What to Spend on Now for Long-Term Saving

Being a homeowner means constant projects, improvements, and a seemingly endless flood of funds into your house. While homeownership can certainly be rewarding, exciting, and pride-inducing, it can sometimes feel like your home is a money pit. However, there are certainly some projects that are worth the initial investment required in order to save money down the line. Discover which projects give you the most bang for your buck, even years later, for the ultimate reward of long-term savings.

Install a Smart Lighting System

It seems like there are more and more technological home advances every day, but this one is worth the investment. Smart lighting includes energy-efficient light bulbs, compact fluorescent lamps, and automated lighting systems. Installing motion and occupancy sensors helps to ensure lights aren’t left on erroneously in empty rooms and also allows homeowners to turn lights off remotely if they’re left on by accident.

These systems are usually simple to install on your own and energy efficient lights are known to last longer than traditional bulbs. While it typically costs between $50 and $200 to install different degrees of smart lighting systems in a home, it provides an average savings of $75 each year. These savings quickly add up to be well worth the money spent up front.

Install a Gas Fireplace

This is a large-scale project, but it’s one that will increase the value of your home and shave a large cost off your electric bill in the winter. These aesthetically pleasing additions are now made to be energy-efficient, and they’re easy to turn on and off—not to mention they make a big difference in warming your living area! As you enjoy your gas fireplace during the winter, you can bump your heat of your house down, as there’s no reason to heat other rooms when you’re lounging in the living room by the fireplace. This is a home improvement measure that will save you money over time and that you’ll truly love using for years to come.

Install Quality Gutters

Especially if you live in an area that receives an abundance of precipitation throughout the seasons, it’s important to have a quality set of gutters on your house. Devoid of those, your home could suffer from extensive water damage, which is a huge expense to repair. Even if you already have gutters installed, you should put the time and money into cleaning, maintaining, and routing your gutters on a regular basis.

Gutters are relatively inexpensive to install, ranging between about $500 and $1,300 of initial cost. They are not only easy to install yourself, but they can even improve the appearance of your home in addition to protecting you against the headache of water damage. Repairing and maintaining your gutters costs between $175 and $500, but this upfront cost is well worth it as water damage could cost tens of thousands of dollars to fix once it strikes. Add this to the top of your home improvement to-do list for some serious savings.

Improve Insulation

No one likes to be cold in their own home during the winter, but heating a house can certainly be a great expense for any family. Improving insulation around your home and sealing doors and windows can play a huge role in keeping your house warm during even the coldest of winter months. To cut the cost of your heating bill down, add more insulation in places like your attic and even completely replace particularly drafty doors and windows with better insulated models. These measures also help to lock in cool air in warmer months, so this is an improvement that pays off year-round. This home improvement project will cost a few hundred dollars to undertake, but it's proven to save you much more on electric bills over the years, making it one to prioritize.

Being a homeowner is undoubtedly a lot of work, an with your never-ending list of projects to be done, this information will help you to prioritize what to focus on first. Spending money upfront can pay-off big in the long run, as you can see from this list of well-worth it projects.