General

Keeping up with all the repair and improvement costs of maintaining a home can strain your finances. While you can choose when to tackle some items, such as installing new flooring, others can take you by surprise, like a ruptured plumbing pipe. If you plan ahead and put funds aside to cover big expenses, you can avoid draining your bank account or having to borrow for items like new HVAC equipment, plumbing upgrades, windows or a roof replacement.

Create Your Home Improvement Budget

The first step in creating a budget is deciding how much money you need to save for emergency home repairs/improvements on a yearly basis. There are two different ways of calculating this amount:

  • – Home value: With this method, your goal is to put aside one to four percent of your home’s value annually. If your home is worth $300,000 and you want to save two percent, you need to budget for $6,000 a year, or $500 each month.
  • – Home size: This calculation method is based on $1 per square foot of space in your home. If you have a 3,000 square foot home, you need to save $3,000 in a year’s time, or $250 per month.

If you want to save for specific improvement projects in addition to your emergency fund, start by determining a time-frame for replacing the item, then come up with an approximate future cost. Let’s say your air conditioner is 10 years old, so you plan to replace it in five year’s time. If the top of the price range for comparable new equipment is $7,500, you need to put aside $1,500 a year, or $125 per month to have that amount saved when replacement time arrives.

Tips for Meeting Your Budgeting Goals

Once you know the amount you need to save, take a close look at how your monthly income is spent and create a realistic household budget. If you have disposable income after paying all your monthly bills, open a “home improvement” savings account and set up automatic payday deposits. If there’s little left over, look for ways to trim your expenses, such as cutting back on what you spend on technology, hobbies, entertainment and dining out, then earmark that money for your repair/improvement fund.

Contact us at BELDON Roofing Company for more advice on how to plan and implement a home improvement budget.

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