At the beginning of July I moved into my new place, the second floor of a duplex in an amazing area. And so far, I love the place (I’ll spare you the boring details about the place). Not only is the place really nice, another major benefit is that it will also increase my savings account. Now that I am finally settled in and mostly unpacked, I will finally take a hard look at just how much I will be saving by living in the new apartment. In this article, I will calculate my monthly and annual savings from moving apartments and will provide tips on minimizing moving costs while furnishing a new apartment.
Background
I was young and reckless as a new graduate with a full-time job. Getting used to the independent lifestyle that I had in undergraduate, I wanted to move out as fast as possible from my mom’s house. After looking at a few apartments with one of my old college roommates, we settled on renting a large 3 bedroom apartment for a whopping $1,200/month ($600/person). The apartment was very spacious, had brand new appliances, granite countertops, hardwood floors throughout the apartment, and was close to public transportation. Being young and naive, we signed the lease and I began signing a decent chunk of my paycheck away.
The New Apartment
Finally my lease was over at the end of June and I had to find a new place. My girlfriend of seven and a half years and I decided we were finally ready to move in together, so we went apartment shopping. We settled on our second floor suite in a young neighborhood for $650 per month! Just like that, my monthly rent expense was slashed 45% to $325 per month. I was happy just to have my rent reduced, but the savings news became even better when I found out that the cable providers offer much cheaper rates in the neighborhood and my car insurance provider decided to drop my insurance once I moved. My cable and insurance costs were reduced $31.67 and $14.00 per month, respectively. When adding the impact from these three items, my savings will increase $330.67 per month! I cannot wait to start seeing the impact of my move as the months continue to roll by (It hasn’t hit me yet since this is only my first month in the apartment and I have only signed one rent check). For the remainder of 2014, I am projected to save $1,984. What is exciting about this total is that it is right in line with my usual stock purchase, which has ranged between $1,500 and $2,500 lately. Moving to a new, cheaper apartment will allow me to purchase another investment by the end of the year. How cool is that? If I invested these in a stock at my portfolio’s current yield, 3.98%, I could earn an additional $79 a year in dividend income. This will get me much closer to achieving my new 2014 investing goals.
A Few Tips for Minimizing Moving Expenses
There is one major downside of moving. Furnishing a new apartment, condo, or home can be very expensive. For the last two months, I feel like all I have done is swipe my credit card (At least I am raking in the points!). Luckily, my girlfriend shares my passion for finding great deals and we tried to furnish our apartment as cheaply as possible. Here are several tips for how to reduce the cost of your move.
1. Begin Shopping Early– We knew we were going to be moving in a couple of months prior to our actual move-in date. So we began our shopping early to try to take advantage of as many weekly specials, coupons, and discounts as possible. During this time, we only purchased items that were on sale or clearance to maximize our savings. Our thought process was that we could have bought te product at full price at any time, so why not gamble and see if the product will go on special in the next couple weeks?
2. Know Your Prices- How many times have you walked into a store and saw a product that was suddenly discounted 70% from its original purchase price and thought you were getting a steal? Sadly for most of the products the discount is a mirage and the company is still selling the product at the market price. If you are unaware of the prices of products, you may find yourself taking the more expensive “deal” because it seems too good to pass up. In addition to these discounted items, it is also crucial to know your prices for all items so you can spot a cheaper price when you see one. After looking at the price of measuring spoons and other kitchen gadgets at 5 different stores, you will quickly figure out the market value and which place is offering a discount.
3. Purchase Furniture on a Holiday– Furniture stores seem to run really great specials around the holidays. As cheesy as the commercials and advertisements are, the stores often offer steep discounts to get customers in the door on their holiday weekends. We spent the month of May picking out a couch and a bed for our new place and decided to wait until Memorial Day to purchase make our purchase. In this time, we saw the total cost of our purchase drop by $200 and we were able to receive free delivery.
I am very happy this process is over. I am not planning another move until I finally purchase my first home. Hopefully these tips can help save you all some future dollars! Does anyone else have any other tips for saving money while moving? Has anyone else had a similar experience?
~Bert
Update: At the request of Henry from Living at Home, here is a picture of my new view from my front porch!
