During your college years, you’re so busy learning all you can about your classes that you can forget you’re supposed to learn about things outside of class, too.

College students take their years in school to learn about how to cook and eat healthy foods, as well as how to balance school, work, and an exercise routine. Throw that all in with budgeting and prepping for post-college job interviews, and you’ve got more than a full plate to deal with.

One of the great things about college is that you learn to communicate with your housing department or landlord. They’ll help you figure out how to repair things when they get broken so you don’t have to pay for it, but they don’t fix everything.

Before you call your landlord for repairs, try to fix it yourself. You’d be surprised just how quickly you can patch up a housing problem.

1. Loose cabinet handles

Kitchen cabinet handles get loose over time. The wear and tear of being pulled on every day make this repair natural when they’ve been used for a long time.

Get yourself a mini tool kit from your local hardware store. It’ll have the Philips-head screwdriver you need to twist the screw back into the handle and tighten everything up.

2. New smoke detectors / batteries

Every once and a while, you’ll hear annoying beeps coming out of your smoke detector. This is another easy fix that anyone can do.

Most smoke detectors use a regular, double-A battery, so you can easily pop off the smoke detector and replace the batteries with what you already have. It’s an easy fix since almost everyone has extra batteries lying around.

3. Replace old lightbulbs

When a lightbulb goes out in your apartment, don’t reach for the phone to call your landlord. No matter where you live, there’s a convenience or grocery store you can reach that’ll have lightbulbs you need.

Check the one that’s broken to see what wattage it uses and then get extras of that same kind. This is one of the many common household electrical problems that get confused as a job for your landlord when you can fix it yourself in less than a minute.

4. Sticky drawers

Sometimes as time goes on, you’ll find kitchen drawers getting sticky. Stuff spills and you think you’ve cleaned it all up, but spilled liquids can find nooks and crevices you don’t even realize are there.

Drawers can end up sticking because of this, but you can fix them easily. Remove the drawer from the track it sits on and wipes down the track with a cleaning solution and paper towels.

Wipe down the wheels on the drawer too! Then replace the drawer and you’re good to go.

5. Holes in the wall

Maybe you’re about to move out of your apartment and you want to fix something, but you’re not sure if your landlord or school would charge you extra just because the problem exists.

It’s easy to have this fear if you’ve got holes in your wall from things like tacks or hanging picture frames.

Take a minute or two to read about how to fix nail holes, and then get some spackle. One container will last you a long time, and you can use it to fix almost any sized hole without any help.

6. Scuff marks

If you’ve ever tossed your shoes off at the end of the long day or dragged your feet across your hardwood floor, you probably have scuff marks around your apartment.

With a little bit of water, soap or even a magic eraser from the cleaning aisle, you can wipe off any marks without needing to call anyone in to paint. For schools that charge damage for the wall, this can save you a lot of money.

Apartments can provide a sense of relief because if your dishwasher breaks down, you can call up your landlord or housing department and they’ll send someone out to fix it.

You don’t need to go into debt to replace the machine on your own. However, that same advantage can also cause some problems when you don’t know if you should call for help or not.

The next time one of these repairs need to be made, save yourself the time and money and just fix it yourself. You’ll be done before you know it!