8 Simple Cost-saving Ways to Save on Home Maintenance

Home maintenance is one of the more expensive parts of keeping a home, but you can save on home maintenance and have a home you love to be in with a good plan in hand. Taking care of home maintenance can be expensive but in the end, these smart homemaking tips can save you more money and time.

If you maintain taking care of your home the longer it will last and the less it will cost to maintain in the long run. So that’s why it’s a good idea to be actively maintaining your home on a regular basis. You don’t have to do it all at once. But, if you regularly work on small areas you’ll prevent having to do major, expensive repairs over time.

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8 Ways You Can Save on Home Maintenance

Don’t Skip Basic Maintenance

Do not skip basic maintenance. Most basic maintenance tasks can easily be done yourself. By performing regular maintenance, larger maintenance tasks can often be avoided. Therefore, regular maintenance is worth the time and effort. 

Changing the air filters, cleaning the gutters, patching areas that have leaks, and filling in cracks are all relatively inexpensive tasks that will help to avoid major repairs later. Every step you make to care for your home helps to save on costs at a later date leaving more money in the budget for fun home improvements.

DIY Home Maintenance Projects 

When you do projects around the house yourself you learn valuable skills while saving money on the labor. If you do not have the skill most easy projects have directions available online for using to make it easy to learn. From basic maintenance projects that help hold the value of your home and prevent problems later on to repairing holes in the wall, many homeowners are surprised how much they can do without any special training.

Start with small stuff and work your way up to more advanced DIY projects around the home. This allows you to build on your skills without feeling intimidated or risking messing up your project because you dove in too fast and costing yourself more money than you would have saved.

Barter for Home Maintenance Skills you Need

Do you have a project you can’t complete on your own? Consult with your friends and family to see if they have the skills you need. Consider bartering as a way to save money and manage to accomplish needed tasks. Bartering is when you trade a skill that you have in exchange for a skill someone else has. Perhaps you can do accounting, or social media management skills and you trade those with a handyman. By bartering, you may have to cover the cost of goods but not the entire cost of labor or, perhaps any of the labor. 

It depends on what you have to trade. What if you don’t have the skill they need? You can trade goods instead. The savvier you are with negotiating the more options you might have. 

It can be hard to ask for help with things when you know you do not have the budget to pay what the project is truly worth but when you have something to trade it feels a lot less intimidating. While not highly popular the bartering system is still alive and well in close-knit communities.

Know that bartering may not always be available. But, if you have friends or family who have skills that you need, and are willing to work with you this is a great way to save money on home maintenance.

Watch for Special Home Improvement Deals

Follow deal pages that share home improvement items and watch for hardware store sales. It’s a great way to get things you need for projects in advance at a lower cost. Put these items away so you can work on projects when you have time. The list of projects you want to work on will help you shop for them, and you should stock up on basic tools for emergency repairs as well.

While sales on things like wood don’t happen often, tools and a lot of seasonal items like those for landscaping projects go up for sale around Father’s Day. Items for winter home maintenance will often go on sale in the fall when everyone starts their winterizing projects to get you to do your shopping at their store. Don’t be afraid to go to more than one store for the best deals.

And, if you are willing to wait the best time to buy some items might be at the end of a season because the store is looking to sell products before having to put them away and store them for next season. 

Shop Home Improvement Stores Clearance for Maximum Savings

Often stores put items on clearance to make room on the shelves for other items. This is a great way to get items at a steep discount. Snag clearance deals when they pop up to help save money on home maintenance projects that you have coming up. 

Often things like furnace filters will go on clearance in the spring and can be used for your furnace when the fall rolls in. Some paint stores or departments in box stores offer oops products for a steep discount. These are cans of paint that were mixed for someone else but were just not the right color. When you walk past these deals stop and see if any of them interest you to use for future projects. You never know when you may get lucky and find the perfect color for an accent wall, a front door, or room trim to spice things up around the house.

Spring Cleaning Event

Buy Used Home Improvement Supplies

Check out your local Habitat for Humanity Restore, resale shops, thrift shops, and online sale groups to find deals on larger purchases such as appliances, windows, and even landscaping supplies. These are great places to find deals and even free materials for your projects, as well as a wonderful opportunity to get some of your own money back from leftover materials or to bless another person.

Often these items will have defects so look them over carefully before purchasing to ensure that you can use them even if a bit of creativity is needed. Often the defects can be worked around with little effort for great results.

Focus on Home Maintenance Projects That will Lower your Costs

Things like adding insulation can help to lower your heating bill which lowers your overall monthly costs. Working on projects that lower your power and water bills can be a great way to help fund other projects with savings. 

Seasonally, doing simple tasks like replacing air filters and updating the thermostat can work to save money with both heating and cooling your home. Winterizing your pipes can prevent freezing which can save you big during an especially cold winter season. 

Yard Improvement Essentials

Categorize Home Improvement Projects by Importance & Savings

Make a list of projects and categorize them by the level of importance and prioritize areas of savings. Schedule seasonal projects that need to be completed before the season rolls. And work to ensure they are done on time.

Work down your list focusing on things that are vital and affected by upcoming seasons before moving onto projects that don’t have to be done right away.

While making your list check what the cost will look like. This will allow you to then turn focus to the projects that don’t cost you a lot of money. And as you work your way down the list starting with the more budget-friendly options you can set aside a little money here and there to begin saving up to tackle the costs of bigger projects.

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I hope you find these tips to be beneficial to you as you seek to save money on home improvement projects and keep maintaining your home for maximum benefits. Be sure to share your favorite home savings tips with me in the comments below.

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