Last Updated on December 20, 2023
The new year is upon us, and it’s a great time to break away from traditional resolutions and shift our focus to something often overlooked – our homes! These 11 simple and achievable homeowner New Year’s resolutions, from creating an emergency fund to planning home improvement projects, are designed to enhance your pride in homeownership and increase your home’s value without overwhelming you with massive projects.
As a homeowner dedicated to making the most of your living space, especially if you’re dealing with the quirks of an older house (like me), let’s make 2024 the Year of the Amazing Home!
Homeowner New Year’s Resolutions for 2024
1. Plan for Emergencies
Life is unpredictable, and homeownership comes with unexpected hurdles. It’s important to plan for an emergency in the coming year in two ways: Emergency Kits and Emergency Funds.
Emergency Kit
An emergency kit is the best way to prepare for natural disasters, ensuring you have essential supplies for whether your family needs to either shelter in place (potentially without utilities) or need to evacuate.
What to include in an emergency kit? As a rule of thumb, your emergency kit should have enough food and water to last for at least three days (pets too!!!).
It should also include first-aid supplies, medications, chargers, flashlights, emergency radios, and a copy of important documents like identification cards, credit cards and deeds. Store your kit in a safe but accessible place.
For more details, Ready.gov has a comprehensive website with tips and checklists on emergency and disaster preparedness. Use that site will also help you compile your own emergency kit, or buy a ready-made one (like this one).
Emergency Savings Fund
Meanwhile, a home emergency savings fund acts as a financial cushion, covering 3-6 months of living expenses or 1-3% of your home value. Start small and contribute regularly; even a smidge each month as a first step will grow into a reliable emergency fund.
2. Create or Update a Home Inventory
Did the holidays gift you something shiny, new, and expensive this year? Flat screen tv? Fancy-dancy camera? But if an unexpected disaster happens, such as fire or flood, these items could be lost or destroyed.
Protect your investments by creating or updating a home inventory. This simple task, often overlooked, is the best way to expedite insurance claims in case of disasters.
An easy first step? Snap photos of your belongings and store them digitally for easy access. Tools like HomeZada can make this process seamless, ensuring your documentation is up-to-date.
3. Check Carbon Monoxide Detector
Indoor air quality, like other environmental hazards, is crucial for a healthy home. Yet it’s the second-leading cause of poisonings in home, resulting in approximately 430 accidental deaths and 50,000 emergency room visits every year.
Do yourself a favor and test your carbon monoxide detectors. Check (or change) the batteries in your carbon monoxide detectors every six months. And as recommended, ensure that you have carbon monoxide detectors installed on every floor.
4. Decrease Fire Risk
With approximately 40 home fires every hour in the US causing an average of 2,800 deaths and $8.1 billion in property damage, taking steps to reduce fire risk is a great time investment. For the old houses, the risk is slightly higher.
Those are some significant and scary stats! Luckily, here’s a few things you can do to reduce your home’s risk of fire.
Test your smoke alarms, change batteries every six months, and upgrade detectors if they’ve reached their lifespan. Equipping your home with fire extinguishers and developing a fire escape plan is the best way to ensure the safety of your loved ones.
5. Re-evaluate Mortgage
Financial health is as just important as the physical and structural health of your home. Revisit your mortgage on a yearly basis and ensure that you are consistently paying off the mortgage.
- Pay on Time: Maintain a health credit score. Struggling to make payments? Reach out to your mortgage lender
- Autopay: Setting up autopay is the best way to avoid missed payments and late fees
- Extra Payments: Have a little extra $$$? Make an extra or larger payment.
- Refinance: Low rates? Shorten the term and ultimately save thousands in interest.
During the pandemic, mortgage interest rates were at historic lows. We refinanced with a rate so low that we shortened our term from 20 to 15 years. For only an extra $125 a payment, we will own our home 5 years earlier and save over $10,000 in interest payments!
6. Increase Home Security
Home burglaries happen more often than we think, especially during the daytime when residents are present. Here’s a few stats that might surprise you, taken from various safety organizations (SafeWise, Safe At Last and InterNACHI).
- Home thefts happens every 25.7 seconds in the US
- Over 50% happen during the daytime
- Residents are present in the home about 30% during a burglary
The new year is a great time to address this concern is by increasing your home security – from installing an affordable security system plans to free ways like getting to know your neighbors.
7. Review Home Insurance
Do you know the inner workings of your home insurance policy? Chances are you don’t… Heck, I don’t, and I worked in the insurance industry for 10+ years! (I worked in a different line of insurance).
Review your homeowners insurance policy with your agent, especially if you didn’t do it last year. Find out what the policy covers – and just as importantly – what it doesn’t cover. You might be surprised on what your policy excludes.
Review your coverage with your agent to ensure it reflects your home’s current state. Check for adequate limits, inquire about discounts for recent home improvements, and consider adding riders for new valuable purchases.
Don’t hesitate to shop around; getting quotes from different providers is the best way to ensure you’re not leaving money on the table.
8. Complete One Upgrade
Is your home feeling a bit dated? Have a half-finished project (like a missing tile in the bathroom that was removed six months ago to get to a hidden pipe) staring back at you? In 2024, make one of your homeowner New Year’s resolutions to complete 2-3 home improvement projects this coming year.
Maybe you have the money to complete an expensive project, like investing in a new HVAC system or water heater, to improving indoor air quality and heating efficiency. Or maybe you have vast amount of time on your hands to renovate a home office.
But if you’re not a DIYer or don’t have a lot of money to invest, there are so many easy, inexpensive home improvements that can have a significant impact on your home’s value and your overall enjoyment. These upgrades can be as simple as:
- Painting your front door
- Boosting curb appeal with a no-dig fence
- Creating a new outdoor space with a floating deck
- Mounting visible address numbers
9. Increase Energy Efficiency
Simultaneously save money AND the environment by implementing just a few small ways to reduce your home’s energy consumptions without sacrificing comfort. And lower your energy bills.
Enhance your home’s energy efficiency with simple, inexpensive measures. There are numerous ways to reduce your home’s energy consumption, such as:
- Sealing up drafty windows and doors
- Unplugging devices not in use
- Installing a smart thermostat
- Insulating behind radiators
- Replacing incandescent with LED light bulbs
- Buying appliances with Energy Star label
You can choose from SO many ways to increase energy efficiency – all for just a few dollars and with minimal effort.
10. Organize Home Maintenance
Caring for your home is a big responsibility that can be made more manageable with a home maintenance binder. If you defer home maintenance (like continually forgetting to replace filters in your HVAC system), problems that could have been caught sooner that would have been simple and inexpensive to fix can transform into major, costly issues.
A personalized tool, be it a phone app or a simple journal, is the best way to stay on top of necessary tasks, like changing out furnace filters. Keeping up with maintenance is the best way to prevent breakdowns, save money, and maintain your home’s overall appeal.
11. Declutter
Ok, ok, so we have arrived at decluttering. I’m horrible at decluttering even though I know its a great way to create a fresh, organized living space. I get on a roll, and then stop. And things accumulate. A few months later the decluttering cycle continues….
There are entire blogs devoted to decluttering, so I’m not going to get deep here. Instead, I’ll inspire you with this video from one of my favorite decluttering experts, Cas at Clutterbug, to streamline your home.
Wrapping it Up
Whether you’re a brand-new homeowner or settled in your fifth house, these 11 simple homeowner New Year’s resolutions will help you prepare for whatever next year brings! Happy New Year – and here’s to 2024!
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