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There are many factors that go into the process of buying and owning a home, and there is a lot of financial pressure surrounding it. After all, owning a home is probably the most significant expense you have ever made in your life to date. Once you move in, you’ll begin to realize that the expenses, unfortunately, do not stop with the purchase itself.
Maintaining your own home presents you with a whole host of opportunities to find ways to save money over time, whether it be investing in little upgrades to the property or changing your habits over time in order to reduce the bills or the likelihood of significant expenses cropping up.
Helpful Tips for New Homeowners
- Install a Smart Thermostat
Utility bills will be one of the key aspects taking a chunk out of your financial budget each month. If you’ve just moved into a house rather than an apartment, you may be in for a shock.
Smart Thermostats are an object on the market that can help to keep your climate under control in a cost-effective manner. You can program your ideal temperature for specific times in the day. This means that instead of having the heating always on or always off, it will adapt to your requirements. Studies have shown this can lead to around 8% a year in energy cost savings.
- Upgrade to more Efficient Appliances
Whether it be a better kitchen fridge or upgrading to LED lighting or getting grow lights for your backyard, appliances have come a long way in recent times in terms of their energy efficiency.
That old rattling fridge might be doing the job, but if it is quite old, it may be bleeding you dry in your electricity bills. You will also be surprised how much lights can make a difference on your bills. There’s a reason your parents always complained about you leaving the lights on! However, LED lighting has made a significant difference in energy efficiency when it comes to your electricity bill.
- Change the Locks
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How will changing your locks save you money? Well, it may save you money, or it may not. However, not changing your locks leads to a potential increase in the theft of your property. You do not know how many people had key access to the property before you purchased it. Therefore changing your locks can be an inexpensive but effective way to reduce the possibility of robberies occurring on your property.
- Wait to Repair, Prepare for Higher Bills
Sometimes we want to avoid paying for things, especially when they seem insignificant. That crack in the wall? It seems small, and it can wait. But then, over time, that crack starts to get bigger, and what would have been a relatively small fix could end up being a very large problem. There is never a good time to pay significant amounts of money which we don’t gain anything from. However, waiting to make repairs could make the problem significantly worse over time, which could lead to a small repair becoming massive.
How to Avoid Unnecessary Costs
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Moving from being a renter to a homeowner presupposes general maintenance, which can be challenging for new homeowners. One of the best money-saving tips here is to begin putting aside money as a ‘home emergency repair fund’. This way, when these repair jobs do crop up, you have already set aside a fund to put towards the cost.
Sometimes costs are unavoidable. When an appliance breaks down or a repair needs to occur, it can come out of the blue. However, there is such a thing as homeowner coverage which means if something does break, then the home warranty will cover the cost.
There are a variety of different coverage options depending on the home you have and your requirements. This could cover any unwanted costs for anything from your heating and electrical system to the garbage disposal system or making a Wiffle ball field in your home and backyard respectively.
Insuring items is a cost the majority do not want to pay until they regret not doing it when they’re faced with an even higher cost when something does require repair/replacement. Learn more about home warranty and see if it could help you avoid any unnecessary costs associated with being a homeowner.
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