Home Renovations on a Budget

You know things, Jen, don't undercut yourself, but yes, this is a very exciting episode for me because I like talking about this stuff. I told Jen before we started, your like lobbying me this content. And then I asked what does lobbing actually mean? And we weren't sure. So if you know, well, I'm still on the fence. The soft, underhanded throw, easy to catch, okay, easy home run. So we are. We are throwing you guys a home run because this is something that you asked for and we're

going to provide. But first we gotta thank our sponsors for supporting this show. Sinking funds often talked about, not often kept. Sinking funds are essential to being able to pay for big expenses like vacations, cars, water heaters. You're sinking fund wants you to know that keeping it in a high yield savings accounts separate from your regular checking and savings lessons the likelihood of you just spending it on other things. Any high yield savings account without fees

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and break your roof in multiple places. They can make you paranoid every time you pass one, or cause you to stereotype undeserving trees just because they look like the one that fell in your house. Trees, they're pretty, but watch out. Ah, that's the reality of living in a hurricane prone area. That's so true. I mean really anywhere with wind anywhere. Yes, trees fell on houses constantly where I come from, and b I do, so yeah, and

they require home renovations when they do fall on your house. So, if this is something that you are interested in and you want to queue up a few more episodes, we haven't done one in a while, so this is way way way in the way back machine. Episode fifteen we did one on like how to save money on home decor um, and then episode twenty three we had some d I y home maintenance tips, so I know those

were very long time ago. And still this is a bit different because we're talking about renovation, not just home repair decorating your house, but what if we want to upgrade it, we really want to increase the value of our homes, or we're living in an apartment so we're renting, but we still want it to look pretty. What are

some things we can do? Although this is probably going to be more into the weeds with actual repair, so your landlord might not let you do some of this stuff, but who knows our landlord did We did it maybe full on renovation in one of the apartments we lived. Actually, we realize every single place we've lived we've done some version of a renovation on that place. And we only just bought our first home this year, and we've lived in like nine other places and we renovated all of them.

Our landlords just trusted us, I guess. And this is why this is your episode, Jill. So the first one we've got, this one is from Family Handyman and it is fifteen home renovations you can do right now. So these are the ones that you can do yourself. You don't have to hire out, and you will get back all of the bang your buck put in, hopefully maybe depending on if you do a good job or not. I will say from the start the way that we save money on home renovations is doing it ourselves. That

is the majority of the costs that you spend. I mean only materials do cost money. That is a big expense, just the materials that it costs. But if you are able to do the work yourself, you will save between thirty to sixty per cent. That that is the markup of home repair when you pay someone to do it for you. Certainly, and we'll talk about this, there are things that you don't want to try if you're not

skilled in it, you don't have training in it. But there are a lot of things that I don't think we need to be as afraid of doing as we might be. It doesn't mean that we're going to do it perfectly the first time the second time, but it is a worthwhile skill set to build up is doing things ourselves, doing some of these home innovations ourselves. So I think this is a great list what they list out on the family handyman and the first one I'll

just start us off is painting. Pretty obvious, this is one of the most easiest trades to be able to pick up and do yourself. Still, surprisingly there's a lot of people who are not good at painting, so definitely no know your skill set, know what you're good at. Watch some videos beforehand. Thank goodness for YouTube, there's so much we can learn and watch people on how do

they do it? What is a good technique? They even mentioned in here that one of the keys to a good paint job is covering up nail holes and cracks, So even being able to do a little bit of speckling ahead of time would filler standing. Of course that is next level. There's YouTube for that too, but certainly painting a room, a couple of rooms can really upgrade things. I have painted cabinets. That has been my frugal way of updating bathrooms or even kitchens is to be able

to paint the cabinets. Again, I would recommend doing some research, even asking the people at the paint store for what's needed.

Definitely don't skip that when it comes to cabinets because there is a lot of wear and tear on them, So doing a really nice base coat that the paint will stick to, and and so I would I would go a little bit more high end with the paint that you do get for cabinets, again just because it's you're touching them so much, but those types of things, paint can do a world of difference on cabinets and

walls and molding and doors. So start there. Love that tip. Yeah, and I think when so when you moved into your house, Jill, and you brought your friend to paint because you were already anticipating, Like, it's not just the paint that is the big job on this one. The painting is actually like the easy part. It's all of the prep work that is the real job. Out about the prep, Yeah, yeah, don't forget to factor in prep work. We can buy our paint cans and get our paint brushes and think

we're just going to dive in. But there's so much that needs to happen at a time, like the spackling, maybe even some cocking, especially if you're going to be painting, trim and cleaning it is so important. I see so many people just wanting to skip that part. But if you're going to paint on a dirty wall, it will show through. You're going to get a lot of debris in the paint, and sometimes you don't even realize that

maybe there's stuff on the wall. I know that when we bought our house there was like tape and stickers and like gum, yeah there were there were some teenagers in some of these rooms. So having cleaned it with you know, less imperfections on the wall. Um, So getting a good cleaner putting in that prep time because it is going to make a world of difference. Another one

on here is to add a back splash. And while I don't love the backsplash they chose for the picture in this article, it is something it's you can like splurge to get a nicer tile or maybe one that may be easier to lay because it is a smaller area, and you can also afford to make a few mistakes because it's a smaller area and things are typically in front of the tile, like small appliances or you know,

all of your clutter and stuff like that. So this is something that can be a wow if you are trying to change up something for higher resale value, or you maybe see a backsplash in a house that you don't like, or you have one you don't like and you want to get a prettier one. I would even add to this it doesn't have to be tile. Tile does take a next level skill, not that you couldn't learn it, And for those of you go getters, I would encourage you if you want to tackle a tile job,

do it. There's some really nice tiles out there that are, as you said, Jen, not not even that expensive. I mean, thankfully, subway tile has had its heyday and it's very inexpensive. But if you don't want to have to deal with tile cutting, measuring, grouting all of that, there are some

really awesome alternatives. I don't like the picture that's shown in here either, but there are these essentially like stick on type back splashes that you can get that are easily cut out, easy to kind of stick on your wall, super wipe able. So checking out you know, your local home depot, lows, whatever, you might be able to find some some easily d i y solutions for backsplashes. I've also seen I'm gonna tread lightly here because it's is

a little bit going against my own grain. Eric and I used to have a home renovations business as like a side hustle and our main hustle at one point, so we're definitely all about some more high end types of home repair. But I have seen this done and it can look decent. Is getting a really high end, very wipeable even wall paper for a backsplash, So definitely do some research. I think Etsy has some really great options, um or just doing a Google search of a wallpaper

that could be a backsplash. Again, you're really gonna want it to be wipeable. You're gonna want to make sure that the adhesive is really good. I mean, there's a reason they call it a backsplash. It gets wet, it can get things splashed on it. But I've seen people do that before and it's turned out really decent. So definitely roam the aisles of your local home repair place. There are some really great alternatives for those of us

who want to d I y this. The next one on the list, which I like as well, is even thinking about the exterior of our homes. So improving our entryway, whether that means throwing a quick code of paint or two or three doors usually need three, let's be honest,

on your front door can make such a difference. And even choosing a fun color something that could make the front of your house pop, and then considering plants around the front and that can be found at your local by nothing group or propagated from a friend's yard, you name it. Again, this doesn't have to cost a lot of money. I know. We've also talked in other episodes about lawn maintenance that you could even check your city for free mulch. So finding some inexpensive, low cost even

freeways to make the exterior of your home look nice. Yes, here's one that you guys did, Jill that I didn't even think about. But when I saw, I was like, it just really stood out And it was new hardware. You got new hardware like handles for your doors, And I didn't even think I wouldn't even think about that, but you did it, and they were so beautiful, and I can't imagine that you bought really expensive hardware, but it did make a difference. It can be that is

the surprising thing. Door knobs, handles, pulls, all of those things can really add up. But like you say, Jen, it's something that's easy to do ourselves and does make a nice upgrade to a home, especially when you've got

mismatched handles everywhere. And I always feel really accomplished. I would not consider myself like a contractor, but I'm able to change out hardware and so even that like sense of accomplishment, like I used my screwdriver and I put this in and it works now, so that's fun and having it all matched. So I wouldn't say it was incredibly inexpensive, although you can find that right there's plenty of people getting rid of their old hardware on Facebook

market place. You can buy used certainly, but depending on if you've got a certain style in mind, you might need to spend a little bit more. But again, yes, it's that we're not talking thousands of dollars by any means, and it does make a big difference. It does make a big difference. The next one is cock. I love this one again. It's it is one that requires a bit more skill. But you don't have to be a trained construction worker to be able to cock something and

shout out YouTube. But cocking can what's the term, um, do your best cock the rest? That is a construction workers saying for those who are not as great with all of the joints of would work. But when we see gaps in the molding, in the ceiling, anywhere where you've got wood that's meeting up with each other, or wood meeting up to a wall, and you've got gaps, Cocking those gaps can it just may give it such a more clean look. That's another one of those minor things.

But once it's done, you realize what a big difference it can make when you're not seeing all these gaps everywhere, gaps around the windows, gaps along the molding, door trim. So getting some cock and cocking that again YouTube it. It can take a little bit of time to figure out. My best tip is do a smaller cut at the end of the nozzle of the cock tube. Then you can get a finer beat of cock along your lines.

And edges. So don't don't chop off a ton at the end of the cock gun, because then that's when you get just a whole mess. It's like what do I do with all those clocks? So make sure it's You can always cut more off, right, It's like a haircut. You can always cut more off, but you can't add more to it. So start really small with how much you cut off at the tip of the cock gun. That's a good tip, and then you can paint over it.

So just do a quick beat of cock. I would even say changing out the cock on your tub, So scraping it out if you're starting to notice, hey, just cleaning is not getting rid of some of this mold that's starting to happen, or the soap scum that's building up, scrape that out. You're gonna want silicone because it's water right, water is going to touch it. But changing out the cock in the tub, that was another thing that we did that just made it look so much more clean.

Just a white cock around it. Especially when bleach isn't isn't get into it, that's when you got to replace that redo it. Those are great tips. Here's another one in my house, that I didn't realize it's so little, but it did. It was such a kind of wow factor for me when we were buying our house. Is actually one of the outlets was UM like a brand new outlet that also had like USB, like built in USB UM outlet in it. So this one is replaced

outlets and switches so they're not super expensive. You don't have to do every single outlet, but maybe so ours is the one right by our our couch. Is has one plug and then two USB courts so that we can plug in our phones while we're sitting on the couch and that's super easy. And it's not even like you can't just plug in an outlet, you know, regular

outlet thing to charge your phones. But it's just unique and it's something that stood out to me when we were buying our house that I thought was a really cool personal touch. I don't know why that just that was really cool for me. And yeah, doable to install. Yeah, that is one of the first things that we do Eric and I when we when we move into a new place. I love this list so much because it is it feels like all of the things that we will come in and do to a place immediately before

we start knocking out walls and completely gutting things. These are some of just the aesthetic pieces that will do that do make a big difference. And so houses that might have ivory outlets and covers everywhere we'll switch out for white. Again, that's a minor electrical job that you

could learn to do. As far as actually changing out the outlets itself, the g f I s maybe you'd want to hire somebody to do that if you're not, if you don't want to learn how to do that yourself, But certainly the covers, changing out the covers is very easy and that doesn't involve any electrical work, So that does make a big difference. And then, like you said, Jen, with even some of those higher end things just being able to plug in a USB or more more up

to date technology wise. This next one, this is another we call it the Eric and Jill special. Like when we will come in and upgrade a bathroom, just a

quick refresh of a bathroom. Like I've already mentioned, it would be the changing out of the light fixtures, new handles, and then painting the cabinets and this on changing out the faucet and sink so rather than before we jump to buying a whole new vanity, considering can this be just updated in a way that looks nice, but I don't need to replace the whole thing, and oftentimes those minor changes can do that. So just getting new faucets,

and thankfully faucets can be really inexpensive on Amazon. You can even find them at places like Restore. That's habitat for Humanity Is. It's essentially like a thrift store, but they've got a lot of home reyno things. They're like vanities, faucets, tile, So that's one of our favorite places to go. So just replacing the faucet again that that is a simple plumbing job that with some YouTube you could tackle as a homeowner and can make a big difference. I also

like this is one that I'm capable of. Uh, it's swapped the deck, which is just clean, clean the deck, clean the outside of your house, clean it, clean it. Sometimes that's all speaking of that, Yes, cleaning it and even pressure washing. So whether you borrow from a friend or you rent one, pressure washing is one of my favorite things to do, and it makes a big, big

different satisfying for the exterior of your house. Yeah. We pressure washed our driveway, our sidewalk, our entire house, all of it and it looked brand new, like where I thought, Oh no, we're going to need to paint this place again soon. I just pressure wash. I'm like, oh, it's that color excellent. That'll do for now. And surely you have a friend who has a pressure washer, or you can go on the buy nothing group and be like, hey, does any have a pressure washer? I can borrow and

find one if you don't want to buy one. Yes. The next one is lay your own floor. They specifically say tile. Um. I would say, there's certainly other types of flooring that is pretty user friendly. I know some of the new laminate floorings is like this clicking lock system. There's certainly cuts and measurements that you'd have to make, depending on and especially depending on how complicated a room is. This is again it's one of those next level types

of projects. But certainly for the go get or somebody who wants a challenge, wants to try their hand at something. This would be a home renovation that I would say we can do on our own. Maybe you'll need to call up a friend who's good at it. Again, check out YouTube, But I wouldn't say that this is two above and beyond laying our own floor. Yeah, I mean it would definitely take some time depending on how much

you're doing. But if you want to try, start with something small, like a like a bathroom or something and see if you are good at it, if you like it, or if you're absolutely not having any of this. Yeah, starting the room you don't go too very often where you can close the door if it doesn't go that well, oh yes, that's that's great. This one is probably the last one on the list for me that I really liked. Its upgrade your lighting that is super easy to do.

Amazon has a ton of lighting fixtures, and I know I listened to like kind of fix and flip podcasts, like real estate podcasts, and I was like they always say like, Okay, where do you get your stuff? Um, and they're like, well, you could go to home Depot or lows, but like, we just go to Amazon because they've got everything and they've got free returns and two day shipping and so we just go there. So yeah,

I mean check fixing out light. That was another thing in our house when we went in, it had unique lighting fixtures. And that was something that stood out for us and was a big selling feature. And it's not it's like they're just lighting fixtures that I wouldn't think to buy on my own, and that's kind of what made them unique and that I liked them. Yeah, and thankfully with buy nothing groups, Facebook, market Place, yard sales, estate sales, you name it, we can find some really

cool lighting. And again I'll shout out Restore. We have found some really great lighting fixtures at places like Restore, So check out if you've got one of those Habitat for Humanity thrift stores in your area. I will also add to the lighting piece. Eric used to be an electrician before we even had our home innovations business together. Super great skill to have. He hated it, but it was great skilled and he still utilizes it in the

places we live. One of the things he would often do and encourage homeowners to do that we don't often think about but usually makes such a big difference would be under cabinet lighting. And there's some really great systems

that you could absolutely do yourself. Of course, you could go higher end and it might be a little bit more of skilled labor work, but putting in some sort of lighting under the cabinets in your kitchen really does a number on not only providing extra lighting for what while you're working, but also really great aesthetically pleasing lighting for when you're maybe like you want all the lights in your kitchen off, but you can turn on the

under cabinet lights and it just looks really nice, especially after you've done that backsplash in your kitchen. So that's another inexpensive upgrade that really makes a big difference. And the last one on here that I want to talk about is they mentioned spray painting your cabinets. I want to be clear, they don't mean cans of spray paint. Please do not get cans of spray paint and make your kitchen countets. It will look awful. What they mean

is like a paint sprayer. Again, this is something that you could ren maybe a friend has one. Check out your buy nothing groups. If you get a good sprayer, it can go quickly and you can you know you're not going to get those brushstrokes and that kind of a thing if you're going to paint your cabinets. I will say it is an incredible upgrade I've done. This is another one of my like kitchen rehnot specials. I've

painted so many kitchen cabinets in my lifetime. I recommend taking the doors off, laying them all out, whether you take them to a basement or a garage or something and something where you're not going to get like, don't just take them outside, you're going to get debris in them. Take it to a place that you know you're not gonna have a lot of wind or debris falling on it. Lay them all out and either spray I will roll, or get special cabinet rollers some the really high end

cabinet paint. This does make a big difference, and and I would recommend this as a way to upgrade your kitchen. All Right, So now that we've talked about the things you can do, let's talk about what you should do with the money you save from doing these things and the things that you should not d I y um. And So there's only five things on this list, but they are five very important things. So Jill take it away with this first one. The first one, do not

d I Y electrical work. Yeah, if you have not been trained in electrical work, if you do not know what you're doing, it is better to just pay someone to come and do this work for you. That doesn't mean that you have to, I mean it is a cost right, Like this is skilled labor people who have invested a lot of time and energy into learning this trade. So yes, let's pay them a good living wage, but also shop around, find a good electrician, find a fair electrician.

But please don't do this yourself. There is a lot that can go wrong this you don't. Yeah, my husband is an electrician and he gets shocked all the time. That just happens with electricians. He comes to a family with electricians and that happens, and so, my goodness, how much more shocking if you don't know what you're doing

and you can get really, really hurt and injured. It's amazing to me because I'm I don't have as much of a fear about it because Eric does it all the time and has done it at you know, for employment. But he will still often be like, Okay, no, don't get close to me. Okay, no, don't touch those two things together. Okay, I'm walking away, but don't touch that wire. And it's like, oh, like, there is a real danger

to this. Sometimes I can become like just too accustomed to it, like, yeah, there's an exposed wire, Like, don't worry about it because I know. Okay, Eric's got it covered, but he takes it very seriously and it is like, don't go near it. So yes, please be aware, and if you are concerned, just tire someone. Yeah. The next one is don't d I y a garage door repair. And this is because it's uh not a job that can be done with tools you have lying around the house.

The tools are specialized, and you don't want to spend money on specialized tools that you'll only use once. So if you have a garage door to install or fix, or you want to change out a garage door for curb appeal, Also, those things are like a hundred pounds, so you don't want to you don't want to drop it and be liable for that. So this is just something that you definitely want to get somebody who knows

what they're doing. This one was an interesting one. I think this came up on a previous list in one of our episodes as well, and I remember asking Eric about it, like really, just like a garage door, what what's with that? And he offerd He's like, no, they can be really dangerous, mostly because of the springs. The springs are really big and hold a lot of tension, and people have gotten really injured trying to do this themselves without the right tools. But I think it's mostly

the spring that's the dangerous part of it. Um And there's specific methods to be able to do this, So yeah, hire someone for that. And the next one, don't d

i Y roof repair. Again, if this isn't something that you know how to do, you have experience with you are up at high heights and can absolutely fall off of that high height, And not to mention, roofs are really important and we can do ourselves a big disservice if we don't know what we're doing and cause more damage, or we you know, pop a nail where it shouldn't go and now we've got a leak. So yeah, there's a lot of risks involved between falling off and causing

more damage than what you're trying to fix. Just get someone else to do it. Yeah. The next one is don't d i Y tree remove all. So, if there is a tree somewhere on your property and you would like to remove it to make your property more beautiful, don't necessarily do that yourself because you can't well, I mean, some people can calculate the landing trajectory of a falling tree,

others cannot. Other homes are just magnets for trees, so it doesn't matter like they'll just the tree will be falling one way and then the house just it's gravitational pull will be like nope, um, come here, and then the trees on your house. Uh So definitely, especially for tall trees, get professionals to do it now once the tree has already fallen, and maybe you can get a deal with someone where they take the tree down and you chop it up and you know, put it on

the side of the road. We actually did that, not because we were trying to get a deal, but because it was a hurricane and they had hundreds of trees to do. They were like, Okay, we're gonna take it off of your house and then it's a free for all. You do what you want. You have to figure it out from there. Yeah. Um, So that could be a way maybe if you wanted to save money and you

have skills with a you know whatever. Those room room things are chain sauce, chain sauce that may be a way to possibly save some money, but don't take the tree down. I am having so many flashbacks just to like all of my childhood, my dad trying to remove

trees himself. Usually when okay, but there were always nailed by her moments, and it was usually when like one of his brothers would come in town or some friend who's just like, yeah, we can do this, and they never did fall the direction that they thought it was going to fall. Thankfully, I grew up on five acres and so it never really landed on anything other than

maybe another tree. But yeah, this is like if you don't know what you're doing and it definitely is not going to go the way that you anticipated to go. There's a lot of room for error. Trees have a mind of their own that they do. And then the next thing on here, this isn't as much of a danger thing as much as it is maybe like a skill thing. They recommend not d I y ng your molding Like crown molding. It does require a lot of more precise cuts than one might think as you're trying

to have corners meet up with each other. So again it's more about appearance. The other ones are about safety, so definitely higher out this one. Like I don't know, I mean, I don't know how much I try it. You're definitely probably are not going to be that great at doing your room molding, but it's not a safety issue, okay. And everything else feel free to do yourself. I guess yeah.

I mean, these are the things that we save money in order to be able to pay for the things that we shouldn't do ourselves, or maybe the things that we just can't make the time for or don't want to make the time for. So stuff like crown molding might be that for you. You know what I do like to make the time for. Oh my gosh, I would never source this out the bill. That's right, it's time for the best minute of your entire week. Maybe

a baby was born and his name is William. Maybe you've paid off your mortgage, Maybe your car died and you're happy to not have to pay that bill anymore. Duck bills, Buffalo bills, bill claim. This is the bill of the week. All right, today, we have two bills for you. Let's hear the first one. Hi, Jenna, Jill. My name is Melissa, and I'm especially excited about my Bill of the Week. In September, I applied for a thousand dollar grant to help pay for my son's speech therapy.

He attends weekly speech therapy and I have a fifty dollar copayment every time through my health insurance, which runs up to two hundred dollars in months. Thanks for this thousand dollar grant, I will be saving a thousand dollars over nearly six months. I plan to use the money that I am saving to pay off one of my student loans, which I have an aggressively paying down using the snowball method. After this student loan is paid off,

I have just one more left to go. I love your podcast and who has motivated me to become even more frugal than I already was and focus on saving more money and paying off debt. Keep off the great work, Melissa. Thank you so much for calling in and sharing that.

Now what an amazing thing that you were able to receive that grant for that co pay and that you have your sights on how you're going to utilize that money save You've rather than is saying okay, well money saved, so now go do what I want, this shift in saying well that's fifty dollars I was intending to spend and I'm going to put it towards my debt and some of these payoff goals. So well, Don Melissa, thanks for sharing. Yes, that is so awesome. And now our

next bill. Hey Jen, Hey Jill. It's Jenna in Michigan. I wanted to tell you about my bill of the week. UM. It happens to be my internet bill. And because I've been having just issues whenever it snows or rains or whatever. UM, I happen to call my internet provider and explained my issue, and they sent out someone to replace my entire neighborhood's line. But in addition, I asked, because I do work from home and don't have tables, so I only use streaming

services other people streaming services, that's one bill I don't pay. UM, I was asking if there was a discount, and she ended up refunding me twenty dollars of my fifty dollar bill by doing associated me a credit for next month. So I'm really looking forward to paying less on my internet bill for February. I think ladies love the podcast have a great day. By well, you can tell how far behind we are on bills. She was going to

be saving money in February. But this is amazing Jenna and just highlights again what can happen when we just call and ask. I mean, I'm impressed they actually came out and replaced your line that's the neighborhood. Yeah, I really did this. You're superhero, super frugal hero. And then asking for a deal because of all the troubles and actually receiving a credit. So well done, and thanks for inspiring the rest of us to just ask yes. You get zero percent of the things you don't ask for

m yes. So if you want to submit your bill of the week, whether you saved the neighborhood or you just save some money that you're going to put towards debt, please visit Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash bill and leave us your bill. Today's bill is brought to you by another podcast. If you like podcasts, you'll definitely want

to subscribe to Frugal Living. It's sponsored by Brad Steals, one of the longest running deal sites on the Internet, and it's chock full of savings hacks, financial tips, and stories on how to live better for less. They just started their second season and they're covering a variety of topics you can easily apply to your own lifestyle, like the best times to buy TVs or flowers, love flowers, and how to safely shop online to avoid scams because

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And now it's time for the learning round Choo choo choo. And now is the time of the show where we get honest and vulnerable and share our lives with you. So today we are going to share our home rehno, the good, the bad, the ugly, but first the good. So Jill tell us what's your good and bad. I'm honestly gosh, I'm like going through this rolodex of renovations and I've got to say, we have a really good

experience with doing renovations. I guess it's partly why we started, aside hustle doing it, because we enjoy it, usually looks good, we can do it inexpensively. Our most recent renovation certainly include on our home a lot of the things that we mentioned in that first article of painting and replacing simple things. Pretty soon we're going to be doing a lot of demo tons of we love demoing. We started in the laundry room, the laundry rooms demo and got

to rebuild that, then demo the kitchen. The good is that we've been able to make a lot of our places that we've lived in look really beautiful for really inexpensive, again because we did the work ourselves. So from motor homes that we've lived into, apartments that we've lived in, now our new home, we were able to purchase and affordable a home that needed work because we can do the work ourselves. So there's a lot of really good,

amazing things to it. The bad parts, I would say, I don't have like a specific to say other than with any project, you run into barriers. So there are times and I would say it's usually in the middle of a project that I reached this like irritation, exhaustion, pull my hair out point, how are we going to get around this? On my goodness, there's water still leaking out of that pipe. Uh, plumbing, it's always plumbing. Actually, it's always plumbing. Plumbing. Wasn't on that don't do it

yourself list? Yeah, that is true. There are a lot of things that can go wrong with it, as much as there's these like quick connect and clamps and pieces, that just seems like it usually takes a couple of rounds to finally stop that drip. Thankfully, Eric is a problem solver and determined and doesn't give up easily. That is something you need if you're going to do this yourself. Grit an ability to not give up easily. Eric's far

better at that than I am. That there's we always reach this point of it seems like there's an overwhelming problem that we're not going to be able to get beyond, and then somehow we figure it out rainstorming, problem solving, walking away, coming back to it. Just know that that's part of this part of d I y Reynolds. But we're here for you, join us in the Frugal Friends Facebook community and talk about it with us, and we'll help you through it, even if it's just moral support.

I was thinking for your story, is um your pinky story, which I guess isn't a reno related, but yes it is. Yeah, I mean, thanks Jutting probably just blocked it out. These just awful memories. Injuries happened. Yeah. Absolutely, we've learned that super glue covers of multitude of sins. That we were doing a renovation that on a shirt. Yes, it's so true. This is how frugal I am. Here you go, Jen,

you love this vulnerability. This is and this might even cross over into cheap Honestly, we were doing this kitchen renovation and because of that, there wasn't a sink in the kitchen at the time, and so we were washing dishes in the bathroom sink and I dropped a glass and and it broke, and I went to dive for it with my hand and just really sliced myself up. Blood everywhere this was in. This was actually like a client's home that I mean, it was a friend, but

it was a renovation we were doing for them. Blood everywhere. They happened to be a Physicians Assistants p a S. So they had a lot of background. They weren't home at the time. Eric was his He was also a musician. I had him like drum on my leg to keep me from passing out because there's just like so much blood everywhere the I'm like, I'm going to pass out. So he just starts like drumming on my body to

be able to help me not pass out. That did work, and then we called our friends and They're like, you should probably get stitches, and I'm like, no, I don't have health insurance. I can't do that. I can't go to the hospital anyhow. We just superglued it. And I've got a really nasty scar on my pinky and it's been about four years and it's still is like numb in certain spots. But you know what, I avoided a

medical bill and then I was cleaning recently. Yeah, this isn't sending me endorsed, but it is a story that we can tell and look back on with wisdom in hindsights. Have someone drum on you so you don't pass out, get super glue instead of stitches, you know, save yourself some money. Moving on, you wanted vulnerable. This is what it looks like I did was the ugly so for my good. Um. So, whenever you find somebody on Facebook

marketplace to do something, you always take a chance. Sometimes you get Florida man coming up into your house to look at a boat and he just wants to take a beer on there and not fix it. But sometimes you get really lucky. And we found some guy to do our driveway, to do pavers, and he just brought a few guys and they did it in a day and it was fantastic work. So that was kind of our good And I don't know how Travis found them, so I can't tell you how to recreate our success.

But we just had a good feeling like when they got there, and so I can say maybe a little bit of it is intuition, like if they get there and you don't have a good feeling, then you can ask to leave. Maybe I'm not sure unless you signed a contract. Don't sign a contract if you don't have a good feeling. That is the only advice I can give.

On the bad, we did not renovate our home. It was flipped, and so the only bad thing, like sometimes I mean, this was an amazing flip and I'm looking, I'm looking back at it like you can see me looking. But the tile in the bathrooms was painted, and that was something they did to save money, and we couldn't tell, Like we had never had that before, so we didn't know what to expect. But several years in it did start peeling and it is still I mean, it's still peeling.

So we're definitely gonna have to redo the tile in our bathroom and possibly like the tubs too. Yeah, they painted the tub. It was bald and it worked for a time. I'm sure it made it look good, but yeah, it did. But so it's, um, it's getting pretty bad. So we will have to redo the tile in both bathrooms and the tub in our gas stroom. But they did tile our shower in our room, which is still doing good, but just the bottom though, So yeah, that's that kind of bad. So don't paint tile, That's what

I have to say about that. M you can, it probably wouldn't be advised in the shower, like where it's going to get wet or where you're going to be touching it a lot, And you do need a very specific type of paint to paint tile, so it can be a quick upgrade. But yeah, like you're saying, it only lasts a certain amount of time and it buys you sometime and then you're going to have to think about in a more longer term solution set up a sinking fund for it. So thanks guys for listening. I

hope you've got something out of this. If you are either looking to buy home, maybe this is giving you a little bit of courage to overlook some cosmetic things that might turn others away and say, oh no, I can do this stuff or save you money when you find out there's electrical electrical problems, uh, and you decide not to d I y that, or just upgrading the home that you already live in and making it a little more special. Yes, well, thank you all so much

for listening. We want to thank you for your kinder views on iTunes and Stitcher, like this swan from Kim Woe she happens to give us five stars and says love these girls. Let me start by saying, I've never enjoyed podcasts. I've tried to get into them multiple times and never found one that I loved. And then I

listened to Jen and Jill. Every time I pressed play, I feel like I'm sitting down with a couple awesome friends who just happened to have amazing advice, fun, chill, hilarious, totally relatable, and I always come out of it learning something new. I think my husband is getting tired of me starting conversations with so on my podcast today. Hello, Well that's on my podcast and I can relate to that so much of our converse aaans Jen do come up in conversation with Eric later on? Yes, thanks so

much for this kind review. It's so it's such a gift to be able to read this encouragement, and I think also helps other people know what they're expecting when they tune into the podcast and helps people to find us. So yes, please keep leaving us these reviews, especially if you like the podcast. If you don't like the podcast, tell us privately, praise us publicly. Yeah, we also want to thank our friends who share these episodes on social media.

So when you share the latest episode and tag us on Facebook or Instagram, We're going to add you to our monthly drawing. For every five tags and reviews we get each month, we are giving away a copy of the Frugal Friends workbook, So keep leaving us reviews on iTunes or Stitcher, send us the screenshot of that review that you leave to our email for Goal Friends Podcasts at gmail dot com, and don't forget to tag us on social We see you there, yeah, and we'll see

you next week. I Cugal Friends is produced by Eric Cirian Jill jen. My birthday is two days from the airing of this episode. Happy Happy Birthday, Happy Happy Birthday. That's my rendition. We always forget to like celebrate timely things or talk about timely things because we record these episodes so far ahead of time. Um, what are you gonna do? Well, it's also Mother's Day. Mm hmmm. So I've always I've I've always waited like this is the

day I've been waiting for. Is the day because every few years my birthday just falls on Mother's Day and I had to share it with my mother. But now I'm a mother and my birthday falls on Mother's Day, which is also now my day, and I don't know what I'm gonna do. So it is actually on Mother's Day this year. Travis is actually on call for working. You already know that. Yeah, So I don't know, like what should I do? Like it is my Di Da Da day. Yeah, you've got the convergence of two two things.

I think it should be more about what are other people canna do for you? Do what you want. I will say one of the things I'm enjoying lately. You can decide if this is for you or not. Would be like getting a massage or a facial. It's definitely a luxury, but it is definitely so so nice. I don't know if you'd enjoy that or not. But I like pedicures like the like the deluxe deluxe pedicure with the paraffin wax. Oh I've never had that. What do

they do with that? They put your legs in plastic bags that have wax in them, and then they then want to sit there with the wax and then do they rip it off? They know, I mean they pull it off and it's not like you're getting getting wax. Um. It's like a warm hug on your legs and that's nice. Yeah, And so maybe I'll do that. Should I come do that with you? You should present it's my birthday too, and then like we can get those cocktails that come in a can and go to the beach. It sounds

like you have your perfect day planned. I'm excited picks to come. Let's do it.