Owning a home is a rewarding experience, but it comes with hidden costs that could catch you by surprise. Home maintenance is perhaps the most costly of these expenditures. From termite control to repainting the exterior of your house, it all adds up. Although expensive, regular maintenance and repairs are necessary expenses since they’re done to prolong the life of your home. As a homeowner, you most probably want to save as much money as possible.
Here are some tips to help you cut down on expenses while ensuring your house gets the adjustments it needs to withstand the test of time.
Do the repairs yourself if possible
There’s a tutorial for everything on the internet if you know where to look. Rather than spending hundreds of dollars on a contractor or handyman, there are some simple maintenance tasks that you can already do yourself without much trouble. For example, fixing a leaky faucet, caulking cracks and gaps, and cleaning out your gutters are all easy and uncomplicated fixes. Explore your home and see what other areas need a bit of sprucing up. Just be sure that you’re confident enough to do the job and that it isn’t risky or dangerous to do so.
Plan out a maintenance schedule
Regular maintenance ensures that you don’t end up ignoring a problem that will become unmanageable and expensive to rectify in the future. To keep up with all these repairs, it helps to have a planned schedule to follow. This also ensures that you can anticipate changes to the season, so you can make the appropriate adjustments according to the weather.
Set aside money for a home maintenance fund
Some repairs are just unavoidable and sometimes unexpected, and there’s not much you can do about it no matter how proactive you try to be. In this case, it’s important to set aside money for a home maintenance fund as early as possible. There are different methods to employ when saving up for it, such as the square-foot rule or the 1% rule.
Whichever method you choose depends on various factors such as your income, the size of your house, and the condition that it’s in. While this tip can’t help you minimize your expenses, it can at least make these necessary repairs a lot easier to manage financially.
Borrow tools from your family and neighbors
Buying your own tools can be a bit of a waste of money since you won’t be using it on a regular basis. Unless you’re undertaking a large-scale renovation project, all you need are a few basic tools to get some of the simplest yet essential repairs done. You won’t have to spend a dime if you borrow tools from your family members or your neighbors instead.
Routinely clean everything
When dust, grime, cracks, and moisture accumulate in your home, it can lead to bigger and more serious problems like mold or structural damage. It’s important to do a routine survey of the entire house while also ensuring that everything is kept clean and orderly to ensure that this doesn’t happen.
These tips are sure to make owning a home and keeping it in great condition a lot less financially burdensome.
