Saving Money on Rent

this man deserved fair rent. So if you're looking to keep your rent the same or lower, try slow tworking fully clothed, and if you're not the torking type, subscribe to the friend letter. We send out freebies, saving tips, life hacks every week to help you save money so that you don't have to record yourself slow Talking Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash frind letter. You can also do both Try everything Get creative BSA.

a great one. We have tips not just for homeowners but for renters as well, and then episode two forty six frugal home cleaning tips, because when we are and maintaining our appliances, even if they're not ours, then you can definitely prolong their life, prolong the amount of time you will have to go with a deadbeat landlord not fixing something, as I have heard horror stories from many friends. So even if it's not your stuff, it does behoove you to keep it clean and keep it working, just

to save time. So on this episode, we're going to talk about some practical ways to save money on rent, and we're going to wrap up with a whole talk on how to negotiate rent. So this first one is from in charge dot org. It is ten ways to save money on monthly rent payments, and we're not going to go through all of them. The first one is obviously get a roommate. We're not you know that, we're not going to talk about that. We're going to just

talk about the ones that we found most interesting applicable. Obviously, if you want to remake it a roommate. But yeah, it's not a requirement.

timely conversation. And reality is is landlords do still need to pay their mortgage in most instances, and insurances and taxes are also going up steadily, so that in part explains why rent is so high. But I think also landlords are trying to make a profit, so the margin of profit is really where there can be room to be able to save Well, start off here with number four on this list as far as a way to be able to save money on your rent is to

sign an extended lease. So what landlords want always is stability. It costs landlords between fifteen hundred to five thousand dollars to turn over to a new tenant, So it behooves

landlords to keep tenants, and especially good tenants. So if you know that you plan to stay in a particular area, you are happy with the location, maybe even the apartment or condo or home that you're renting, if you were to rent for one and a half to two years, the ball is definitely in your court to be able to get a lower rent than if you were to sign, say a six month to one year lease. There's a definitely more room to be able to talk that rent

rate lower. But of course then you have to be willing to stay in that area for that amount of time. So that's definitely a look at your situation to decide. But I've heard this work for a lot of people.

kind of annoying. So if I know that I have somebody that wants to stay two plus years, then I would definitely be willing to negotiate something with them, at least to where it offsets the cost of that I would put in doing tours of the house and posting it places, and all the time that I would save from that for sure. The next one is to give up your parking space. So this one won't work for everyone.

But if you don't have a car, obviously you don't need a parking space, or if you can get creative and where you park you may not need a car every day because you work at home and you have an e bike or a regular bicycle, then maybe trying to put your car somewhere that's more affordable. So just

getting creative. If you can give up the parking space, maybe the spot at your complex is three hundred dollars a month, but you can find somewhere to park it for one hundred and fifty bucks a month, and you may only need it once or twice a week, who knows, depending on where you live. But you can often give up your parking spot in exchange for discount and rent.

Another option might be to rent out the space. There are websites that allow you to rent parking spaces, So if you can rent out your space for you know, three hundred dollars for a few days, like if you're near an event space or something, then and that can pay for your parking spot every month, and you just move your car to a friend's house or something. So get creative on if you truly need your car in your like in front of your apartment or house all the time.

will increase in the summer. That's when a lot of maybe if you live close to a college, college students are going to be flooding the market, or families with children are looking to move in that timeframe to be in the school district that they want to be in

for the upcoming school years. So that makes winter an advantageous time to be looking for an apartment or a house or a condo, and then also having it in your favor to potentially negotiate which we'll talk some tips on that in the next article, but it's the timeframe when you could potentially lock in the lowest rate.

is to go with private rentals. So a private rental is a property owned by an individual or family as opposed to a corporation, as is the case with most large apartment complexes, not all, but most, and so private rentals can be housed, but they can also be apartments. Especially anything for units and under is going to probably be a private rental. Anything five or higher is usually

a little harder. But when you go with a private landlord, you can negotiate much more easily than with a corporation. If you're looking at a really big apartment complex. Your options are extremely limited, and most of the things we're going to talk about today will not apply to you. The corporations just do not care. They make enough money where apartments can sit vacant for very long periods of time, and they do not lose money because they have so

many other rentals that are filled. So definitely, if you can find a rental that is maybe a little higher but is owned by a private individual or family, it can still be an LLC if you look it up. A lot of individuals will have LLCs for the rentals, but you can more likely negotiate and get stuff off of that one than you ever would be with a hedge fund or corporation that owns a crap ton of rentals.

San Diego. It's expensive there where one bedroom apartments are going for thirty six hundred dollars sometimes more, and so they're referencing if you want a more urban setting but you can't afford those prices. To consider emerging cities they mentioned Oklahoma City or El Paso, Texas. Can't say you're going to catch me move into either one of those places.

But I think I could also throw in here, even just considering a slightly different area outside of the city or area that you currently live in, maybe compromising some version of ease and location to the places that you want to be. Extending your commute by ten fifteen minutes to various well trafficked spots could also save you a lot of money. I mean, I just know in Saint

Pete there's different areas that you could live. Might not be as close to the things that you want to be, but you could save one hundred to two hundred dollars a month just by choosing a different area. So yeah, you can move entire life and that's a massive life decision that could have some really beneficial financial impact for you. But if that's not the massive leap you're looking to do, it's still worthwhile to think, well, would I be willing to compromise this one thing to be able to save

X amount of money? Year over year, because again, housing is one of our biggest expenses, so wherever we can cut that makes more room for all the other things we really value.

really Jill should be saying that one. But it's offered a work for the landlord. Because Jill has personal experience with this one. But I know that we let our handyman stay in our rental while he did work on our house, and so we got a really great deal on that work because of that exchange. So this one definitely definitely works. But I know Jill has an actual story on this.

or my sink in the middle of the night. You will only be called if it is something really serious that's valuable to an individual landlord or somebody that pays for property management. They save money by not having to call somebody out or having or time not having to go out there themselves. So you can kind of leverage that if you are handy to say, hey, why don't you knock X amount off? Because this is what you're getting.

It is a really great article. I would encourage you all to check it out because there's more to it than what we are just going to cover. But we want to talk through the different negotiating rent rules that are outlined here. So the first one is know what you want, and this is negotiation one oh one rent or otherwise, anytime you are heading to the negotiation table or phone call or meeting on the side of the road, you want to know what it is that you're asking for.

You need to have a number in your head already, otherwise you're at the mercy of the other person, in this case the landlord. So your landlord is coming at this situation with the mindset of they want to maximize their profits. So that's going to be their angle. And so if you can come with an actual number rather than just oh okay, sure, I'll knock ten dollars off

of it. And so part of coming up with your own number is going to be affordability for you looking at what is twenty five to thirty percent of your household income that you can be spending on this place, but also to look up comparables in the neighborhood. You can use Zillow or Craigslist or other apartment finding sites to search your particular neighborhood within the city that you're living and determine what are other people paying for similar

homes to yours. You know, if you're in a three to two, what does that look like in your area, you're in a two to one, a one to one, whatever it is, and make sure that it's truly comparable. It's in a very similar neighborhood with very similar amenities. Otherwise the landlord may not take you that seriously if you're trying to throw something at them that is not anywhere near close to the thing that you're rent and

come with that number in mind. What this article also encourages us to do, which I love, is consider other things you can negotiate for as well. So not just your monthly amount, but could you negotiate for free parking or additional storage, or partially paid utilities, guest parking passes,

security deposit back, waved pet fees. So there's a lot of different things that could be in your repertoire to be negotiating beyond just the monthly rent, So keep those things in mind as well, but come to the table with what you want.

to be doing show vulnerable, vulneraball. I really respected that they, I mean, they knew what they wanted, and I came back with a counteroffer, and then they came back with a counteroffer, and then I came back with a final offer and we agreed, and I lowered their rent because it was a good time for me. I didn't want to be doing showings. I told them. Next year is a different story. I'm bumping it back up to what

it was the first year. But it was just a really good situation for them, and they knew what they wanted. They threw out the first number and we were able to negotiate from there.

So this is kind of that if you are handy and you can offer maintenance, cool, If you have an eye for design and this place needs some sprucing up. Possibly that not all landlords are into that because they don't always see that their yellow beige walls need a coat of white paint. But whatever, And so the article says, sometimes you can't just say I want two hundred dollars off per month on my rent. You have to be

ready to offer something in return. So he suggests prepaying for some months in advance, sign and extend lease like we just talked about. Offer to extend the termination notice from thirty to sixty or ninety days. Offered to give up your parking space again something we mentioned. Promise not to smoke in the apartment.

they have low occupancy. It's always if you have a good tenant that refers somebody, you assume they're going to be a good tenant. You still want to do your due diligence, background checks, calls and all of that, but you could give them a referral bonus.

If it doesn't go the way that you want, and you're truly deciding, then I cannot stay here. It gives you enough time to find another place, but it also gives enough time for some of those negotiations and neither one of you then gets stuck in this position of I waited too long to begin these conversations. This article also does reference just the time of year that again, it is best to be negotiating in the winter months when it would be more difficult for your landlord to

turn the place over. They may have some difficulty finding another tenant, which is going to cost the money in the long run, so they might be more amenable to some negotiations depending on the time of year.

I'm looking for someone else. So definitely, it's in bold in the article two to three months before your lease expires, that's when you need to be negotiating, and I would push more towards three.

So yeah, you could reference that infographic two for your area to see, all right, what months should I be looking and negotiating?

And so we won't go through the exact script. But Ramat has scripts on this blog post. And he's lived in New York City and currently lives in LA and currently rent has rented his adult his entire adult life in both of these cities, and so these are scripts that have worked for him. So they're really good. And as a landlord, I really agree with like how it's first and foremost being polite. So this thing is they're trying to lower the rent by two hundred and then

the landlord responds. Of course, the landlord always their first response will be no, and so that's when you start negotiating. They're not going to write off the bat say okay, I'll give you, you know, two hundred or one hundred. But let me tell you with my experience, the girls pulled the Zillow rentals and took a screenshot and showed me what comparable rentals were going for what they thought

were comparable rentals. It was outside of our area, so like our the place they were living was not actually in the screenshot, it was just a little bit off. And then not all of the three twos were as the same like quality, and some of them were even three ones. So you want to make sure when you're sending comparables that it is like, like really match for match, what you think is a match for match on the square footage and number of bedrooms and bathrooms, and then

the closest like in your neighborhood. If the house is on the edge of the neighborhood and there's a lower priced neighborhood below, you don't have to necessarily include that, but just make sure you're including the right neighborhood and not a cheaper neighborhood, because they'll know what you're doing. They they've done this before, and sometimes they do this

for a living, so you're not fooling them. So make sure your research is reasonable and say, like, I have looked at some of the comps and I can find cheaper rent in the area for what I'm getting, but I really don't want to move, so this is what I found, YadA YadA. So but definitely look at these scripts on this article that will be in our show notes.

if you've never negotiated anything before. I like the example that they give of don't shoot your first basket in the NBA. I don't think they'd let you in the NBA if you've never shot a bast get But you get the gist that you want to be practicing some negotiation before you jump into this type of negotiation where you're really looking to save close to one thousand, if

not more, dollars per year. So practicing can look as simple as grabbing a friend or a coworker, and moving through some of these scripts together, just to get a feel for what does it sound like for this to come out of my mouth? Where do I get tripped up when I'm talking about my rent? What further research do I need to be doing. What decisions do I

have to make before I enter this conversation. But it's also good to practice on other things, and not just with friends and coworkers, but at your local farmer's market, negotiating for a small ticket item, through your Facebook marketplace or Craigslist transactions. These are really great places is to be negotiating the price of something because especially there, I'll

just go with Facebook Marketplace. No one ever lists something on Facebook marketplace for actually what they think they're going to get. That's they are raising it by fifty to one hundred and fifty dollars, I mean, depending on what the thing is, maybe by five or ten dollars, imagining that people are going to talk them down. So do it talk them down? And I know it can feel uncomfortable, but I love what we meat says in here that is it awkward to save thousands of dollars a year?

And ultimately no, that's a beautiful thing. So put this into practice. Get your feet wet. Know how it feels to do this. Yeah, put yourself in an awkward, uncomfortable position and then save yourself tons of money throughout the course of your lifetime.

talked about. Know when to negotiate that two to three months before. Use a script to make the process easier practice in low stakes environments, research the properties value, specifically the rent value. But Zillow will not tell you the

right rent. You really need to compare comparable different properties that are comparable and for rent at the same time because some you know, you could find rentals six rentals that are two hundred dollars cheaper, but they're not available to you right now, and the landlord knows that you're not going to be able to go back and time and get those, so they're going to be looking at what's available for to take you away from their property

right now and then negotiate directly, follow up in writing, and so a lot of this we negotiated with our tenants via text message. Honestly, the whole thing was done via text. So have it in writing. That's a perfectly fine way to do it if, especially if you're afraid of like talking face to face or on the phone. So texting is totally fine.

off our phone plans for the year. That's the total savings of one hundred and eighty dollars for the year for the two of us, all frugal win and I also wanted to comment that due to our frugal homestead lifestyles, we all each only have to work four days a week at our jobs and we do really well. That you take care and love your show and will continue to listen.

to sneeze at. You can do a decent amount with that. That's a few time going out to eat if you value it. Or it's buying more seeds for your homestead guarden. Ooh, wouldn't that be fun? Renee, This is awesome. Congratulations and I'm so thrilled to hear the side bill about your lifestyle and what you've been able to afford as a result of the choices you've made. That's so exciting. Well done,

and thanks for the listen. If you all who are listening have a bill that you want to submit, if it's about negotiating.

and the rent was very low. So we went to this landlord before even signing a lease, just in our looking process, and asked, would you be willing to let us do some work on this apartment and in exchange for you keeping the rent low. So the benefit to him was that once we leave, which eventually did happen, and we all knew eventually that's going to happen, he

could raise the rent significantly. It did need a lot of work, it had had a cockroach infestation and the walls someone had smoked in there, like it just it needed some TLC. And I don't know m he is as crazy as we are. Don't know why he chose to say yes to us, because we ended up removing walls and gutting the bathroom and totally redoing the kitchen.

I don't totally recommend this to all people, but I think a takeaway here could be what might be maybe not your best version of an apartment, but in the area you want to be in, offer to do some work, but yet keep the rent. So he kept that rent for us for the entirety of the time that we stayed there, which was two and a half years, because of all the manual labor we put in. Of course, he paid for all of the supplies and materials our

labor was given. He ended up giving us our first three months there for free, kind of as a thank you for what we did to the apartment, and then kept that very low, low rent, which it was. I've loved all the places we've lived, but that's one of my favorites. We really it was a really beautiful spot by the time we worked done with it.

for some additional space. There was one particular apartment we were in where there was a garage on the property, and so in exchange for taking care of the lawn, could we have access to this garage, which gave us space to put our tools and launch the business that we were launching, which then became additional income for us. So I think there's a lot of different things to negotiate, oftentimes beyond just the monthly amount.

valued saving money over privacy. But that is not everyone, So you can still be true to the time you need your Where you live is a safe space. So if you don't want other people there then and that's what you value, then you just find ways to save money on other things. But if that's not you, then this is a great way to save so much money on your rent.

knowing that this isn't for forever. Maybe I'm not in the exact location I want to be in, but I'm renting and I can leave whenever I want and whenever the lease will allow me. But you're not set in stone. Let's say you choose to have a roommate, but that doesn't mean you're going to have a roommate for the rest of your life. Is it more important in this stage to save a little bit on my living expenses so that I can be better set up for what I want next, or is it more important that I

just have my own space. I think some of that internal work is worthwhile, and remembering there's flexibility and it doesn't have to be for forever.

using this credit card to pay your rent. And there's no like great sign up bonus like a travel rewards card. But if you're looking to build your credit score and just get, you know, get some rewards on the side in hopes of, you know, getting better loans in the future on cars or mortgage rates. Then definitely check out build rewards dot com.

Jen and Jill make every episode approachable, enjoyable, and informative. Highly recommend five stars.