Tips for budgeting bills:

1. Better to set up automatic withdraw from account for bills, whats the upside and downside of this?

2. Mail in Payments for bills, upside downside of this?

3. Which car insurance in your opinion is better, why? whats the downside of that car insurance.

4. When the manatory bills to have still are "to much" what can you do? Tips for resolving this with and/or without getting rid of manatory bills (such as; car insurance, water, eletric, cable, renters insurance, cell phone.)

Ideas To Lower Monthy Water And Eletric Payment(s):

1. tips to keep the water bill from sky rocketing (other then the basic turn water off when not using it and take shorter showers.)

2. Ideas to help the electric bill, heat index is always high here so the air stays on all day until 6-8 at night. How to keep electric bill low while this is happening.

Best Tips and Pointers To Help Renters:

any ideas on how to help first time renters the what and def. not to do from your own experiences and/or knowledge. Any suggestions welcomed. Any continuation of my questions from others welcomed. :D

:thanx
:grphug

:bump:prettyplease

My sister took Polariods of her apartment before she moved in and had the landlord sign and date them..

It helped her document the condition of the place so she would be sure to get her security deposit back. That way the LL couldn't say that she did damage that was already there..

I think she also mailed them back to herself just to get a legal postmark with the date on them.

I took pictures of the house and wrote down what was wrong with what detailed and even MINOR MINOR problems just to make sure, it was signed by me, Dh, and landlord's POA (landlord is navy and in another state) Dh took pictures we have them saved on the laptop and photobucket just incase laptop should crash and documents are lost! Never thought of the mail in idea though, but the computer and photobucket have dates of when the images were uploaded so I'm safe there!
THANK-YOU!!
ANYONE else have anything??? plwwwease lol

Tips for budgeting bills:

1. Better to set up automatic withdraw from account for bills, whats the upside and downside of this? I never did this because I felt like i was forgetting everything. I used a free copy of Quicken Home to reind myself when to pay bills. I paid them all online, except for rent.

2. Mail in Payments for bills, upside downside of this? If you can remember, this would probably be best. I just liked the ease of paying online.

3. Which car insurance in your opinion is better, why? whats the downside of that car insurance. Go with USAA!!! You don't need a bank account with them, but the insurance is cheap, and the people are very, very nice.

4. When the manatory bills to have still are "to much" what can you do? Tips for resolving this with and/or without getting rid of manatory bills (such as; car insurance, water, eletric, cable, renters insurance, cell phone.) Only pay for cable is you really, really need it. DH and I just like to watch the news and Colbert, and we found out you can watch that all online, so we canceled our cable in our first house. Take off anything you don't use on your cell phone (music service, texting, GPS). If you can, just get liability on your cars. Don't eat fast food, and make resturants a special treat. Shop at places like Save-a-lot, and check out the discount shelves at the BX and Walmart (The BX usually has a shelf of dented cans, or squished boxes that they sell for 75% or more off. Walmart sells breads and doughnuts for cheap when they are a few days from expiring)

Ideas To Lower Monthy Water And Eletric Payment(s):

1. tips to keep the water bill from sky rocketing (other then the basic turn water off when not using it and take shorter showers.) Hand wash dishes, don't water your yard unless you have to,

2. Ideas to help the electric bill, heat index is always high here so the air stays on all day until 6-8 at night. How to keep electric bill low while this is happening. If at all possible-line dry your clothes. When I was in high school, my family did this one month just as a test and we cut our bill by over $100!

Make sure all your filters, hoses, and lint traps are clean so your appliances don't have to work as hard.

Best Tips and Pointers To Help Renters:

any ideas on how to help first time renters the what and def. not to do from your own experiences and/or knowledge. Any suggestions welcomed. Any continuation of my questions from others welcomed. :D

Take pictures of everything before you move your furniture in. Do the move-in inventory very detailed. Remember to check little things like making sure the lights all work, the electric plugs work, locks work, etc.

Don't be afraid to ask questions, or be bossy when you need to.

:thanx
:grphug


Hope I helped. We just rented our first place in March.

Photograph and video everything when you move in. Also complete their inventory sheet. If anything is not right, be sure to photograph it.

As far as keeping cool goes. Insulated curtains and roller shades.

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Don't forget to photograph everything right before move out as well to document the condition of the house as you left it!!! Inside and out. Having a witness to be along for the walk through is good too.

Do all your correspondence with your landlord/property manager in writing via certified mail. If you call and have a conversation, follow it up with a letter. Document everything you discuss, request, etc.

Know your landlord-tenant laws for your state. Your landlord has responsibilities they are supposed to uphold as well. They expect you to follow the lease to the letter, than you must require the same of them. Make sure you know your rights as a tenant.

We ended up dealing with a shady landlord that too long after the fact, we learned she took every single tenant to court to try to get things paid for she wanted done, but claimed them as damage. She would conveniently have photos of all the "damage" and would win because she could "prove" her former tenants caused damage and they could not defend against it with their own photos and documentation and we were one of them!