Pricing Out My Bathroom Renovation
My bathroom is hideous. I can't find another word to describe it. Hideous and it should have been renovated years ago. I am on my second quote in getting a new tub and facets, window, tiling and drywall.
Here's a couple of tips for any of you thinking of getting work done. One, look at the prices of the material you are buying online and compare that to what you are being charged. We were thinking about Kohler faucets so I got a quote from him and next I go online and compare price. I compare price with anything I buy.
Next, a plumber is not a dry waller. The drywalling potion of my quote was insane. I called a friend that does drywall and he said I was being overcharged by an insane amount. That's because they don't want to do it and it's a pain to them so they overcharge. How many people do you think pay too much for things like this and don't shop around?
I am basically going to have a person do my window and drywall and a plumber do the plumbing. A bit of pain to me to shop out multiple contractors but I am going to save at least a few hundred for my work.
My other half was off to Costco the other day so I wrote down a few items that I was after. Trust me, she is a shopper and knows her prices. She came a short while later with the items I wanted. Soup, frozen orange juice, batteries, Clamato, laundry detergent and a few other bulk items. The bill was near a hundred dollars and at first I was beside myself that we had spent so much on such a few items. Then it struck me. I won't be buying any of those items for quite a while. I have enough frozen OJ to last a month anyways and laundry detergent to last about the same. We spent a little up front but the savings will come when we are buying those items at higher prices every week. 
So gas prices are lower than they have been in months but don't expect to see the prices of anything else dropping soon. We have all seen some price increases in all sorts of products. The reason? Because the price of oil was up. Companies have two choices now, either keep their inflated prices to try to offset the high cost of fuel from earlier in the year or take the loss and keep consumers buying their products. Let's face it there is lots of competition out there for your shopping dollar.
I was thinking today back to when Howard Stern first went to Sirius and just how much money Arte Lange was spending on the vending machines. Although we don't have them at work we have items we can buy in the lunch room. Besides being totally the worst unhealthy foods you can buy constantly spending money everyday at a vending machine isn't good for the old wallet.
