my deals live on craigslist without getting ghosted by them, but that's a much deeper discussion).It is incredibly easy to find lease option buyers.

No I was not a gambler in the strict sense, I never lost a dime in the slot machines there.

If a customer doesn't respect the fact that you are entitled to a fair profit for work completed, they'll just badger you and nickel and dime you on every project going forward.