Here are the Top 5 Hacks / Ideas that will either save you a significant amount of time and money or make your life easier when moving to downtown Chicago. We hope you find this information helpful. If we missed something, please contact us and we will include any other ideas in our update version to this video / blog post in the future.
If you need help finding an apartment or buying / selling a condo in downtown Chicago, please reach out to our friendly team through the contact page on our website.
Hack / Idea #5 - Know Your CTA Bus And Subway Routes
Many people move to the city of Chicago and do not take the time to learn the layout of the city and the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) bus and subway routes. As a result, some people will spend hundreds and even more than a thousand dollars a month on Uber, Lyft, and taxi cabs.
This is a basic idea, but the sooner you do this the sooner your life will be easier and the sooner you will be able to save more money. Learn your bus and subway, especially for your neighborhood and your commute. The Chicago transit system is one of the best in the country, Please take advantage of it.
Hack / Idea #4 - Get A Water Filtration System
The reality is, many large cities (i.e. New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago) tend to have water that has other unintended effects. In Chicago's case the water is safe, but it dries out your throat especially if you are living near the downtown area.
What is the solution to this problem? A) You can buy bottled water from the grocery store. This costs extra and you can spend hundreds of dollars going this route. What's even worse is carrying this extra water from the grocery store or even from the garage to your apartment.
The more efficient solution is, B) purchase a water filtration system such as a Zero Water, Brita, or any other similar system. This eliminates the purchase of bottled water from the grocery store and, more importantly, the effort required to carry lots of water from the grocery store or your car in the garage to your apartment. Imagine carrying a 24 pack of water bottles from your trunk to your apartment doorstep... it gets old really quickly. This also eliminates the need to recycle these bottles as well.
Hack / Idea #3 - Get Amazon Prime
Believe it or not, many people still do not have Amazon Prime. It is still fun to go shopping, but when you are busy and living in the city there are many other fun and interesting things to do with your free time. Having a package delivering service like Amazon Prime is great for the busy Chicago resident. This service also supports the idea of not having a car in the city, which is a significant expense as we discuss in the next hack / idea.
If you do not enjoy shopping on Amazon, there are alternatives. Check out Target's similar program or other retailers. The point is, there are alternatives to taking the time and driving to a store to shop. If you are looking to save money and time, get Amazon Prime.
Hack / Idea #2 - Get Rid Of Your Car / SUV
If you are moving from other parts of the country (i.e. South, other Midwest cities, Northwest, etc.), the idea of not having a car may seem foreign to you. But the reality is that Chicago is one of the few cities in the U.S. (the only other city is New York) where you can easily get by without owning a car.
If you live in downtown here is what it may cost you for an average priced automobile, $200/month for garage parking (lower end of range), $300/month car payment, and a rough estimate of $140/month for insurance. That is $640/month for an automobile that you will not be using much if the majority of your time is spent in the city.
An alternative to owning a car in Chicago would be using Uber / Lyft / taxi cab for small trips, Zipcar for 2 to 4 hour rentals, and Hertz / Enterprise / Avis for longer multi-day road trips.
Hack / Idea #1 - Get Instacart App
According to Statista, the average U.S. consumer takes 1.6 trips per week to the grocery store in 2019. The average time spent is ~43 minutes per trip, this is approximately 60 hours per year. Note, this does not include your drive there and back which may be another 30 minutes total. We are looking at 101 hours spent shopping for groceries on average. That is more than 2.5 standard work weeks of 40 hours per week.
My first couple of months using Instacart, I saved 26 hours. This is powerful. Additionally, this supports the idea that you really do not need a car when living downtown Chicago.
If you combine the time savings with the estimated savings for an average automobile of $640/month that we calculated in hack / idea #2, we are talking massive efficiency improvements as well as hard dollars saved.
Summary
We hope you find this information helpful. If we missed something, please contact us and we will include any other ideas in our update version to this video / blog post in the future.
If you need help finding an apartment or buying / selling a condo in downtown Chicago, please reach out to our friendly team through the contact page on our website.
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