Hot tips to save cool cash from Pacific Gardens Apartments.

Let’s face it, for most of us cash is tight.  Groceries, gas, clothing – they all seem to get more and more expensive.  So in case you forgot where you planted your money tree, here are  a few practical tips to help trim the budget and avoid that late fee with your rent this month:
Cellphone-Family plans are often always cheaper for everyone involved, and you don’t necessarily have to be an actual family to get one. If you have a few friends who want to lower their cellphone bills as well, you can get a family plan together and share. Just make sure you pick responsible friends otherwise you can end up with a mess if they pay late or cause overages.

Another (potentially more obvious) way to appropriately reduce the cost of your cellphone charges is to track your usage and move to a plan that suits you best. If you don’t have time to track, most cellular service providers will give you your average monthly usage if you just call and ask.

Cable, Internet, and Telephone-Assuming you didn’t sign a service contract—something you should avoid at all costs—you can simply call up the cable company and ask about their latest promotions.

Internet bills are generally hard to reduce as all the services are about the same price for the same speeds, but you can save money in the long run by buying your own cable modem. It should pay for itself in less than a year, and if you’re paying for high speed internet it’s likely something you’ll continue to pay for long after that.

Heat, Air, and Electric-When it comes to your electric bills, the best thing you can do is regularly unplug. This can be a major inconvenience if you own a lot of technology, but unplugging gadgets that are not in use (especially computers) can have a dramatic effect on your bills. Often times you’ll find you don’t need to have the things plugged in anyway. You can consolidate the lesser-used items onto a power strip or two and then simply unplug the strip when the items aren’t needed.

Let us know if you have any other suggestions! We will pass them on.