Home heating costs can quickly skyrocket during the winter. Perhaps you have puzzled over the utility bill, trying to figure out how to keep costs down. Fortunately, there are easy and affordable ways to make the most of the warmth in your home. Before you crank up the thermostat settings, try these 12 tips for efficiently heating your home during winter.
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pool safety best practices for a fun summer
Enjoying the cool splash of a swimming pool is one of the best feelings one could have during a heat wave, especially in the summer season. But the pleasure of the swimming pool comes with risks. To ensure your safety and the safety of the people around you, check out our tips and pool safety best practices for a fun summer.
Continue readingHow to Change From Fall to Winter Decor
Looking to winterize your fall decor for the changing season? Here are a few tips to help you keep your personal style while adding some holiday cheer around the home!
Add Coziness
We all love to cozy up during the winter months whether it’s in the living room, den or your own bedroom. A great way to transition different rooms from summer to fall to winter is to add some layers for each season it gets a little colder. Quilted blankets and fluffy pillows give the room a cozy look and are great for chilly nights. Plus there are tons of fun holiday pillows that can add color and cheer to the furniture.
Continue reading5 Easy Ways to Save Big on Monthly Home Expenses
Having a home comes with a lot of advantages, especially for the modern family. You don’t have to deal with unhappy first floor tenants when your 3-year-old is running around upstairs, there’s no aggravating landlord popping up unannounced and your family has more than enough freedom to truly make it feel like home.
However, there’s also a lot of upkeep and all-around oversight that you have to take into account. From utility bills, monthly mortgage payments or even grocery costs, home expenses pile up quickly. If you’re looking for some easy ways to gain quick relief, test out some of these tricks to get your family’s finances in the green.
1. Consolidate Other Debt
Oftentimes, debt can cripple our abilities to budget effectively. Other debt may be taking away from extra money to put toward your monthly home expenses. Instead of struggling to make ends meet, consider accessing the value that your home has accrued over time and start living comfortably.
Continue readingShould You Hire a Cleaning Service?
We can all agree that cleaning our homes is a necessity, but we don’t always make it a priority. That’s where a cleaning service comes in. While it may not be in everyone’s budget, a professional cleaning service can truly help you out — and more often than not, you’ll find that they’re worth every penny. Here’s why you should consider hiring a professional cleaning service sooner rather than later.
They can clean the hard-to-reach or inconvenient places
We’re talking about your baseboards, the area around your toilet, the inside of your refrigerator…these places aren’t the most convenient to clean. A professional cleaning service can clean your home from top to bottom and make sure all the nooks and crannies are spotless. So you won’t have to worry about dust or grime buildup that can lead to problems with your health and home in the long run — because a cleaning service will ensure your home is spotless!
Continue readingBest Dog Breeds for Apartment Living
Want a dog but worried they might not be happy in an apartment setting? No worries, there are plenty of dog breeds that thrive, living in close proximity to their human. When you look for the best breed to live with you in an apartment, there are a few things to consider. Not all small dogs make great apartment dogs, and not all large dogs are terrible apartment dogs!
You need to consider their energy levels, how much they bark (your neighbors won’t thank you for getting a loud dog in a smaller complex) and how much exercise they need.
Here are ten of the best suited apartment dogs to keep you company in your small space.
Continue readingTips for Moving Stress Free
Moving is always a source of stress, but there are several ways you can get through the process and work through those boxes as efficiently and quickly as possible. Check out these tips to moving without the stress and hassle.
1. Adopt a solution-focused attitude
You can’t control everything, but you can choose how you react. If you see moving as a challenge, you’re more likely to see options and solutions to difficult situations. Staying optimistic and positive will help you keep calm and open to new possibilities. In contrast, if you see moving as mostly a negative experience on par with getting a tooth pulled, your natural response could be to shut down, avoid, and procrastinate — which will only lead to more stress. While there’s no doubt that moving involves stress and work, you can make things easier on yourself by deciding to move forward one small step at a time.
Continue readingFive Common Home Seller Misconceptions
The real estate world is full of misconceptions about the home selling process. After all, selling a home can be complicated with lots of details that are easy to get wrong.
In this post, we’ll look at five common home seller misconceptions and we’ll set the record straight on each!
1. Pricing high will leave room for negotiation.
Overpricing your house is always a bad idea.
Buyer’s agents know the market, and they can spot an overpriced listing from a mile away. When buyer’s agents see an overpriced listing, they assume the seller is either 1) unreasonable, or 2) not serious about selling. Either way, agents don’t want to waste their time, or their buyers’ time, touring the house and making an offer they think will be rejected.
So an overpriced house will sit on the market until the price is reduced. And by that time, the excitement over the new listing has worn off. Even worse, buyers might see the reduction and think the price had to be reduced because of a problem with the house.
Always price your house fairly and let the market do its job.