————————————————————————————————————————
Welcome to My Personal Finance Journey! If you are new here, please read the “About” or “First-Time Visitor” pages to find out more about us. If you would like to receive free updates on articles like this by email, then sign up here or you can subscribe to the RSS feed. Also, check us out on Twitter or Facebook. Thanks for visiting! Keep on learning!
————————————————————————————————————————
The following is a guest post. Enjoy!
Tips on Saving Money for Winter – Yes, I Know It’s Summer at the Moment…
Winter can be a pretty pricey time for households, especially with Christmas – traditionally the most expensive day of the year – coming in the very middle of the season. So, there’s really no better time to look at ways you can save money, starting by looking at your home and the places where you’re leaking cash from your budget each and every month.
One of the best ways to save money on your home could, conversely, be to spend a little bit more in some key areas. If you’ve got some money stored away or are earning more than your spending, now is an excellent time to look into how insulating your home or getting boiler insurance could end up saving you cash in the long term. Here’s a guide to how this works, with a few other top tips thrown in for good measure.
Batten Down the Hatches
If any of your windows are cracked or your doors are damaged, now is the time to do something about it. Over time the problems are only going to get worse, while also reducing the efficiency of your home. So, consider replacing cracked windows and investing in a new door if you’ve got a noticeable draught.
Get Boiler Insurance
With recent winters bringing the harshest weather on record, it’s no surprise that many home emergency companies also reported record numbers of boiler breakdowns and burst pipes. With this in mind, it’s worth considering how boiler cover could end up saving you money in the event of a breakdown or heating issue. Many also come with a complementary annual service – and as 12-monthy check-up is highly recommended by experts in terms of keeping your home a safe and efficient.
Insulate Your Home
Although the outlay can run into four figures if you go all-out and insulate your loft, cavity walls, pipes, and water tanks, you’ll more than recoup this in the money you save on your heating bills over the coming years.
Keep Your Garden in Check
If you fail to protect your yard’s plants and grass before winter, you’ll have to spend time and effort getting it back to the way you want when spring swings round again. So, move your delicate plants indoors – ideally to a conservatory or heated shed – in containers and cover plants that are staying in the ground with sheeting. If you’ve got a fish pond, put a tennis ball in the water – you can pull this out if the water freezes over to ensure your fish have access to oxygenated water.
How about you all? What preventative (or strategic) measures do you take to save yourself some money during winter time? Have you tried any of the ones listed here? If so, how did they work out for you?
Share your experiences by commenting below!
***Photo courtesy of http://search.creativecommons.org/?q=save%20money%20winter
