I supplied a washer and dryer hook up, and there is no way to determine if the tenant may be doing laundry everyday or taking 3hr long showers with no concern for the water consumption.

For those not familiar, the proposed Fair Tax legislation calls for full repeal of all forms of Federal taxes except for the excise tax, replacement of those taxes with a consumption tax, and repeal of the 16th Amendment within 5 years of the Fair Tax passage.

I have to imagine that the ones that made it on the websites for general public consumption were passed over by more trusted and experienced investors first, thereby making them much riskier for a novice buyer.

But it was a very sporadic consumption of knowledge. 

Frugal: Saving on resources, reducing consumption, avoid waste, avoid lavish purchases, avoid extravagance. 

Joshua,Have you considered billing the tenants for water consumption instead of putting the water in their name, or do you think this will add to much hassle to your management system?

In the case of gas billing, one tenant has the gas service in their name (the unit with gas heating), and the other tenant reimburses for their consumption (which is exclusively hot water consumption). 

And so wise if I may say and i think once you hit a point you need to ask that as the blackole of acquisition and consumption can be .  

We considered using LED bulbs -and actually did in one property - but the energy consumption per lumen of the integrated fixtures is better so we now switch-out the fixture.Since switching to LED fixtures, we've actually been spending less money when you include operational costs in addition to the initial capital cost of the fixture installation.   

As long as you don't try to increase your lifestyle/consumption to match what you start accruing (cashflow and assets) in real estate, you should be retired quickly.  :-)