Are you thinking about renting?  If you’re not quite ready to commit to purchasing a home, renting may be an option for you.  If that’s the case, here’s a bit of advice–be ready to make a decision NOW!

The rental market in San Antonio and other cities is tight, tight, tight!  Homes in certain areas, in good condition, do not stay on the market very long these days.  If you’re out looking at homes to rent and you find one you like, be prepared to submit an application and the required fees immediately!  If you like it, I can almost guarantee that others do too!   You may be competing with other applicants for a particular home, so your credit, your rental history, your employment status and history, and other things may play a strong role in a landlord’s decision on whose application gets approved.

Before you start looking, get your records ready–pay stubs, employment verification, ID, etc.  Have money available for a money order, cashier’s check, or other certified funds.  If you have pets, take a picture and be prepared to submit that–some landlords are getting particular about what kinds of pets they’ll allow, which breeds, etc.

Keep in mind that all adults over 18 who will be living in the house need to submit a separate application, including the application fee.  Some landlords/property managers will give a fee concession to a married couple, but that’s an individual decision.  If you’re sharing with a roommate or someone who’s not your spouse, each person has to submit an application.  This includes adult kids who are still living at home.

If you’re working with a REALTOR®, and I hope you are, ask him or her to verify that the property is still available before you take your time and his or hers to go look.  As an agent, one of the biggest frustrations I encounter when showing homes is that the status has not been updated in the MLS.  A property shows as active, I show the home, the client wants to submit an application, and then we discover that there’s already an application in process.  Aarrgh!!  Sometimes no matter how hard I try to contact the listing agent, my calls are not returned so I have no way to know.  This seems to be especially true on weekends when most clients are available to look at homes!  It’s frustrating, so we just have to do the best we can, but ask  your REALTOR® to at least try to verify.

So, there are a few tips to make your rental search more productive.  There’s definitely competition out there!   Get yourself prepared and start your search!  Good luck!!

At the end of the day, I’ve decided that most decisions come down to 2 things–time or money.  Spend one and save the other.  We all have our own priorities about which is more valuable in any particular decision-making process.  In my earlier post on Sticker Shock, the priority is money, so the tips I shared were more about spending some extra time on tasks in order to save some money.  Today’s tips continue that “investment strategy”.  Plus, they encourage and enable you to “go green” in small ways and reduce your “footprint”.  So here are some more tips you probably already know, but may not be doing!

Buy in bulk. If you shop at Sam’s Costco, or other big warehouses, it’s easy–that’s all they offer you!  But even in your regular grocery store, you can take advantage of sales, coupons, and other promotions and stock up on non-perishable items when they’re on sale.  The trick is having space to store the extras until you need them!  So maybe that’s a project for a weekend–to clear out some space in a closet or your pantry to store extra canned goods, paper goods, school supplies, gift wrap, greeting cards, stamps, whatever.   Think of the time that can save you when you’re not having to make a desperation run to the store for something

Buy in season. Thanks to the food industry, we can buy pretty much whatever produce we want all year long.  But prices certainly go up when you’re buying “summer fruit” in the winter.  If you buy what’s seasonally grown, it’s fresher and cheaper.  This is easy to do if you take advantage of  local Farmer’s markets in your area.  The Pearl Farmer’s Market in San Antonio is a favorite of mine and is getting more popular by the week!  They’ve even added a Wednesday market to meet the demand.  Check it out or find one near you.  You’ll help local farmers, get the freshest food for your table, and avoid a lot of the pesticides and other chemicals that are used to preserve what you find at the grocery store.  And locally grown usually just tastes better too!

Grow your own and do what your grandma (or great-grandma) did. You can’t get much fresher than picking tomatoes or squash or cucumbers or whatever from your own  garden!  Even if your garden is small and/or grown in pots, you’re likely to have more than you can use right away.  So grow it and “put it up” like our grandmothers (or great-grandmothers) did.  You can freeze it, dry it, can it, dehydrate it.  Or you can buy in bulk when things are on sale or in good supply at the farmers’ market and do the same thing.  A friend of mine has a peach tree in her backyard.  Last summer, it produced over 50 pounds of delicious peaches!  She and her husband made peach butter and peach preserves, they froze peaches, ate peaches, gave away peaches all summer long!  I still have 2 baggies of frozen peaches from what she gave me.  And the tree’s in bloom again!

Clean green. You can save big here!  White vinegar, baking soda, lemon juice, borax–these are just some of the things you can use to clean your house that will save you money and help the environment.  They will also reduce your family’s exposure to chemicals and other substances that can trigger allergies and can potentially cause harm to the environment.  There are lots of articles on the internet about how to “clean green”.  The supplies you need are inexpensive and go a long way.  Plus, they do the job. sometimes even better than commercial cleaners!  I find that running a bottle of vinegar through a cycle in my coffee maker works better and cheaper than the “coffee maker cleaners” I’ve used in the past.  And it doesn’t take any more time to use than the ones in a package.  What’s not to like?

So there you have some ideas to help control that sticker shock when you check out at the grocery store!  I hope you find some ideas that you can put into practice and that will work for you and your family!  Good luck, and let me know what other ideas you have–I’d love to share!

Best,

Sue

I’m an empty nester.  I love being an empty nester!  Life is a lot less frantic as an empty nester.  I have fond memories of the years when my nest was full, but absolutely an empty nest = a more relaxed lifestyle!  I don’t have to cook 3 meals a day for a family of 6 any more.  So, you’d think that I wouldn’t need to buy as much at the grocery store and that my monthly expenses would be way down in that category, right?  Wrong!!  I’m always shocked when my tab rings up in the $80-100 range each week (depending on whether or not I’m getting paper goods and other non-food items).   How does that keep happening???  Food prices are up so that’s part of it, and I do indulge in a few things I don’t really need, so that’s part of it too.  But every time I get that total, I wonder how much higher would that number would be if I was still feeding a family???  Yikes!

If you’re having that sticker shock too when you go to the grocery store, here are a few tips that might help trim that total a little bit.  You probably already know all these, but maybe you’re not really doing them (like me!)  Hope you find something that’s useful!

1. Make a plan and a list before you go!This tip helps tremendously!  It will save you not only money when you shop, but the most precious thing of all–your time!  One of my daughters has done this faithfully for years, and she’s told me what a stress-reliever it is to know what’s for dinner before she leaves the house in the morning!  If something needs to thaw, it comes out of the freezer and into the fridge the night before.  If meat needs to marinate, it does so all day.  There’s no mad scramble when everyone gets home and kids need to do homework, and everyone’s tired, and everyone’s hungry, and everything’s crazy!  Whoever’s in charge of dinner can get things going quickly and get dinner ready so that everyone can get on with their evening activities.  No scrambling to throw something together with whatever’s in the fridge/pantry–the decisions have been made and all necessary ingredients have been purchased and are ready to go!

2. Do your own prep work! It’s tempting to purchase  fruits and veggies already peeled and cut; or to buy meats already prepared to just heat up; or to get prepared foods from the deli or chef’s case.  Sometimes that’s a necessary solution in a real time crunch.  But if you do that on a regular basis, you’re really paying a lot for someone else to do the work.  It’s pretty easy to peel and chop your own onions, cut up a whole chicken instead of paying a premium for boneless chicken breasts, or doubling a recipe and freezing the extras for another day.  The savings add up!

3. Do your own cooking! Cooking from scratch seems to be almost a lost art!  Most people (and I’m guilty of this too!) “assemble” a meal, they don’t really cook it.  Cooking involves taking food from the raw state to the serving.  Re-heating something, cooking a frozen entree, opening a can, or putting together some combination of the preceeding, is not cooking, it’s assembling!  Learn to cook and do it on a regular basis.  Not only is it more economical (fast food may be fast, but it’s not cheap!), it’s potentially healthier (if you’re not frying everything!).  When you cook from scratch, you control what goes into the meal you serve and you can do it without all the chemicals and additives that pre-prepared food contains.  It’s not hard to do–can you read?  Then you can follow a recipe!  Try it sometime!  Here’s an easy one to get you started:

Slow-Roasted Garlic and Lemon Chicken (adapted from a Nigella Lawson recipe)–this one is good to make when you have time and then use extra chicken for other meals:

1 whole chicken, cut up–leave skin on
1 head garlic, separated into unpeeled cloves
2 unwaxed lemons, cut into chunky eighths
small handful fresh thyme (or use dried)
3 T. olive oil
1/2-1/3 c. white wine (I buy those 4-packs of small bottles and use 1 whole bottle)
pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 300.  Put chicken pieces into a roasting pan.  Add garlic cloves, lemon chunks, and thyme; add oil and mix everything together.  Spread misture out, making sure chicken pieces are skin-side up.  Sprinkle wine over all and grind pepper over.  Cover lightly with foil and bake for 2 hours.

Remove foil from pan.  Increase oven temp to 400 and cook uncovered for another 30-45 minutes until skin is golden brown.  Serve from the pan.  Chicken will be super tender and juicy, falling off the bone.  Use leftovers for soup, casseroles, or other recipes.  Be sure to use good lemons and fresh garlic for best flavor and wonderful aroma!

I have a couple more tips, but I’ll save them for next time!   Try these and see if they make a difference when you check out.  I’m going to–I’ll let you know if I see a difference!

Sue

I was a history major in college–many years ago!  Didn’t start out with that intention, but the very first class I attended as a freshman was American History and the professor was so engaging, I was hooked!   History, I have found, is an interesting and important subject.  And there are two noteworthy “anniversaries” of historical events happening this year!

First, did you know that 2011 is the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War?  I studied a lot about the Civil War because it was the specialty of that professor I liked so much.  The Civil War was a landmark event in our country’s history and its effects and aftermath are still being felt 150 years later.

Second, and of even greater significance here in Texas and San Antonio, 2011 is the 175th anniversary of the fall of the Alamo!!   Texas is the only state that has been an independent “country” of its own prior to joining the United States.  Did you realize that our state constitution allows for the possibility of reclaiming that independence?  Gov. Perry rattles that chain every now and then, but I don’t think he’ll actually do it!   But, if you’re in San Antonio, look for some activity at the Alamo–March 6–Remember the Alamo!!

Coming up in early April–Fiesta San Antonio!!  Fiesta commemorates the Battle of San Jacinto, where Texas won its independence from Mexico in 1836–it’s a 10-day citywide party!!  More about that later!

Job growth is what drives the housing market.  When jobs are available and new ones are being created or brought in, people buy homes!  So, it stands to reason that cities with jobs have a stable housing market.  Here’s a quote from former San Antonio mayor Henry Cisneros:

“We should do very well this year,” Cisneros said. “San Antonio is one of the hottest cities out there. San Antonio is enjoying the highest profile it has ever had.”