In one of my previous posts, I described the process I went through to refinish a piece of furniture. However, my methods have changed somewhat. Basically I use an orbit sander to buff out all of the scratches that exist in the piece. After the obvious scratches are done, I just paint it and...BOOM. DONE.
Ok, it may not be quite that straightforward, but pretty darn so. Previously, I was gushing over
Benjamin Moore's Aura paint, which I still love. I do not, however, love the $20 price tag for one quart of paint. Our local Benjamin Moore/Porter Paints was having a Labor Day sale on gallons of paint, so of course, I had to drag Tom there. Optimus came along too and hung out while I lamented over the colors for our front door and deck and whether or not I wanted to paint it with exterior paint or with completely solid colored stain.
(Yes, he blends into the couch fairly well)
As it turns out, this is going to be a post not about my adorable nightstand I just painted, but rather about negotiating and how that can have a big impact on what is possible for us to do with our house.
While the paint guy was having an entirely too lengthy discussion about the different kinds of paint and which are low-VOC and which are No-VOC, I told him about some of my furniture projects. Instead of the Aura Paint, he recommended Porter Paints line called "
Advantage 900" which is supposedly better than the Aura Paint...at least for things that get a lot of wear, such as chairs. You can also get it in your choice of oil-based or water-based. Only gallons were on sale, so I expressed how I was disappointed since I don't really have the desire to paint 6 different pieces the same color. He understood my predicament and told me he could work out a deal with me with the quarts of paint (which was at least $5 cheaper a quart than the Aura). I picked out 4 colors thinking he might give me a better deal if I bought a larger quantity...so I asked if he could possibly go lower (my brother has been teaching me to ask for things like that. What's the worst that happens? They say no?). He told me the lowest price he could go was $13.97/quart (instead of the $15) and I said, "Ok, I will only go with these 3 today", completely prepared to walk out with the 3. He said, "Wait a minute. What is your last color? I'll just give it to you for free". So I walked out with an extra quart of purple paint and I paid $13.97 for each of the other quarts. Free paint plus more fairly discounted paint.
Lesson Learned: Ask for what you want. There are some great articles on this site for women
Learn Vest, which specifically gives financial advice for females such as credit card rates changing and what prime rate gaps mean, how to understand your salary, graduation checklists, budgeting tools, understanding credit scores and how to improve them and how to save money on fun things like hosting dinner parties, obtaining fashion at a low cost, budgeting for fun things. Written by women for women. Recently, they did an article about negotiating, which was eye-opening and inspiring.
- Women's earnings relative to men's have stagnated at 73.2%.
- In surveys, 2.5 times more women than men said they feel "a great deal of apprehension" about negotiating.
- Men initiate negotiations about 4 times as often as women.
- Women will pay as much as $1,353 to avoid negotiating the price of a car.
- Women who consistently negotiate their salary increases earn at least $1 million more during their careers than women who don't.
Anyway, some interesting food for thought.
(He's awesome. Notice how he's "helping". By "helping", I mean snoring so loud it is interfering with my ability to hear my songs on itunes.)
How Negotiating and Just Plain Asking Has Helped Us:
- We negotiated for all of our closing costs to be paid for us, which saved several thousand dollars.
- We keep my brother on our phone plan with AT&T to get better rates. He gets a corporate rate of 14% off for his plan, so we split the amount saved. Plus, he calls up the phone company about once a month and asks them to take things off our bill.
- When we go bargain hunting for furniture, I typically have a certain amount of money in my pocket. I tell the sellers (usually men) exactly what pieces I want and how much money I want to spend. Almost always, I walk out with exactly what I want.
- At one secondhand store in town, I told them I lived close and wanted to buy a few things but couldn't fit them in my car. Free delivery in their truck immediately...plus they carried the furniture into my house exactly where I wanted it. Yes, I know there are perks to living in a small town.
- Craigslist: Posters are frequently frustrated with people who are flaky, don't have cash, have a difficult schedule, etc. Usually, when I make an offer for something on CL, it is for at least 25% less than they listed it for. However, my emails generally include, "We have cash on hand and are ready to pick up the item as soon as possible. Let us know when you are available and we can be there." More often than not, we get the items for the price we ask for because we cut out that hassle and time wasting part that CL so often provides.
- When there is a bigger item at a chain store I want to buy, I ask the managers when the next sale is going to be on that item. Generally, they know and aren't at all apprehensive to share that information.
Growing up in a very frugal family, I always felt really uncomfortable about negotiating because I was embarrassed. However, I have come to recognize the definite merits of it and know how it has helped us in our endeavors with this house, even though it has been only 3 months.
Another cute puppy picture because he just looks like such a sad sack. He's a happy puppy...really.
If any of this financial information is at all interesting, leave a comment letting me know and I can include more tips and examples of ways we have cut the costs of our endeavors.
Jessie
P.S. This post had no pictures. That wasn't right, so I went back through and included some which may not make complete sense with this post. Oh well. They're pretty.
Currently Listening to "Things I Don't Remember
" by
Ugly Casanova
(as of when pictures got inserted)
remember when Jessie started painting every room in the house and got between 1/3 and 2/3rds of the way through each room. Well, we hadn't finished a few months later, but that's ok, because we would have to repaint anyways. Turns out the changes of season (and temperature/humidity) cause the plaster to expand and contract at varying rates, which cause either massive fissures or small mountain ridges to appear in walls and ceilings....everywhere. To better illustrate this, we sanded down a few of these magical ridges, seen to your right.
Of course, no matter what we do (short of replacing everything with modern drywall) we'll end up with more cracks popping up later, but we'll worry about that after we get everything painted once. It's amazing the difference color makes for the feel of a room. Now I feel like I'm inside a pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving every day in our living room. Yes, I like that.
Meanwhile, it snowed here! Yeah, it's a dusting for anyone North of us, but here it's the blizzard of the century. Schools closed early, work was canceled, and by 6pm Wal-Mart was completely sold out of 4 items: milk, bread, ground beef, and pizza rolls. Hot Pockets also took a good hit. Naturally, this was a day BEFORE any sort of frozen precipitation began. Gotta love North Carolina winters...
Regardless of how infrequently we get weather like this, the bees are not fans. They'll stay in their boxes most of the day, but the wind cuts through the openings and isn't good for bee morale (or continued bee living). Jessie's mom is totally BA, so she goes out there with a drill and starts putting on a small blocker to keep the
wind out of the hive. She doesn't need a suit, the bees respect her too much to screw with her. While she was doing our work for us, I was foolishly riding my bike in the snow because it's fun. It worked about as well as you would expect.
" by Guns and Roses
