Kristen Hagopian Show - 07 09 25

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hey, everybody, Welcome to the Christen Agopian Show. Shout outs
from everybody here in Studio B on another gorgeous day
as we connect with our two hundred plus stations coast
to coast via BIZ Talk Radio and the BBS Radio Networks.
Greetings to you all. This week's show is brought to
you by our caring sponsors at Elite Rehab. We're gonna

(00:23):
keep playing this every week. Guys. You know why because
everyone knows a family that's fighting the effects of today's
substance abuse epidemic. And if someone you care about needs help,
pick up the phone that's the first step and call
the professionals at eight hundred nine three two four zero
A two. That's eight hundred nine three two four zero

(00:44):
a two. Help the ones you love, and help yourself
by getting them to put that chapter behind them where
it belongs. Eight hundred nine three two four zero a two. Guys,
huge response, loved it to last week's show. Two of
the small artist personal finance sites out there. It's not
some sophisticated investment site, it's not some banking site. It

(01:06):
is two sites that have saved our household and maybe
your household thousands upon thousands upon thousands of dollars these
two sites, Craigslist and Goodwill. All right, earlier show I
broke it down with how these two sites saved our
household over two thousand dollars in one week alone with

(01:26):
a fabulous, huge cabinet wall, cabinet system, gorgeous, sturdy, amazing
two thousand dollars retail. We got it for free on Craigslist.
So here's an update on the goings on at Kasahagopian
this past week with another room makeover for a fraction
of retail, also not surprisingly courtesy of Goodwill and Craigslist,

(01:51):
but not in the way you might think. Let's break
it down, Okay, First, an update on the bike that
you all love. Got an antique bike for twelve bucks
at Goodwill a couple of weeks ago. Came home, thought
it would be this great bike. I'm gonna you know,
I'm gonna be riding with my family. I'm gonna keep
it forever until my husband, who is a eBay expert, honestly,

(02:13):
he really is. He knows all this stuff inside, now
comes outside sees my new bike and freaks out because
it's some expensive you know, my twelve dollars bike I
just got is apparently retailing for about two seventy five
or more on Criikeslist, So because it's some antique thing beautiful,
it's some J. C. Higgins, I forget what it's called.

(02:34):
But it's gorgeous, it's wonderful. It's selling for two seventy
five on Craigslist and it's gone. But I bought another one,
absolutely beautiful tough, rugged dirt bike, these really thick tires
at Goodwill for fifteen bucks. It's gorgeous. It needs no work,
which surprised me because you think to yourself, you're gonna

(02:54):
want to get it tuned up. No, it's in fabulous shape.
This beautiful tough, rugged dirt bike retails for easily over
one hundred. I got it for fifteen. The breaks are perfect.
Needed a little air in the tires, but that's totally normal.
Then the big project last week that had people flipping
out on my social media redoing our guest bathroom, quite

(03:16):
honestly a contender for the second most ugly bathroom in existence,
second only to our master bathroom, which hands down takes
the prize. Okay, so get on my Facebook page, find
me at Brilliantfrugalliving dot com or just google the Christin
Agopian Show find my Facebook page. You'll see pictures before

(03:37):
and after. Okay, and again this is a job where
you know, we bought the house, the Victorian twenty years ago.
We have been fixing up all these rooms and the
side guest bathroom was in decent shape, certainly in great
working order. But I always hated the vanity. When our
Victorian had been broken down back in the sixties and

(03:58):
seventies into apartment, they had filled all of these various
rooms with what was at the time trendy furniture, including
the cabin, a tree, and the vanities and everything else.
So we had what could best be described as like
a Brady Bunch special. It was one of those boxy
vanities that was in the bathroom. It was suitable, the
size was right, but I kept looking and salivating over

(04:20):
all these Victorian ones with the deep wood grain and
the marble and the great fixtures. Blah blah blah. Well
they're going for like a thousand bucks. I was looking
at my habitat for Humanity home store near us, and
there are some decent vanities there, but I couldn't find
the right size. I wasn't sure if it was going
to work, and then it kept going through my head.

(04:41):
If you've got a piece of furniture where the size
is right, it's functioning, it's in decent shape, simply rehabit.
When you rip out any kind of cabinetry in your home,
if it's in the bathroom, if it's in a kitchen,
if it's in you know, built in anywhere else you're
begging for trouble. Please only do so if you are
absolutely certain that is your one and only option for

(05:03):
redoing the room. If there's any possible way, simply rehab
that piece of furniture. If it's the right size, if
it's the right height, if it's perfectly functioning. Give some
serious thought to keeping that serious coin in your pocket
where it belongs, and simply rehabbing that piece of furniture,
because the goods are out there that can help you

(05:25):
transform even the ugliest furniture out there. Like my bathroom vanity.
I did it with the weekend worth of work. Getting
a brand new vanity would have cost easily. The ones
that I loved hundreds and hundreds of bucks. Honestly, the
ones I really loved topped out at about eight hundred
bucks for the size, the same size vanity that I

(05:45):
already owned. Looking in that room, it was boxy. It
was like the fake wood still very sturdy, heaviest heck,
fake wood square box. You slide open the front cabinet doors,
very boring inside, and you had this faux plasticy ceramice
clearly not marble sink top. Okay. Then on top of that,

(06:06):
on the wall we had one of the dinkiest, itty
bitty embedded mirrors, a little medicine cabinet with the mirror.
It was so small it does not fit the room.
I'm embarrassed that I've had this in there for decades.
We've owned this house since two thousand. Okay, So this
was the week I had to get that done. Off.
I go to Goodwill. Went to Goodwill and didn't spot

(06:27):
anything for the first couple of visits. I tried to
get there once a week, so I've been looking for
the last couple of weeks. This past week I found
a gorgeous antique ornate, beautiful, heavy, fabulous vintage mirror with
all of this great detail on the frame, the perfect
size and easily about three times bigger than the medicine

(06:51):
cabinet tiny mirror that was jutting out of the wall
at the moment. So you just put that mirror on
the wall. You measure carefully, do not, I mean measure
around the towel racks and any lighting that might be
above it. Measure carefully when you're going out shopping for
this stuff. You will save yourself a lot of heartache. Gotcha,
Goodwill found the perfect gorgeous ornate mirror. It fits there beautifully, easily,

(07:12):
three times bigger than that tiny, little embedded mirror, and
it's gorgeous. When you put a larger mirror, a better
quality mirror, and a larger mirror on a wall in
any room, it just it just makes the room bigger
and classier and more grown up and more sophisticated. I
can't get over it. So we have that done, all right.

(07:32):
So there's the mirror. I'm not changing the lighting because
the lighting's in decent shape. I'm not changing the towel
racks because they're embedded in the tiles and this, you know,
I mean, it's obviously vintage tile. It's from the forties,
So I'm not going to change that up. Got brand
new towels for it at Goodwill as well. Beautiful stuff,
beautiful burgundy towels. Now I have to go and do

(07:52):
the vanity, all right, So fake wood on the vanity
for the boxy vanity. Pull out the old English, start
scrub away at it with it, and it brings out
this faux wood grain that's been there for a while.
It looks so much better. Get some old English, all right,
the darker wood or the lighter wood, whatever you want
to do. Spent about a half hour just scrubbing and

(08:13):
just embedding this stuff in there, and even in the
cheapest which mine is cheapest, you know, the really sturdy
yet not really elegant quality vanities out there, if it
can bring out the beautiful wood quality in that vanity
in you know back home, in my upstairs bathroom, it
can do the same thing for yours. We had scratches
and dings and dens and gouges in a couple of places.

(08:37):
You put a good layer of dark old English on there,
maybe even a couple of little coats of it. Let
it sink in. It looks gorgeous. Okay, So there's the
one part. Then, you guys, remember when I did the
mantle in the master bedroom. It was this total. I mean,
we bought that mantle at a flea market right before
we moved into the house about eighteen years ago. Had

(08:59):
no time to do anything with it. So I hit
the frugal panic button, painted it white and liked it
for about a week. And then after that I'm kind
of like meh, found this beautiful new thing called contact paper.
But this is not your shelf liner contact paper anymore, guys.
This is durable, strong, gorgeous contact paper that comes in

(09:20):
marble patterns, beautiful, lifelike, gorgeous. Touch it, feel it. It
feels like marble. So I did the entire mantle in
this beautiful brown rust gold, black veins, white veins running
through it. Mantle. It looks phenomenal. Had some stuff left over.
I did my vanity in that same beautiful gorgeous brown

(09:41):
red gold marble, and it looks fantastic. People are looking
at this stuff on Facebook saying, oh, I couldn't possibly
do that, don't get me wrong. Behind the picture you
see the after photo. For every inch of this stuff
of this marbleized contact paper, there's about a mile in
a garb bag behind me. Because I made every mistake

(10:02):
in the book. The best thing I can recommend that
works beautifully. Move slowly with that stuff. Do not rush,
Move slowly, those of you who know me, Slowly is
not a good easy gear for me to slip into,
all right, So I made every mistake in the book. However,
when all of it said and done, beautiful now marble, vanity,

(10:23):
love it, scrubbable, durable, waterproof, now an ancient, beautiful, antiquey
old English wood along the entire bottom part of the vanity, beautiful,
huge new mirror on top of the vanity, new towels,
new everything, transformed the room for far less than I
want to say, less than twenty bucks, less than fifty
bucks easily when you cut, when you count the towels,

(10:45):
A bathroom transformation for less than fifty bucks. And it
kept me out of trouble for the entire weekend. That's
what I'm talking about. And people are flipping out, so
they sent me all of their stuff they're doing via Craigslist.
And you're gonna hear more about that right after this,

(11:05):
and we are back with the Kristin Agophian Show, touching
base with our listeners coast to coast, all of our
social media buddies with all of their fantastic, amazing all
the stuff we've been dying to do, you know, during
the coldest days of winter. Oh, we'll get to in
this summer. We'll get this done. We'll get that done.
It feels great getting it done. We talked before the break,

(11:27):
got done with a god. This bathroom was bad. It
was functional, but ugly as heck. Now it's beautiful. We
did it for far less than fifty bucks. And when
we put the word out on social media. Hit my website,
guys brilliant frugalliving dot com, or just google Kristin Agopian,
it'll take you right there, all of these various projects
using our fabulous you know, your local Goodwill, your local

(11:50):
Habitat for Humanity, home store, your local you name it,
Chriik's list. Oh my gosh, Chriik's List is brilliant for
this stuff. And people are talking a lot about this
contact pay paper. One of the biggest questions on social media, Chris,
what is this contact paper? Where do I find this?
How have I not, you know, known about this all
along the same way. You don't see it a lot

(12:11):
on all these various you know, home and garden crafty
shows whatever, which amazes me. I think this stuff's going
to take mainstream, just huge in the future because it
has a gorgeous effect on even the most inexpensive, cheap,
amazing projects. It can do to the most you know,
I don't want to call it ugly furniture, but we
are all in possession of furniture that doesn't look quite

(12:33):
how we want it to look. And when you think
about just use a little imagination. What a touch of
paint and some of this marble contact paper, or maybe
you want the granite contact paper which looks so incredible.
Maybe you want the gorgeous oak wood grain contact paper
that will transform all these things. That's what I'm talking about.
We're going to get to that in just a second.

(12:54):
This was handed to me and this is the kind
of headlines I love. I love finding ways to have
a lot of fun during the summer without breaking the bank.
And there's some cool nerdy news out there. And I
use the word nerd like a compliment because we are
all kind of nerdy out there, the best of us.
And it turns out Saturn, the planet Saturn, which is

(13:15):
just a hop, skip and a jump from Earth, usually
tough to spot. This is the month, the month of July,
where with even here's your frugal tie in with even
the most inexpensive telescopes out there. If you point it
in the right direction, and Victor, my husband is so
good at this, you can spot Saturn and it is
wicked cool. I married one of the most adorable, fantastic,

(13:39):
hard working money saving home improvement you know, junkie, just
like I am nerds out there. I got a real winner,
and one of his hobbies is stargazing, right, so every
once in a while I will surprise him with an
upgrade in his telescope found at most of the time goodwill.
Get yourself to Goodwill. Here's why. Everyone you know around

(14:01):
you has their hobbies and they like to upgrade their stuff.
People right and left, you're saying, you know what, I'm
gonna buy a brand new thousand dollars. I can barely
get the words out of my mouth. One thousand dollar telescope.
I barely pay that for my car. A thousand dollar telescope.
You know, I don't need this other telescope that I
bought a couple of years ago. It's a couple of
years old. I don't need it anymore. I'm gonna give

(14:22):
it to Goodwill, write it off on my taxis. Everyone's
a winner, you dang straight. Everyone's a winner because I'm
gonna go and buy that telescope for maybe twenty five bucks.
One thousand dollar telescope. Guys, this is all from this
is all true life. I've done this myself. I've bought
these telescopes at Goodwill. They're perfectly functioning. You look them
up and retail just a couple of short years ago

(14:43):
for a thousand bucks, and I'm picking it up for
twenty five bucks a Goodwill. With these telescopes, you can
see the craters on the Moon on a great night,
and it is cool. I'm not even that much of
like an astronomy junkie, but you get your eyes in
front of one of these telescopes that's trained on the
Moon or a planet, and it is wicked cool. So

(15:03):
get yourself. If you currently do not own a telescope,
get yourself to your local Goodwill. Check their first check
on Craigslist. Now you know the rule with Craigslist. You
never go into the home unless it's someone you've done
business with before. You have them bring everything out into
the yard. You meet there, bring a buddy if you
want to play it super safe. I have done dozens

(15:24):
of Kriigslist transactions, never had a hiccup. Do it smart
and you will find yourself the proud owner of some
of the most high class, fabulous items in your home
for a fraction of the price. So get yourself a
telescope if you don't have one, and get it trained
onto Saturn. It's just wicked cool, it's fun, it's inexpensive.
It is dare I say it, if you have kids

(15:46):
or grandkids around educational and they don't even know it
good stuff. So if you have kids or grandkids in
your life and they're going back to school in a
couple of months, they get, oh what'd you do this summer?
Or Johnny or Mary or whoever, Hey, I looked at
Saturn through the great telescope and you know my you
know with my parents or my grandparents, aunts and uncles.
You get the point. Get your hands on a telescope,

(16:06):
get it pointed to the sky and let me know
what you see. Or right back to fabulous incredible makeovers
of furniture of rooms, not just furniture. The pictures being
sent to me in no particular order of these transformations
with contact paper. Let's do this first of all. Michael

(16:27):
S from San Antonio. I love Michael. He is just
in contact all the time via Facebook. It took him
a weekend, but in that weekend he transformed his parents' kitchen.
They didn't They're on a limited budget. Who isn't these days,
even in a great economy, keep your budget limited, maybe
to pay for past debt that you've been in, or

(16:48):
just to prep for any kind of future economic whatever
going on. Always keep yourself on a limited budget. You
know what, the money in the bank is worth the
hassle of saying, you know what, I'm a limited budget.
Let's not buy a brand new horrible countertop. Let's use
this amazing contact paper. And the before and after in
this San Antonio kitchen is breathtaking. It started out as

(17:11):
a very reliable, sturdy it's there. It's this beige plastic
well it's not plastic, but it's just very sturdy sort
of countertop. Right, it's not natural stone, it's not cement.
It's just there and it's kind of blah. Michael S.
From San Antonio. The pictures are amazing. It took him
a weekend. He transformed it into this beautiful pale marble,

(17:33):
and it is gorgeous all right. He had the same
advice I had. When you're starting to use this stuff,
move slowly. Your bottom line will thank you for it.
Every time I moved faster than I should have, it
got all bunched up. I had to start over again
into the pile in the corner of the room. It went.
Move slow. It is gorgeous all over the edges, the top.

(17:55):
It's scrubbable, it's durable. They know how to treat it.
This stuff is fantastic. We've got time for a couple more.
This one. This is new. This is new, and I
was dazzled by this. Brady checking in from Atlanta, covered
his floors. They had a flood. They had some sort
of a flood going on. They didn't have a lot
of money for new floors. They're worried about another flood.

(18:17):
In his gorgeous Atlanta home. He used something some of
these square linoleum tiles. But it's the new generation. These
aren't old, ugly looking ones. These are beautiful, essentially contact
paper squares. In this kitchen makeover that is beautiful. It's
a huge kitchen and it cost him just fifty bucks

(18:38):
to do the floors. Do you have kitchen floors or
maybe a laundry room floor, maybe a playroom floor, maybe
a sun room floor, maybe you know a basement floor
and you're looking to straighten. It never occurred to me
to do floors in this and it's gorgeous. Last, but
not least, Devin D checking in from Philadelphia. Devin, you

(19:00):
know who you are. Just transformed this older refrigerator. If
I hear one more time people are saying, Oh, I
don't want to buy a new one, but my refrigerator
is twenty years old. We got to get a new one.
All the commercials say you got to get a new one,
all the experts say you gotta to get a new one. No,
if your refrigerator's working, don't get a new one. Make
a cute updated with your kitchen as well. If you're

(19:21):
blessed with one of those fabulous fridges that miraculously still
works after decades, or maybe a stainless steel fridge that
always got fingerprints on it, covered the whole thing like
Devin D did in this cheap solid color. It's glossy
black and it is gorgeous. Guys, the time is blind more.
After this, you all hang out, we'll be right back, small.

Speaker 2 (19:47):
Not too steep, the best of all, and we are
back with the christin Agophian show.

Speaker 1 (20:00):
Have passed the hour. You know what that means. Time
for another fabulous episode of Dad and Daughter Talk Real
Estate with the man here in studio in person, John
Harriet here to break down all of this week's headlines
and how they translate into a fantastic, unbelievable real estate
market for you.

Speaker 3 (20:17):
And hello again everybody.

Speaker 4 (20:18):
This is John Harriet with Keller Williams Real Estate with
another edition Oh Dad and Daughter Talk real Estate, trying
to give you some good direction on what you need
to know and think about with respect to making the
biggest investment of most people's investment lifetimes. And sometimes people
will buy two and three houses, occasionally four and five
houses in a lifetime or more if you're thinking about investing.

(20:41):
But Chrissy, what have some of our listeners been coming
in with questions about for this last week?

Speaker 1 (20:48):
We have the most awesome listeners and we get these
wonderful collections of emails, text that kind of thing. Mainly
it's via Facebook and emailing. Right now, three really jumped
out of me. Because you've got a lot of people
out there. You hear all of the various news out there.
We've got jobs numbers, we also have interest rates. First question,
which once should we go with? First? Here we go

(21:08):
James in Montgomeryville, still concerned, and this is valid. There's
economic news out there, but he is still concerned about
a potential housing You don't want to say collapse, but
let's face it, that is what we came out of before.
And he just needs a little reassurance that the numbers
right now are going in a direction to continue of
real estate market with no huge looming real estate collapse

(21:31):
on the horizon.

Speaker 3 (21:32):
And James, this was okay, James, listen to.

Speaker 4 (21:34):
Concern is very very well placed because I remember I
was in the real estate business back in two thousand
and eight. I got into the real estate business in
two thousand and In two thousand and eight, we were
all fat, dumb and happy thinking this this, this gravy
range is going to go on forever and blow and
behold it blew up and we were on a roller
coaster down for the next five six years. Took us

(21:56):
until twenty twelve, twenty thirteen, to hit the bottom of
the and begin to recover. But that was all because
the federal government made it so easy to get mortgage loans.
And one of these days we'll devote a whole program
to that. But it was nothing wrong with the housing
market other than the federal government goose the money supply
to a point where it was totally irrational, and that's

(22:18):
what caused that bubble to collapse. One way to look
at this is mortgage debt out of control, Because mortgage
debt getting out of control back in two thousand and
eight is really what what caused the Problemcacy. And if
you take a look at history back in back in
two thousand and seven, the first part of two thousand
and eight, and I'm going to get a little bit
policy wonky here and get a little bit out in

(22:39):
the weeds.

Speaker 3 (22:39):
With some numbers.

Speaker 4 (22:40):
But in that period of time, late two thousand and
seven early two thousand and eight, mortgage debt household debt
service requirements for mortgages expressed as a percentage of disposable
personal income in um words, taken nationwide, how much money
were people making and how much money did they have
to put up for their debt service? On the mortgages

(23:00):
in order to keep them current. That percentage was seven
point two percent. Now, that may not mean much, didn't
mean much to me when I first read this article
as I was doing the research for answering your question.
But that was the highest that it has ever been
in the United States in our history, seven point two
percent of disposable income being required to pay off mortgages

(23:21):
and keep them current. Now, there were some times that
got up fairly high. Nineteen ninety one, for example, got
up as high as six point two percent, nineteen ninety
eight got up as high as five point five percent.

Speaker 3 (23:32):
But if you look at that bubble, that peak.

Speaker 4 (23:35):
In two thousand and seven, two thousand and eight, which
really precipitated this disastrous, disastrous fall that we had, and
it was disastrous. Kids not being able to go to college,
people being forced out of their homes, lots and lots
of bad stuff. Now, if you look at what percentage
of disposable income is required to keep mortgages current in
the United States, that percentage is four point twenty five percent,

(23:57):
about three full percentage points lower than the seven point
two percent we had back in two thousand and seven,
two thousand and eight, So that is well well well
below the levels at which we saw back in two
thousand and seven. In two thousand and eight, that is
very reassuring, and disposable personal income is up a lot
higher now than it has been in for a number

(24:17):
of years, and mortgages are a lot more secure now
than they have been for a number of years. So
thank you very very much. You know, some of the
people you see on TV where they talk about how,
oh yes, these tax cuts they were all for the
rich and they were all for the corporations, and the
people in the middle class aren't feeling that at all. Well, folks,
here's one way there's feeling it. Because personal disposable income

(24:40):
needed to service mortgage debt in this country and keep
it current. It's only four and a quarter percent, lowest
in a long, long, long, long time, and people are
living on who claim that tax law changes are not
going to give the country a boost for a long
long time. I think anybody who says that these tax
laws that were changed are not reached into the middle

(25:00):
class and the lower income classes in the country is
just not looking at the right kind of figures. They're
just not looking at the right kind of figures they're
living on another planet. They have a political acts to grind.
And I think the cumulative effect, and it is true
by the way that corporate tax rates were cut. And
some people think that any corporate tax rate cut is

(25:21):
a giveaway to the rich. Well guess what, folks. Those
rich folks running the corporations are the same ones who
take those increased profits and reinvest them for more jobs.
And the cumulative effect of those kinds of increased profits,
that kind of increased investment over a ten, fifteen, twenty,
thirty and forty year period is immense, and any people

(25:42):
who do not understand that and recognize it are just
operating from a very very immense and arrogant form of
ignorance about basic economics.

Speaker 3 (25:51):
There I said it.

Speaker 4 (25:52):
I'm probably making a few people mad, but that's exactly
the way I feel about it, because that's what we are.
So anyway, to the person who asked that question, is
mortgage debt getting out of hand?

Speaker 3 (26:02):
No? Not yet.

Speaker 4 (26:03):
Now I would still as listeners to this program, perhaps recall,
I would still love to see a system that we
get back to a system where mortgage lending decisions are
made locally, something like a Savings Loan Association or a
bank focused on mortgage lending, where they evaluate the applicant
and they decide on the basis of is this person

(26:24):
probably going to be able to repay me? And then
their profits and loss and their corporate livelihood really depend
upon how many of those loans get repaid and get
repaid on time. Right now, the way it works is
about ninety five percent of all mortgage loans that are made.
You may think that you're getting a mortgage loan from
Wells Fargo Bank or Waterstone Bank or the local lender

(26:46):
at Berkshire Hathaway. Not the way it works, folks. As
soon as that loan gets settled, that lender, that broker
actually resells it to Fanny mayor Freddie mac most likely
Fanny mayor Freddie And right now their standards are not
all that liberal. They are a little bit too liberal
in some situations. But as soon as the politicians think
they can buy your vote in mine by easing those

(27:06):
mortgage standards, guess what happens they will Yep. But for
right now, I don't see it. The disposable personal income
is at a level that it's very, very capable of
supporting the mortgage debt in the country. And I don't
see any real chance for a bubble like we had
developing in the past coming true right now. And I
hope that's reassuring. And if you'd like to discuss that
anymore or see some more information on it, please give

(27:29):
us a call to Dad and Daughter Talk real Estate
hotline and say, hey, John, I'd like to chat with
you some more about the real estate mortgage debt and
how that's being handled in the country.

Speaker 3 (27:38):
And Chrissy, give them that. Give them that number again.

Speaker 1 (27:40):
Absolutely, that number is four eight four five seven four
four zero eight eights.

Speaker 4 (27:45):
You can also go to Dad and Daughter Talkrealestate dot com.
None of that is going to cost you a cent.
I tell people I give advice that's free, that is actually.

Speaker 3 (27:55):
Worth something, and it is okay.

Speaker 4 (27:56):
And it is now.

Speaker 3 (27:57):
Christy, how much time we got left in this segment? There, kiddo,
we have.

Speaker 1 (28:00):
Got about three minutes left in the segment. Plenty of
time for one more question. This one grabbed me. This
is from Richard in Lansdale. Now, he has several renters
in his family trade, not a lot of homeowners. He has, however,
for a good while had a dream to own his
own home. Now. Of course, you sit around the dinner
table with a lot of people who rent wonderful well

(28:20):
meeting people, and you might get the impression from them
that it's smarter to rent than to own. And he's
listened to your show for a bit. He'd love a
little reassurance on that, especially with all the latest numbers
out there. Let's talk him down out of his tree
and tell hm why now's a great time to own.

Speaker 4 (28:33):
Okay, good and Richard was a fellow in Lansdale. Okay, Richard,
I'm actually working with a young couple now who have
a home, but for family reasons, they want to move
out of it get in a little different school district.

Speaker 3 (28:48):
Plus the fellow's.

Speaker 4 (28:49):
Parents are moving in with him, and the house is
going to be a little bit too small, and so
they're looking at selling this house and moving into a
larger home. And one of the things there now can
say is, since selling may take a while, even though
we're in a very fast market, is they're considering renting
their house out for three or four or five years.
And I've told them, based upon the projections I see

(29:12):
in three, four or five years, their house that's now
worth probably three hundred thousand dollars, is probably going to
be worth forty fifty thousand dollars more than four or
five years. That might be worth sitting around waiting for it.
And these people are qualified enough so they could go
out and buy another house and then rent this one out.
And I asked them the last time we were together,
I said, how much is your mortgage payment? They said, well,

(29:32):
about two thousand dollars a month, and we believe we
can rent the house for twenty five hundred dollars a month.

Speaker 3 (29:37):
So guess what.

Speaker 4 (29:38):
There you go.

Speaker 3 (29:39):
There you go.

Speaker 4 (29:39):
Holding out of the house, renting it is probably going
to generate about five hundred dollars a month. Positive cash flow.

Speaker 3 (29:45):
Really is okay.

Speaker 4 (29:46):
Plus they still get to retain all of the tax
advantages of owning. They have a tax leverage investment. And
that's what people are going to find just about no
matter where they look, the cost of renting is going
to be equal to or greater than the cost of
owning your ow home. True, you do have to come
up with a down payment, Christy, I'm going to talk
about ways to really minimize that down payment. So people

(30:08):
want to get into.

Speaker 1 (30:09):
A home they own, they can do it. That's fantastic
and we will definitely touch on that next week. The
time has flown, guys, hang out for a second. We're
going to take a quick break. Pay a couple of bills.
More of the Kristin Gophian Show right after this, not
too the best of circumstance, and we are back with

(30:43):
the Kristin Agophian Show talking. And during the break we
were having a bit of a debate here because people
were not believing me that Craigslist had these fantastic telescopes
for a fraction of the cost. I've made believers out
of Tony and Meghan. Hear the quill and Megan, you
believe me, Thank you, darling. But Tony did not believe me.
He is now nodding his head sagely. He sees it.

(31:04):
He's on his kindle right now. He's pulled them up.
And yes, you too can find yourself a fabulous telescope
for a fraction of retail. Let others pay retail. We
appreciate it. We will always love them, we will never
be them. We are the ones that buy this stuff
on Craigslist and keep our money in the bank. Boom
malicious now talking about these various ways to absolutely make

(31:27):
your home stunning with this incredible contact paper. It sounds
so you know him and Egger sort of stuff. When
I first heard about this, I was a little skeptical
kind of looking the really whatever. I am a believer.
It has transformed furniture rooms, vanities, projects. And when I

(31:47):
put this stuff on social media and I am all
proud of myself. Look what I did. I get blown
away with people who connect with me and send me
their own projects. Your creativity blows me away again. This
is all the stuff sent to us by listeners. Before
the break, Devin d was dazzling us here in Philadelphia
area with his transformation of a fully functional tons of

(32:11):
life left in It refrigerator that was simply ugly as heck,
well no more because you put this gorgeous glossy black.
I can't describe. It's so beautiful glossy black. It now
looks chic and gorgeous for his Philadelphia apartment. Here's another one.
Bill Z checking in from La has these wooden stairrisers.

(32:33):
I've got carpeting all over my house. I am married
to an Armenian, the love of my life. You guys
who know Armenians. If your last name rhymes with Armenian,
like Hogopian, you're either an Armenian or you're married to one.
And Armenians are famous for their beauty and their greatness
at creating carpeting and drugs. So when you marry into

(32:56):
an Armenian family, tree carpeting will be a part of
your life for the rest of your days. However, there
are other people out there who are not married to
our Armenians, who are not Armenians themselves, and they do
wooden stair risers all right, gorgeous. I love it all,
love my carpeting, love the people checking in with the
wooden stair risers. And Bill Z listening in from La

(33:18):
has this project he did and this is a tall
this is a tall, literally, this has got to be
twenty stairs in this incredible building. I think it's an
apartment building that he owns. He's got a rental apartment
and he uses contact paper, which is brilliant. So much
wear and tear on the stairs, especially in a rental
patterns gorgeous. He makes it fun, it's easy, it's simple

(33:40):
to do. It's something where if anybody were to go
after it with some paint or a marker or some
kid whatever doesn't know what they're doing. It scrubs right off.
This stuff is genius. Next up, I love this. A
basic bookshelf can be acquired for well under ten bucks
from sources like Goodwill, that kind of thing. You know,
you find freeb's on Chriikeslist all the time, beautiful bookshelves,

(34:03):
but they're ugly. You got to use a little bit
of imagination. Then it's on you to jazz it up.
You know what your best bets are, Either paint it
solid black, which is classy and gorgeous and goes with everything,
or a solid white. If you have a certain color scheme,
go with that and then start going at it. Get
creative with this contact paper. There's beautiful contact paper in

(34:25):
a wood grain, wood grain like you could do oak,
you could do redwood, you could do a pine, whatever
you're looking for. I am here to tell you there
is a wood grain contact paper for next to nothing
out there, very inexpensive, very reasonably priced, that can transform
it and something This was so brilliant. Ikea, which is

(34:46):
a brand name that has been around for a good
long while. It's going to be here forever. They have
what a lot of people consider very inexpensive, very you know,
you can customize it to whatever living space you're in.
That's IKEA's claim to fame. I've always found that the
not bland. I mean, it's very classic, it goes with everything,
it lasts forever, but I like something with a bit

(35:07):
more texture to it. And I'm not alone, and I'm
hearing from people who are taking these Ika sets and
they are transforming them into this beautiful rich woods and
metallics and all this other stuff from plane plastic pieces
out of Ikea. The before and afters are amazing. Jazzing
it up and just customizing it to your own personal style.

(35:30):
I love that. It's one of the best things about
the brilliant frugal movement. When you go into someone's home
or their office, or their car or their life and
you take a good look around, there's nothing like surrounding
yourself with antiques and clothes and appliances and tables and

(35:51):
you name it. You know, shoes, everything you're talking about, cars,
everything that you picked up that you studied, that you research,
that you saved money on. It says so much about you.
And when you get these pieces of furniture around you,
or the clothing pieces or whatever else, and you can
customize it even more to your exact, beautiful, eclectic, one

(36:12):
of a kind, unique tastes. That is the height of
the brilliant frugal living movement. All right, moving along these
I love these pictures so much. Beth M checking in
from Sandusky, a beautiful town that I've seen with my
own eyes. Gorgeous little town covering up. She has these
old cabinets. She picked up these old cabinets freebies on Craikslist.

(36:33):
Brilliant and rental kitchens are notorious for cabinets that look
straight out of the nineteen fifties. You know why because
they're durable, because they lasted for decades and the last
for decades more. And while you could have custom fronts
made to replace them, a far more economical and gorgeous

(36:55):
and easy to implement option is to use contact paper
all over them. So this is faux bois, which Martha Stewart,
you know, wannabes like myself will recognize as fake wood.
It is gorgeous. I'm looking at these before and afters.
Thank you so much, Betham for checking in. Beautiful faux
wood looks like real wood. That's the best kind. And

(37:16):
when you call it faux boa, when you say anything
in French, it's just classier. But in all seriousness, guys,
you know how much new kitchen cabinets can cost, new
bathroom cabinets, new anything. And when you can transform it
for a couple of bucks, literally less than fifty bucks
with this contact paper, it's genius. Next up, I got

(37:37):
to get a couple more in create a backsplash out
of thin air, all right. Stan Bee of Austin, in
a new construction home, had the option of having them
putting in a backsplash for thousands of dollars. Oh my god,
I want to just the thought. Instead, he creates a
similar backsplash for twenty two dollars, A gorgeous backsplash in

(37:57):
his brand new kitchen in his brand new home. I
love it, other people, let's see here. Tristan from New
York created an accent wall in his new apartment. A
fresh college grad beautiful sticking it on drawers. Mike s
from Port Saint Lucie, Florida freebies right and left. He
painted and put these beautiful tile backsplashes, not backsplashes tabletops

(38:21):
on all of these and created a beautiful matching set
for his bedroom. It's gorgeous. It's gorgeous. That's what I'm
talking about. Delineating an entryway. Charlie b. Hacking and Ikea Anything, Bethany,
we talked about this. Heading to Penn State very soon.
Congratulations my own Alma mater creating her own beautiful Ikea furniture,
customizing it. I love it. Go get him, Bethany. Guys,

(38:42):
the time is flown and until next week, save those kennies,
pay with cash, and you all stay frugal out there,