Money Matters

I want to hear from you! Following my workshop on Managing Your Money, I desire that each attendee have an opportunity to share her thoughts with me and everyone else who views this blog. So tell us, how you save and manage your money.

1. DO AS MUCH OF THE LABOR YOURSELF
We did all of the labor ourselves and added hardwood floors, granite tile counter tops, cabinets, all new paint, bathroom fixtures, new windows, and knocked out walls—all for $13,000—using the equity we had when we sold our other house. We took an old rental house and did the work ourselves, shopping for real bargains. We recently had the house appraised for $75,000 more than we have invested in it. It took several months but was well worth it.

2. MAKE A BUDGET AND STICK TO IT
The first thing we did was shop for cabinets. We found reasonably priced cabinets, because we learned if you dress them up with nice hardware (on sale or on ebay) and put nice counter tops and back splash—then people do not notice that you could have spent $10,000 more on the fancier door style. (Remember, our perspective has changed since our last house---we decided that we could use the money for a better cause and we locked ourselves into only spending the $13,000 total on all of our remodeling.)

3. SHOP AROUND FOR THE BEST PRICES ON HIGH END ITEMS:
We bought granite tile and laid it ourselves. Our countertops (because we have a smaller kitchen) only cost us $150. Cheaper than the $500-600 formica we were going to purchase.

Since we have done our kitchen, seven of our friends have done the same thing. You can find the granite tiles at Lowes and Home Depot, and bargain-builder places. You have to wait for the exact kind you want sometimes, but it is worth it—for just $4 a foot versus $60-80 a foot for solid granite.

4. NEGOTIATE WITH THE MANAGERS OF THE STORES IN A KIND AND GENTLE WAY: (Pushiness gets you nowhere!)
We also went to a flooring place and talked to the representatives asking about any discontinued flooring. We didn’t care if the manufacturers weren’t going to make it any more, as long as we had enough to do our floors. We went with a pre-finished hardwood flooring because we were putting it in ourselves. We negotiated for a couple of days and found one place that had a lot of the second grade flooring and was being discontinued. (Meaning it had a few more knots/blemishes in the flooring).

We purchased the flooring and waited it’s arrival. They called us and said they made a mistake and the company didn’t have enough of the flooring, but since we had prepaid they were sending us the premium instead because it was their fault for the mistake.

5. BARTER FOR THINGS YOU CAN’T AFFORD
We bartered several things we couldn’t afford to do ourselves. I traded faux finishing a room for someone’s den for electrical work. And we bartered door installation for babysitting a two-year-old for a weekend.

ALSO- Bartering works great on other things you want your kids to do:

• Soccer- I became the secretary, treasurer, to pay for my kids playing
• Piano lessons- I became the secretary in trade for lessons.

6. SPLIT COSTS WITH A FRIEND WORKING ON THE SAME PROJECT
We had help with installation of our hardwood floors by finding a couple who wanted their floors done also. We split the cost of a case of nails, rented nail guns, and did both houses together.

We also split large quantities of supplies—like underlayment, tile glue, etc. because we were both working on the same projects.

7. BUY “ MISTINTS” or RETURNED PAINT
I had heard that Duron and Sherwin Williams (which has the same paint colors) had mistints or left over paint for $1-2 a can as opposed to the $30 a can.

I went during a span of three weeks to each of the Sherwin-Williams stores and opened every can of their mistints to see if any would work. We ended up painting everything in our house except for our kids rooms for $68, the price of two cans.

Keys: Have them shake the cans for you if you think you like the color. You can see if there is a problem with the paint right away. Also, the colors will look different if shaken.

If you like a certain color and are not specific on the exact color, then you can take a 5 gallon bucket and combine all of the colors that are close--as long as they are the same type of paint (eggshell, satin, etc.). A professional painter told me that is what they do when they are hired to paint spec houses. They take all  of the leftover paint and combine it.

I ended up with everything on my color swatch that I wanted and even made up my own color swatch by combining paints.

If you combine paint, then paint some on an index card so if you need more made they can match it with a computer. I had to do this in our dining room and it worked perfectly.

Hint: Pray before you shop!!! I prayed before entering each store that God would help us find what we needed and  we found five of the six colors I wanted—they had never been picked up by a decorator after he/she ordered them, so they were perfectly good. God gave us the paint we asked for!

8. CHECK OUT THE CLEARANCE AREAS:
This is how I found the cabinets for our bathrooms. They had three fixtures marked down to a ridiculous price. I bought them immediately. The manager told me they had them marked wrong and had to sell them that way, even though the sales associate had put the wrong price on them. We weren’t planning on redoing the bathroom but for that cheap we got new cabinets! January is a great time to get cheaper supplies because of inventory time. Stores are clearing out!

I found displays at Lowes for faucets for 80% off. The supply line had been cut since they were displays. I called the company to find out how to get a new part and they said they ship those parts for free. I explained it had been a store display and the customer service agent said it didn’t matter. It was something they did, no questions asked. So we ended up buying all of the displays, and I tried not to be as picky on the selection. So, we got a better deal.

9. BE WILLING TO WAIT IN ORDER TO GET A LOWER PRICE:
We had eighteen pine trees to remove from our home. We got a bid for their removal and set up a time to have it done. Then last year’s ice storm hit and one tree hit the house. We removed that one with help from friends and called the company who was supposed to come the next week. The company had to get all of the emergency trees done and said if we needed it done now the price would triple. If we could wait until all of the other jobs from the ice storm were finished—they would guarantee the price.

We waited and had it done this fall. It was worth the wait. We tried getting estimates from others and it was twice the amount the first company wanted. By waiting, we saved a lot of money.

10. NEVER PAY IN FULL UPFRONT AND GET EVERYTHING IN WRITING:
Some friends of mine learned this the hard way. Take the extra time to get everything in writing and work out a payment plan that will protect you.