Blog | Small Notebook

Save Big Money on Rent with Little Effort

Last month I saved $540 in just 5 minutes. All I had to do was make a quick phone call.

A friend’s comment recently made me think about how a lot of money-saving efforts can be so time-consuming. Our time is precious, and we need to find the balance to use it in the best possible way.

I see tips for frugal living like “wash and reuse plastic sandwich bags” to save money. Seriously? They are about 3 cents apiece. I am not saying we should wastefully throw things away. I sometimes wash ziploc bags and reuse them. I think this is great from an environmental perspective, but it would take a lifetime to wash enough plastic bags to reach my financial goals.

If too many of our financial strategies are focused on pennies, then we miss out on the opportunities to save in ways that have a big impact. Even with all of our good intentions, we can only do so much. Since our time and energy are limited, we need to first focus on saving dollars, and then we can focus on saving the pennies as well.

So how did I save $540?

I got a letter from my apartment leasing agency informing me that my rent would be going up $70 a month. I called them to say the increase seemed a bit high, and I was hoping it would be lower. They called back to offer that they would only raise my rent by $25 a month. It took 5 minutes total. This saves me $45 every month, which is $540 over the year. I am not one who pushes someone for a bargain, but this was so easy.

I was in the same situation the year before. The letter from the leasing agency said the rent would go up $70 a month. It had never occurred to me to try to negotiate my rent, but when I talked to the agent about it, I expressed my concern over such a large increase. “No problem,” the agent said, “that is just a starting rate.”

In that conversation I learned not to accept a new rent amount without at least talking to the leasing agent first. With no extra effort on my part, they lowered the increase by $30 a month, which saved me $360 that year.

I looked at my other recurring bills to see where I could save money. I found quite a few places in my budget that I could save money with very little effort or sacrifice on my part, and yet it would still yield a big impact. Those were the places I focused on first. I’ll share more about those, and if you have money-saving ideas I’d really like to hear them.

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Tying Heartstrings

Today when we sat on the kitchen floor eating Cheerios with random songs playing from my iTunes playlist, I was so thankful in that moment that I get to stay home with Lane. Because otherwise I would have missed getting to be the one to dance with her when a new song comes on, see her spontaneous moves, and hear her sing “oh, oh, oh” with Billy Idol. It felt really good to just be with her, set aside my mom-responsibilities, and do what Lane wanted to do today.

She acts like a crazy fool over her new ball, so we played with it for a long time. She likes it even better than movies (previously “moo-ies”, and now “moo-yah”). She brought all of the toys from her room into mine, and then we surrounded ourselves with pillows and toys on my bed. We read the same book 4 times in a row. She finished her alphabet puzzle, and I cheered when she was able to put all the letters in the right place. Well, all but L and P, since they were lost somewhere in the covers on my bed.

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Tips to Buy Kids’ Clothing for Less Money

kids clothing

More beautiful springtime weather today, so I braved the nostalgia and cleaned out Lane’s closet. I put away winter clothes, sorted out a few to donate, and rearranged things a bit to make room in her closet. There were new spring clothes to hang up.

Doug and I bought these clothes for Lane last weekend. (I have to take Doug with me to go shopping because he is great at picking out clothes.) We went to Once Upon a Child which is a second-hand store for children’s clothes. We go once in the Spring and once in the Fall, and each time we spend less than $40 and come home with a wardrobe of clothes for Lane for that season.

I guess we don’t have to buy used kids’ clothing, but the items we find are almost new and in our preferred brands, and they are such a value that it just makes sense. So for our $40, this time we bought 3 dresses, 2 tops, and 3 pairs of shorts. We stopped by Old Navy on the way home and bought 4 knit play shirts for another $10.

The reasons I like that particular second-hand store is that they check the clothes to make sure they are in extremely good condition. They sell clothes for the current season, so you can buy exactly what you need and you don’t have to guess what size your child will be six months from now. Prices for like-new shorts or shirts are about $3, sweaters or jeans are usually $5, a dress might be $6, and a coat is about $8.

Tips when shopping for used clothing:

Don’t buy more than you need just because it’s cheap.
Check collars, cuffs, and knees for signs of wear – that’s where it shows up first.
The cost difference between discount and boutique brands is only a dollar or two, so look for brands that will give you reinforced seams, lining, secure buttons, and higher quality fabric.
T-shirts, pajamas, and other knits that get worn a lot are better purchased new since the prices for those aren’t much lower than a sale at Old Navy.

I also went through Lane’s storage baskets of stuff. She has toys, but she likes our stuff better, especially if it comes in a smaller version. She has a collection of travel sized bottles and toothpaste tubes that she has claimed as her own. Today I secretly put them back in the bathroom. I don’t know how long it will be before she notices.

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