Friday, July 8, 2016

TIP That Every Homeowner Should Do!

Here is a TIP I felt the need to share with everyone who owns a home, or ever has plans to buy something big!
KEEP A HOME DIARY!
I know that I blogged about this before, but that was for colors, decorating and design!
We all go through our day, doing daily routines...
We don't stop to take a breath, to write notes about things that we might need in the future, for reference or to keep track of things we buy... even the big stuff! We get up, get ready for work, gathering what we need, our lunch, our kids, our to do list and off we go. On the (hopefully) rare days, something gets in the our way of our regimen. Sometimes it is that we forgot to bring what we needed for a meeting, for our kids to school or camp. Small incidental things that are easily remedied.
Other days it is the BIG STUFF
The dryer seized, the washing machine is leaking all over the floor, everything in the freezer is thawed and the fridge is not cold - these are the things that throw a wrench into our day, our week... our budget!
Who do you call for these issues? Do you remember where you purchased this appliance? Did you get an extended warranty? Who did you use the last time you had an electrical/ plumbing/ AC problem.... all things we do not ask ourselves until faced with having to know, having to react!
This is where a Home Diary would be your best friend!
• Keeping track of vendors, contractors, suppliers you used and their contact information
• Notes on each and how you liked them, do you feel they were professional, did they charge appropriately, were they reliable?
• Warranties you purchased - this goes for big items like your car as well!
My husband and I were plugging along this week when we realized, GEE, it is awfully hot in here - first heat wave of the year here in the Northeast! For the past three days the house was getting hotter and hotter. Today is got up to 87!! Needless to say, the AC stopped working! After my husband called many Heating and AC companies, most of whom could not come out to help us this weekend, I told him to call the one I like the best and whom I "think" we bought the system from. Not only did they say they can fit us in today, but they ARE the ones who replaced the units ... ten years ago! It always feels like "we just replaced that"! I never would have thought TEN years went by! All anyone ever thinks at this point is "get it fixed", "on no! what is this going to cost me"....
We got lucky this time - our warranty for the units is up in August!
A Home Diary would have cut our worry and we could have spent less time looking for help!
You can use a composition notebook, a file box or folder or a file cabinet... but do yourself a favor and if you do not have a system, start now.
• File receipts, phone numbers, warranties for everything!
• Small and large appliances- everything from the electric knife, blender, coffee maker, a pan you bought because it said Lifetime Warranty on the packaging!
• Major household appliances such as the furnace, AC/Heating unit, new roof, hot water heater
• Swimming goggles you bought your kid for camp!
EVERTHING! You will be thankful later when you need to find these papers and they are all together!
TIP: Start your House Diary today!

3 comments:

JR said...

Great post... One thing I need to add... USE TECHNOLOGY FOR THIS!
I use Google Keep now - but I also use Google Docs. Both work great on any device - so I can access my notes from anywhere, and I can SEARCH them. If you've got all that awesome information in physical notebooks, it's much harder to reference them when you're out on the road, and much easier to find the little fact you know you wrote somewhere...

Dawn Rochelle Fields said...

Agreed, thank you! The box, or file cabinet are for the documents you accumulate from the products; just as simple to take a photo of these and store in the cloud on Google!

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