When having a larger home improvement project done be sure to ask if there is any prepwork you can do to cut your out of pocket costs.

When we were getting estimates on our deck we asked what we could do and were told we could remove the old deck ourselves and haul it off for significant savings.

You could also rip out your own carpet and padding, lay your own subfloor before new flooring is put in, level a patio area, etc. The money saving possibilities are endless...as long as you ask about them.

We just do all the work ourselves! So far we have never had a home improvement project (except electrical) that we could not figure out!

__________________
~Happiness is a large family~

Ditto, except it's plumbing here, instead of electrical...even then, no probs.

WOW! I wish we had that talent, the only thing we are handy with is the checkbook for getting others to do our improvements! LOL!

Great post! We want to fence in our yard, but it is costly! I am going to call and ask if there is anything we can do ourselves! Thanks for the idea

Buy the materials and do it yourself!! We have put up both a privacy fence and a wire fence in the past. Not too hard at all!!

__________________
~Happiness is a large family~

ITA with Happymom. We put up a 6' privacy fence around our pool area last summer. We did it all ourselves. You need a measuring tape, post-hole digger, a spade, cement, water, something to mix the cement in (we used an old wheelbarrow), sonar tubes, the actual fence pieces and posts and some hard workers. Voila! MUCH cheaper than hiring someone to do it (it cost us around $700 and it's a pretty darn large area).

Another good tip is to buy all of your supplies (especially if you're doing a project yourself) in one trip (or as few trips as possible) AND if you're buying at HD or Lowes, use the 10% off coupons that are frequently around. Another little tip regarding those...HD will accept Lowes and Lowes will accept HD coupons so scope out the better deal at either store than just use whatever coupon you have to make the deal 10% sweeter.

Oh, I forgot to mention (and why the heck don't we have an edit post button??), to get the HD or Lowes coupons you can usually just sign up on their websites to be part of their mailing list or for their "movers package" and they'll send you the coupons. There's also always eBay where you can frequently get them for cheap as well.

Any tips on saving money on a furnace and gas line repair? We are not going to try this one alone. I don't even know if that is legal. I know you have to be licensed with AC work. Anyway. We have three estimates and can't decide to go with a higher efficiency, but less popular brand, amanna, or lower efficiency lennox. It will cost us the same.

I would never do anything involving a gas line myself...there are just some things you don't cut corners on.

When you say "less popular", what do you mean by that? Are they less reliable? I don't really see what popularity has to do with it. Just because a lot of people like a certain brand doesn't make it good quality.

I would research long term reliability of each brand, how often they go in for repairs, find out exactly what the efficiency difference is, and try to get some reviews from real people, and make your decision from there.