4 Reasons You Absolutely Need to Save Home Maintenance
Records
It’s worth getting a scanner (or even a
scanner app on your smart phone) and filing
all these receipts away in Dropbox or iCloud — or going retro with a filing cabinet
if you’re feeling sassy.
Especially important if you are making beach home repairs. Retiring at the shore is a popular idea. Check out available real estate. Rent for awhile to help decide if this is the right decision for you. Visit: www.SusanAntigone.com Also: http://oceancitysales.lnfre.com/default.aspx for Ocean City MD Beach Real Estate Sales Specialist.. Discover that it's ShoreFun4U in Ocean City MD or the DE Resort areas.
Receipts for repairs and replacements can save
you a lot of headaches, a lot of time, and maybe even a lot of money.
It’s the moment of truth: You just had your furnace tuned up,
with a fancy new filter that leaves dust mites equal parts frustrated and terrified.
Carl, your new favorite furnace tech, pulls off a carbon copy of your work
order (in a flattering pink shade) and hands it to you. You walk Carl out and
bask in your dust-free, perfectly temperate climate, looking down at your
fuchsia receipt. As you begin to crumple it into a ball, a sliver of doubt
appears.
Should you keep this slip of paper? (Answer: Probably.)
It’s worth getting a scanner (or even a scanner app on your
smartphone) and filing all these receipts away in Dropbox or iCloud — or
going retro with a filing cabinet if you’re feeling sassy. Here’s why:
1. Know when to spend
Are you good at breaking things? My washing machine had problems
from day one. Turns out, I was way too ambitious about the size of load it
could handle — but didn’t learn that until a technician wearing those
weird paper booties came to my house.
You need only a few of those experiences before you realize it’s
not worth throwing good money after bad. If you keep your receipts and
maintenance records, you can figure out when it makes sense to just buy a new
one and push your old large appliance into a rock quarry. (Except for the rock
quarry part; don’t do that.)
2. Selling your place
People go a little nuts when buying a home.
When you’re selling, chances are good that you’re going to run into a buyer who
is over-the-top bananas meticulous. They’re going to want to know not only how
many years old your new gutters are, but also what time of day they were
installed, the blood type of the man who installed them, and also whether
Saturn was in retrograde at the time. (It affects gutter strength, you know.)
And that’s totally cool; they should do their due diligence. But
when they come at you with questions, you need to be ready to throw down your
receipts as though they’re a royal flush.
3. Insurance fistfights
Let’s say insurance pays for a new roof after a tree falls on
your house and damages it. You’re happy until four months later when, for
reasons unknown, the insurance company decides it paid too much and wants some
money back. What in holy heck? (It’s true; I’ve seen it happen.)
If you have your maintenance records and your receipts for the
repairs, then you can fight it. It won’t be fun, but it will keep money
where it belongs — in your pocket.
4. Budgeting brigade
Repairs are inevitable and maintenance should be too, lest your home
veer into shanty status. It’s all a pain in the pocketbook when it happens:
$100 here, another $450 there. And the worst part is, it always feels
unexpected.
Here’s a good idea: Hang onto your maintenance records, and when
you have a year’s worth, crunch some numbers to set up a maintenance budget for the year. Budget a little
higher at the start, but do this every year so more data will make it more
accurate. That way, when something goes wrong, you will have the money ready to
spend and it won’t feel as though you are taking it away from something else.
Have your receipts ever saved your bacon? We want to hear your
story! Tell us about it.
No comments:
Post a Comment