Looking for an apartment?

Finding a new apartment can be one of the most stressful things you can do in your life. Unfortunately, a lot of people learn the hard way when it comes to the Do's and Don'ts of Apartment hunting. They get the apartment and then realize, "What the hell did I just get myself into?!?!?!"

Here's an insiders look on the Do's and Don'ts while looking for an apartment from the point of view of someone that WORKS in the industry-me.

Don't look for an apartment in the ghetto.

The worst mistake someone does is moving to the wrong side of town. Every town has bad parts. You want to stay as far away from those parts as you can. Not sure what's the ghetto and what's not? Ask around. People will up and tell you. Don't got anyone to ask? Go into a local chat room online. They'll tell you. Still not convinced? Go to your favorite search engine and look up your local police department's website. Go to the section of crime statistics. These sites will tell you how many crime reports they have gotten in the area where you're looking to find an apartment. Don't expect the leasing person to tell you "the crime rate." 1st of all, it's against Fair Housing law for any apartment employee to talk about crime. 2nd of all, let's say they break the rules and DO tell you, don't believe them. Apartment people are out there to get potential residents. If the crime in their community is bad, do you seriously expect for your leasing person to tell you the truth? The whole 100% honest truth? Please...give me a break.

Do drive around the community.

Drive around the community at night and on weekends. Get a feel of it. If you see things that are NOT you, like people drinking out on their patios, and loud bass music, you probably don't want to live there. Also, pay attention to the patios there. Are they messy? If most of the patios there are messy, that is a sign that the management company does not walk their property and doesn't really care. How about trash? Is it clean? Or is it trashy? 1st impression really does count. If you see a resident outside, try talking to them and ask them how they feel living there.

Don't be rude to the person helping you. That's my biggest pet peeve.

Don't be intruigued by awesome specials like 2 MONTHS FREE! or something like that.

Too good to be true specials=probably true, but too good for you. Let me tell you why...when an apartment community gives away the whole damn farm, you gotta wonder why. I could actually pin it right in the tail. A lot of unsatisfied residents probably moved out at the same time and they gotta fill it up. Unfortunately, that can result in 2 things. It will attract the people that you don't want to be your neighbors (they'll be more lenient on their credit checks) and you'll probably inherit a horrible managment staff. If the previous people left, it was probably because of the staff and them being unreliable (service requests not getting done, etc.). If a property is 90% occupied or better, that is a good sign that the residents are satisfied there. Ask them how full they are. Also ask them what percentage of people renew their lease, or rephrase it as "how many people have lived here for years?" Also, if you get in on a really really good special, expect to have a HUGE increase upon renewal.

Take a look at the inside of the apartment.

If the appliances look like they're from the 70's, your electric bill will be sky high. Check for gaps in the aparment. Check the a/c filter.

Do ask them the following questions:

What are your qualification guidelines?

Do you do criminal background checks? You don't want to live next to a felon.

Do you take affordable housing or section 8? If they do, turn around and leave. Trust me. No offense to those on gov't assistance (my mom is disabled, so I know) but a lot of those people are druggies and have "trouble" written all over them.

Don't look at the model.

Now, my management company's model apartment is just like the vacant one you would lease. But, believe me, that's not the case with every apartment community. Sometimes they make the model look WOW!!!! and the apartment looks Bleh. Look at a vacant apartment. That'll give you a true feel of what to expect.

Do ask what the utilities run there.

Sometimes they can't give an estimate on electricity, but see how the water bill and trash fee works at their community.

Ask about renewal increases.

Apartments sometimes have to increase your rent due to market changes and to compete with their competition. But too big of a gap isn't good.

Do observe the body language of the person helping you and his/her coworkers.

If the person helping you is acting like they don't want to help you, they'll probably act like that when you live there too. Also, pay attention how they handle a current resident if you're lucky enough to be there when one walks in or calls.

Gates aren't always better.

Gates are just a luxury. That won't keep a burgler from getting into your community. I used to live in a gated community for 3 years. Sometimes I forgot my gate card and would wait for someone else to drive by and I'd follow them in. And sometimes the gates were busted. Gates do not equal security. How do you think the pizza delivery guys enter?

www.apartmentratings.com can be good and bad.

I personally don't like the website because it gives false views about communities. It's a website where people give their opinions on their apartment community. Most of the reviews are negative. If you think about it, if you are truly happy with your apartment community, would you seriously take the time to write a good review about it online? Probably not. You have better things to do. If you are sooo mad at a community, you'll find every way for people to know about it. You'd find that site and write the worst things. But, you can't always believe what you read. I work for apartments. I have read my apartment community's reviews. The negative comments I have gotten are of people that didn't give the "whole" story. They only tell on the review the bad things. I had one person that wrote on there and they were evicted for non-payment of rent. They didn't say that part. Another said that their apartment was roach infested. What they didn't say is that the apartment was roach free when they moved in and they brought the roaches with their furniture and the lived like slobs. Of course roaches procreate if you're a slob. Oh, and don't assume that if an apartment community has a high % rating, that it's good. Most likely, the office staff planted fake resident comments on there to make their score higher. Just scratch that site off your list. It's not accurate. A community with a 20% rating may have many more long term happy residents than those with a 70% rating.

Oh yeah. This is a good question. Ask the person helping you how long they've worked there.

Ask how long the manager worked there. If these people have worked there for years, it's a good sign that's a good staff. If there's lots of turnover, you gotta wonder why.

Okay. Now you've leased the apartment.

Be sure that you qualify before even applying (income wise). When you sign the lease, read everything and understand everything. Know when the rent is late, know that the fees are, know the procedure of work orders, etc. Write down the name of the management company. Get the company website. This would be useful in case you ever have any issues while living there. That'll be another blog topic.

I'll end up adding more to this particular blog when I think of things I didn't as I wrote this. Hope this helps you make an educated decision.

Tips on Finding Cheap Airfare

Okay, so let's say your sis just moved to a new town and you wanted to go visit her-except she's 2 states away. Here starts the debate of "do I fly?" or "should I drive?". Well, people that know me well know that I'm a penny pincher (yes! I'm cheap and proud of it!) and that I will do everything in my power to find the cheapest flight available, cuz if I don't find a cost effective way to go via plane, I drivin'. But, come on. Let's get real. Nobody in their right mind would want to drive if they don't have to. So, take that extra time to really do your research. Don't be lazy and just go to Expedia.com. You might find a much better deal, even if it's just the $30 you will have saved that you can now use to take a taxi to ur sis's house cuz her dumb butt forgot to pick you up. Or, it'll be the difference of eating the most expensive plate at The Olive Garden to show off you have "good means" and give a 20% tip on top of that (hee, hee, hee) instead of doing the $5.95 all you can eat soup and salad and only give the last $2 tip in your purse (that's in quarters!) cuz you weren't bright enough to find a good deal on a flight.

Okay, so this is what I do. Hopefully you can use this a guide to make an educated decision on a "good deal".

• I gotta give it to the founders of travelocity, expedia, and orbitz. They make finding flights from multiple airlines as easy as using their search engine and printing out your e-ticket from the comfort of your own stinky computer chair. They make mad money out of the American public. You know why, mostly? Cuz they charge a service fee for their services and they try bribing you to buy "cancellation insurance". Do look at these sites for good deals, but Don't buy from these sites. Let's say you did find a very good deal on a roundtrip airfare to your sis's house. Instead on clicking "purchase", open a new internet browser window and go directly to the site of the airline that offered that good deal. Did you notice it's cheaper? I guarantee to you it is. Cuz the airline isn't charging you that "service fee" cuz you're buying directly from the source.
  
  
• Let's say you were all over travelocity, expedia, and orbitz. You weren't too thrilled at any of the prices that were being offered. Now, what you should do is go to another website. It's called Kayak. This site has most of the airline search engines in one spot. Just enter your information in their search engine and vuala! More airlines (regional airlines) are on this list. The cool thing about this site is that if you see a fare that you really like, when you click on purchase, it takes you directly to the airline's website. You get the ticket directly from the source. On the other hand, if you still couldn't find a good deal, you can get on their email alert list. When the rate falls on any airline to your destination, it'll email you to let you know.
  
  
• Despite Kayak being so diverse when it comes to airline choices, it does not have ALL airlines. Regional airlines tend to be a lot cheaper than Major airlines. But you're not going to see a few of these on the websites I mentioned above. So, this is where you really gotta do some digging. 1st, you need to find out which airlines do services in your city and in your destination's city. Go to your favorite search engine. Mine is Yahoo! Now, type something like the following: (be sure to use quotes) "your city goes here" AND"airport". Now, look down the list for the airport(s) website. When you find the city's airport site, find out which airlines service your city. Leave that browser window open and open a new browser window. Now, do the same thing. But this time, search your destination city's airport. Now you can compare which airlines service both cities. If it's a regional airline (such as Southwest Airlines) that you haven't seen prices for before, go to their website. You may find a really good deal that you wouldn't have otherwise found on major airline search engines (i.e. travelocity).
  
  
  
• Here are a few other tips you may find useful: try to search for flexible dates. You'd be surprised how one day difference could mean an airfare difference of $50 or more. Also, mid week (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday) are the best times to travel in most cases because airfare tends to be cheaper on those days. Being on your regional airlines' email lists can be very cost effective. Sometimes they offer deals to only those on their email list. Lastly but not least, consider taking "red eye" flights. Those are flights that depart at odd hours of the night (i.e. 2am) and those flights are always alot cheaper than taking the same route during the day.
  

So, in summary, do your research and maybe you won't have to eat McDonald's dollar menu the whole time you go visit your sister because you paid so much on an airline ticket. LOL...but on a serious note, there's good deals out there. You just gotta find them. They don't always find you.

It's 2008 Tax Season People, File those 2007 Taxes...YOURSELF!!!

If you're like me: All you got is a W2 and nothing complicated about your 2007 taxes, don't spend unnecessary money. My biggest pet peeve is the people that blow $200+ dollars in UNCOMPLICATED tax returns. Well, um...you're smart enough to surf the web-otherwise you wouldn't be here. So, you're smart enough to be SMART about your taxes.

1st, You don't have to use the free tax CD you got as junk mail. You don't have to buy the software that you see in the aisles at Wal-Mart. You don't have to have your friend's "super smart" accountant do your taxes for you. You don't have to be lured by the kookey looking guy dressed in the Statue of Liberty with a big sign saying "file your taxes with us" in the street corner. You have free tax software right here-in the world wide web, the internet. If you can read and follow directions, you can do your own taxes and get your money within days. Even better, you can do it for FREE!!!

Where can I do my uncomplicated taxes...for FREE?

Well, if you made more than $54,000 in 2007, you can do your taxes here at TaxAct.com

For the rest of you that made less than $54,000 in 2007, go to Irs.gov and click on Free File. It will then give you a list of all the websites that will do your taxes for free. My recommendations are: taxcut, turbotax, taxact (I have had the pleasure of using all of these sites through the years)

VERY IMPORTANT: In order for your income taxes and/or efiling to be free, you must get to these sites via the irs.gov website.

My personal information will be on these sites. Are they safe?

Yes, they are. All these sites are encrypted so they are just as safe as if you were paying your utility bill online with a credit card. Don't worry!

I just feel more comfortable for an accountant to do it for me. I'll probably screw something up and/or I don't trust the total this software will give me.

Don't think this way. It is so dummy proof, it will catch your mistake if you make any. It just asks you questions, and you answer them. No calculator necessary. I personally even think it's more accurate than that accountant you've been using for so many years that will probably accidentally omit a tax break or deduction because he's so old he's about to fall over and die.

How soon will I get my money?

If you efile (I recommend that), it will be deposited in your bank account within 7-14 days. (So much better than paying $200 to HR Block, if you ask me!)

So, in summary, this method of doing your taxes is so dummy proof, I think even my dad can do this and he's so anti internet. You can do it too. Give it a try this year. You'll thank me later.

Hello, and welcome to my blog!

I got inspiration for this blog from one of my favorite forums. I couldn't think of a particular subject to write about. At first I thought, well, I could write about my family, but…hello! That's what myspace is for, lol! Then, I thought of doing it about one of my many passions: the past, electronics, the world wide web, music, but then I scratched that too! Today, I decided that my blog will be about what my mind has absorbed through the years. The reason human beings have conversations is to learn from each other…period. So, whenever I find myself talking about something to somebody that asked "me" for my opinion about it, I will in turn give my summarized thoughts on this blog. So, in summary, this blog will be about the files of my mind. Very broad range of subjects. Enjoy!

Here is a slideshow of my family, extended family, and I.