Protecting Your Home: Tips to Save You $$$

Protecting your home is a priority for most homeowners. You worked hard to be able to buy it, harder to maintain it and even more so to pay for it. These tips will help you keep that up, saving you money down the road.

*This is a sponsored post. All opinions are my own, I’m too stubborn to share anyone else’s opinion or to be bought off. There are affiliate links in the post, of which I get an insanely small amount if you buy something through them.

Anyone who has bought a home knows protecting it can be a beast. Unless you are pretty talented in fixing and DIY, you are going to need help at some point. There are some areas that are easy to protect, no-brainers if you will. We’ve researched and put together this simple checklist to help you protect your investment so that your family can enjoy it for years to come. Or you can sale it in years to come. Whatever your choice may be.

Pest Control

*The image above was borrowed with permission from Surf Pest & Termite Control. Their adorable pets just made me happy and I had to share!

The first thing they tell you to do when buying a house is to get a termite inspection. If you’ve never seen termite damage, you may not fully see the value in this one. I’ve seen the damage, not in my home but in old barns and buildings. It’s a nightmare. I don’t even want to guess the cost on replacing all of the wood in our homes, Might as well tare it down and start over at the point, in my uneducated opinion. So, be sure and find a good inspection service such as Surf termite and Pest Control.

Once that’s taken care of, it’s good to have a good service to maintain the no pest lifestyle. Ants, roaches, mice and whatever else may come along can be a beast to get rid of and you’ll end up spending a lot of money to put harmful chemicals in your home without it. So, find yourself someone local that is licensed and pay the fee. It’s worth it when something comes up and you can just make a call to take care of it!

Home Maintenance

I learned the hard way just how important this one is. My tendency is to go along the lines of ‘if it ain’t broke….’. Which leads right to where it wasn’t. Make sure you have it in your planner to change your air filter every three months (or more if you have allergen issues). We use reusable filters so all we have to do is rinse the dirty one out and let it dry. They also have reusable filters that you can pop in the washer! In addition to the allergies, having a dirty filter forces your HVAC system to work harder, which means it uses more electricity/gas (costing more money) and leads us right to our next one….

Also, make absolutely sure you have your HVAC cleaned and such every year. From what I’ve read, spring is the best time. There ends up being a lot of debris from fall leaves and such that can cause serious damage to your system (that’s the lesson we learned the hard way). If you are a DIY person, I recommend hiring a professional the first time, watching diligently, then learning how to do it from then. We had an amazing HVAC guy who was glad to teach me how to do it myself. It’s not as hard as we imagine it to be.

Keeping those gutters clean is also very important. If the water builds up it will end up causing your wood to rot and we’re back to the replacing wood thing. It’s not a difficult chore, just a bit of a headache. If you are scared of heights like me, I recommend climbing the ladder, cleaning a section, moving the ladder and repeating all the way around the house. Keeps me from having to sit up there and look down.

Of course, these are just a few of the important things to keep up with. You can do a quick google search and get a ton of printable maintenance lists. I like keeping one in my home binder, then adding the stuff to my planner every time I get a new one so that I don’t miss something. Proper home maintenance can save you thousands in the long run, it’s just a pain sometimes. Kinda like eating healthy. haha

Preparing for the Seasons

Each new season brings wonderful and not so wonderful things that we have to prepare for. Owning a home is no different, it needs to be prepped just like our vehicles and our clothing choices. We always remember to pull our our winter clothes, but for some reason winterizing our home can easily slip our minds. We have a very thorough guide on how to winterize your home that you may want to check out. If it’s not winter when you read this, perhaps pin it and put a reminder in your calendar (can you tell I’m obsessed with planners!).

Allergens are absolutely horrible at various parts of the year. If you or someone in your home suffer from allergen issues, you may want to have a company come in and do some modifications to help you get rid of some of them. You can read about one such company that we posted about here. We’ve also got a very informative post that you may find handy: 15 Ways to Virtually Eliminate Harmful Irritants in Your Home.

I’ve not done a post on Spring, Summer or Fall preparation yet, seems like it’s the perfect time to do one for those soon. Putting it on my list!