Having growing up poor, my parents were always on the lookout for bargains after they moved to the Big City of Fort Wayne. I was the contrarian of the family. Whenever they said they needed to go right and and buy something because it was, say, marked down from $100 to $80, so they could "save $20!" I told they should just stay home and save $80. I still see things that way, as in:
The bulk of the interior renovation needed to make Renaissance Square a new seat of local government is likely to cost much less than expected.
The engineering estimate for the work was $6,453,000. When the city's Board of Public Works on Wednesday opened bids, several undercut that estimate by more than $2 million. The apparent low bidder, CCI Commercial Construction, bid $4,279,000. That's about 34 percent under estimate.
[. . .]
City officials declined to comment Wednesday on how saving more than $2 million on the interior renovation would affect the project.
Wow, they'll "save" more than $2 million on the interior renovation. If they hadn't bought the building in the first place, they would have saved $14 million.
