Quick, yet lengthy, note: I think I mentioned that I was having some issues with my lease renewal. I went to the office today and here is what I found out. Some I knew, but, you didn't... A new company bought out our apartment complex last year. Since then they have added on costs to us that had once been part of the rent. Things like trash dumpster provided free, water was included with the rent. All of a sudden, we had to pay for water and meters were installed, then they brought around a new batch of kitchen trash cans and told us that we now had trash pickup (they call it Valet trash collection) at our door and that we would be billed $30.00 per month. (no choice even though that the dumpster is less then 100 yards from every apartment in the complex, 50 from mine) Then they started renovating apartments as people moved out. I was happy with mine and since the apartment wasn't empty they had no way of doing the renovation with me still in here. Then I got notice of my lease running out and added another $60.00 per month to my rent charges and said that they were going to replace my perfectly good appliances with stainless whether I wanted it or not and that was part of the reason for the increase.
I have a hard time wrapping my head around how they can just force things upon the tenants and then force them to pay for them at the same time. Seems wrong to me. Anyway, I am on a fixed income right now meaning just Social Security. Now after I pay the rent I have about $200.00 left to pay for all the remaining living expenses I have, like food, car, auto and renters insurance, medical bills, electricity, water and Trash services and of course the obligatory administrative charge of another $10.00 per month. Undoubtedly, that means that I have been hitting my retirement savings pretty hard as of late. I have to figure out how to make that money last for whatever is left of my life, and believe me it means that I will have to become more and more frugal every day.
Anyway I went in to kind of beg because I have reached my end concerning how much I can spend comfortably and hoped they could do something to get me a break. I have lived here for 8 years, my rent along with utilities has been paid on the first of the month every single month that I have been living here, never late. I do some of my own simple repairs, have never complained or had a complaint filed against me. This is what that has gotten me. They want to upgrade my apartment because they want to be able to charge more rent, but, I can't stay in it while they renovate, so I either have to move into one of the already renovated ones and pay the top dollar for it or must move someplace else. They only offered a 6 month lease which they openly admitted to me they would add more to the rent at the end of that six months which kind of knocks me out of ability to afford the place and even if I pay the same amount they are going to not renew my lease after that next six months which leaves me homeless. What a choice broke or homeless. Broke will also lead to homeless. The moral of this story is, if you are not wealthy do not get old. 2018 has sucked so bad for me that it created a vacuum in space. I don't wish it over because I am scared that 2019 will be worse. The wonderful strong economy I keep hearing about as also created a decrease in my retirement investment values of $6000. since the first of the year. It has never done that in the 10 years that I have been keeping track of it. It has never lost any money in any given year, much less the loss of $4K just in October. I am not ashamed to say, that I am getting scared. Sorry, not looking for answers, just needed to vent.
But wait, they also had primer for $192! You could pay in installments, too. Paying for make up in installments--that's insane. 
