How to Save Money on Your Home Insurance

You may be able to save substantially on your home insurance without risking adequate coverage. These hints can start you on your way...(More)

Keep Your Sanity When Selling Your Home

Trying to keep a home picture perfect while it’s on the market can be very stressful. However, in today’s tough housing market, it makes sense to keep your home ready to show anytime. Here are some ideas to help you sell your home and stay sane...(More)

Incorporate Outdoor Lighting in Your Landscape
Beyond lighting the front walkway and adding a spotlight for the back yard, you can add drama and visual interest to your yard with the careful use of outdoor lighting. In fact, just a few additions can make a major difference...(More)

Instead of Managing Time, Manage the Way You Think About It.

Everyone has the same amount of time (24 hours in a day). How we think about that time can have just as much to do with managing it, as the amount of tasks we have to accomplish...(More)

How to Save Money on Your Home Insurance

The cost of home insurance is part of owning a home, but there are things you can do that might reduce that cost.

Before you buy a home:

Picking the right type of home in the right location could impact home insurance costs. Consider the reputation of the local fire department, the home’s construction materials, location in a flood plain, or an area subject to wildfires or earthquakes. All these factors and more can influence the insurance costs for as long as you own your home. Two websites with information that can help are floodsmart.gov and earthquakeauthority.com.

Look into a home’s insurance claim history by asking for a CLUE report (Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange). This report, in addition to a professional home inspection, can give you a good idea of problems the house may have.

Before you renew a policy:

Take some time to shop around. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (naic.com) can provide you with information on insurers in your state. You can find out about customer complaints as well as typical rates. In today’s financial climate, it might be a good idea to investigate their financial stability as well, using sources such as Standard & Poor. Narrow your options down to a few companies and request quotes.

Reducing your deductible can substantially reduce insurance costs, although you will have to pay more out-of-pocket should you need to file a claim. However, since insurers have a reputation for raising rates or even dropping policies with homeowners who file a number of claims, a higher deductible might be good in the long run.

Talk to your present insurer, as well as any others you are considering, about possible discounts. You may find discounts from bundling life, auto, and home insurance with one insurance provider. Some insurers offer discounts based on how long it’s been since a claim was filed or even for years of loyalty to the same company. Sometimes home renovations can lead to credit towards home insurance costs, particularly if the renovations bring an older home up to modern home-building standards.

Improving the security of your home usually leads to a rate reduction. Burglar alarms, smoke detectors, and dead bolts can all potentially help to reduce your premium.

For your own peace of mind:

Make sure your home and its contents are well-insured. If you have valuable artwork, jewelry, or other precious items, you might want to purchase extra insurance to cover them, as ordinary policies typically do not.

Take photos of every room as well as expensive items like high-end electronics, antiques, jewelry, etc. Keep these images, along with receipts, in a safe place outside your home. If your home should undergo a disaster, you’ll have a good record for your claims.

There may be ways to save on your home insurance. Just be sure you still have what you need to pick one of the biggest investments of your life.

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Here are a few suggestions to make life easier when selling your home:

• Pack and put into storage as much as possible in advance. Less is more when it comes to showing off your closets and cupboards. Be sure to clearly label every carton as to what it contains, or you may never see that waffle iron again!

• Have an emergency tub or bucket in all the rooms that quickly accrue clutter. Then, when an agent calls, you can simply grab the papers, books, clothes, and toys of everyday living; stuff them in the containers; and load them in the car with your family. In mere minutes you have a clutter-free home but when you return, you’ll be able to find the things you need immediately.

• Use a lock box to give realtors ready access to your home, but make sure you can remove it. There are some times when you simply can’t be interrupted, so you need to remove the box to prevent unexpected drop-ins. However, a lock box does make it easier for realtors to show your home to interested buyers. Having access to the lock box can eliminate surprises but still provide easy access.

• Have a plan for pets in advance. Pet smells and hair are not going to impress home shoppers. While you can – and should – take them with you when homebuyers call; don’t leave any other signs around, either.

• Minimize cooking things with lingering odors, such as fish and cabbage. In fact, having a home on the market is a perfect excuse to minimize home cooking. These days, it’s easy to find healthy, prepared meals at the supermarket. Eliminating the stress of cooking and clean up will help balance out the need for extra cleanliness.

• Make everyone help. If it’s not already standard practice in your home, establish a routine where everyone cleans up after themselves while your home is up for sale. That means eliminating soap scum from the tub and shower after a bath, putting dishes in the dishwasher, putting clothes away, wiping out sinks, and just routine clean up. If everyone pitches in, the job is easier.

• Turn on all the lights before a home shopper arrives – even in the daytime; it makes your home look brighter day and night.

• Have some get-away plans. Home shoppers are usually uncomfortable if the homeowner is present. Think about some places you could go in advance - a walk through the neighborhood, a visit to an ice cream parlor, or anything that is pleasant and helps keep you from worrying about selling your home.

Most important, see every interruption of your privacy as an opportunity – not just for a speedy home sale, but as a chance to connect with your family in new and fun ways.

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Outdoor lighting can turn a dark and humdrum landscape into a place of mysterious beauty; it adds a whole dimension to the garden to enjoy after the sun goes down.

The basic types of outdoor landscape lighting include:

• Illumination for areas like walkways, steps, and other paths people might need to cross in the dark.

• Shadow lighting that is placed alongside a plant, garden feature, or statue in order to create a dramatic shadow on a wall, lawn, or other plain surfaces.

• Silhouetting a specimen tree by placing a light behind it so that it is backlit and stands out when people look at it.

• Up-lighting which brings artistry to treetops, or outside architectural features by placing lights at their base and aiming them upwards.

• Highlighting statuary, water features, or other points of interest, involves simply pointing a light directly at them.

Your landscape may be enhanced by one, several, or even all of these options. However, before you invest in lighting and the necessary electrical work, take some time to be sure you get what you want.

Use either bright flashlights or other lights at the end of an all-weather extension cord to test out some ideas. Simply place your temporary landscape light in different places to see what has the most impact; this gives you a chance to make both big and small changes at virtually no cost. It can also prevent costly mistakes, such as placing a landscape light where it looks good from one angle but glares blindingly into someone’s eyes from another.

Take as much time as you need with your experimentation, trying all the lighting styles mentioned above, until you determine exactly what you want for your home.

Once you determine where you want your lighting, you need to decide which type of lighting to use.

Low voltage lighting uses 12 volts instead of the typical 120 volts of household currents. This means you can usually work with them safely, without the help of an electrician.

Solar lighting captures the power of the sun with a NiCad battery during the day and then releases it as light at night; they generally don't require any wiring, but they do require strong sun exposure during the day to be useful.

LED lights are increasingly popular because they are low voltage and use less energy – the blue-tinged light they emit is particularly suited to nighttime use.

As you plan, try to minimize the visibility of any lights in the landscape. This is also one instance where less is more; fewer lights create more drama as well as less energy. Finally, don’t forget to have an automatic timer, or another device, to turn lights on and off.

Once you add lighting to your landscape, you’ll add a whole new dimension to the pleasure it brings you, your family, and your guests.

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Instead of Managing Time, Manage the Way You Think About It.

The key ingredient to successful time management is enthusiasm - if you have passion, you’ll be productive. Of course, there are some things that need to be done that hardly anyone has a passion for – like mopping floors or shopping for groceries. When it comes to tasks like these, making them a routine that requires minimal thinking can not only make the task go quicker, but can leave your brain free to make plans for the things you are actually passionate about.

Creating a routine for as many daily, weekly, or monthly tasks as you can, puts them on “auto pilot.” Instead of thinking about doing them, you just do them and move on.

Time management can also be enhanced by indentifying things that don’t really have to be done. Maybe you should limit the number of times you check your email in a day. The Internet and computers can provide plenty of opportunities to get off task and use time unproductively. It might even help to make a “Do Not Do” list of things you know are proven time consumers in your life but don’t really provide any value.

One of the biggest enemies to good time management is procrastination – it’s a huge time waster. Every time you think about a task but don’t actually do it, you waste time. Basically, you’re "investing" valuable time into accomplishing nothing.

Most people procrastinate because they find the task either unpleasant or overwhelming. It’s easy to say “Just take a deep breath and dive in;” sometimes you need a little bit more to push you into action. You might develop a reward system to encourage you to do those tasks you long to put off. That doesn’t mean giving yourself permission to check your emails more often, but you could promise to devote more time to the project or activity that excites you the most, as soon as you accomplish your put-aside task.

Harnessing the enthusiasm you feel for the goals you’ve set and the tasks you enjoy, plus turning things you don’t like to do into routines, allows you to better manage your time. Once you're able to master time management, nothing can hold you back.

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