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You are here: Home / Archives for maintenance

Scheduling: Regular Maintenance

January 27, 2014 by Tracy

Scheduling: Regular Maintenance

Photograph Credit: Microsoft Images

Keeping up with regular maintenance saves money, energy, and time. Having concentrated on regular maintenance of my health these past two weeks, I am so thankful to have escaped illness. I did get a mild cold, but no fever, chills, or other flu symptoms.

As Paul is still recovering, we will wait until full healing before changing our air filters and giving our home a good cleaning. In keeping up with regular maintenance on our home, we can prevent some major repairs and expenses.

Continuing to schedule 2014 using the Planning for Success series from last year, I am adding these regular maintenance tasks to our calendar:

19. Schedule Annual Home Maintenance: Planning for Success – Day 7

Keeping up with our termite inspection, pressure washing, and heating and air conditioning maintenance, I select months where the contracts renew or where the service is most needed to remind me to make the call to have these services performed.

20. Check Light Bulbs and Air Filters: Planning for Success – Day 21

With a year’s worth of air filters housed in our garage from a great sale where I found the filters $.59 each, I tend to forget that the filters need to be changed. By adding this maintenance item to our calendar toward the end of the month, I remember to ask Paul to change them out when he checks for burned out light bulbs.

21. Purchase Batteries: Planning for Success – Day 14

With daylight savings time on our calendar, I make a note about 2 weeks prior to look for sales on batteries. We then store these batteries in their original container.

Please be very careful with 9-volt batteries as storing them in a group where the positives and negatives could touch each other could start a fire as it did in the embedded video.

22. Face Vehicle Maintenance: Planning for Success – Day 30

Our mechanic sees our vehicles at least 4 times a year for regular oil changes. During these visits, he checks our vehicles and alerts us to any major maintenance services that need to occur.

With the advanced warning, we are able to save for those costs and schedule a date before getting stranded by a non-working vehicle.

23. Address Technology: Planning for Success – Day 28

To protect my files, I schedule regular updates, backups, and cleanup. Though I have an on-going project to consolidate all my documents into two locations, I do keep backups. Last year Paul purchased a terabyte hard drive for me to backup Using Time Wisely and my computer and laptop files.

If something should happen to my hosting site, I have a backup which gives me peace of mind. Having lost documents in the past, I learned and now have a backup system.

In taking care of our home, vehicles, and computers, we schedule regular maintenance. As life happens and I would forget to do these items, I add them to the calendar to jog my memory to save us money, energy, and time.

As you continue scheduling 2014, remind yourself of regular maintenance tasks to save you money from big problems, energy from hurrying to find a solution, and time waiting for a problem to get fixed. Happy scheduling!

Question: What regular maintenance items are you adding to your calendar?

Filed Under: Organization, Time Management, Miscellaneous Tagged With: maintenance, scheduling

Fall Home Maintenance

October 1, 2012 by Tracy

When Paul and I purchased our home, we also purchased the book, Home Maintenance For Dummies.*

Besides money-saving tips to fix small repairs, this book also provides monthly maintenance checklists. Of that list, Paul and I plan to perform the following tasks for our fall home maintenance:

Fall Home Maintenance Checklist

  • Drain hot water heater
  • Clean and replace furnace and air conditioner filters
  • Check air intakes for insect blockages and debris
  • Clean range hood filter
  • Clean all appliances and counters
  • Disinfect and freshen garage disposal with vinegar ice cubes
  • Paste wax our dining room table and wooden trash can
  • Deep clean laminate surfaces
  • Deep clean all the floors
  • Test smoke detectors
  • Test carbon monoxide detector
  • Test auto reverse safety feature on garage door opener
  • Clean lint from dryer duct and from the interior of dryer housing
  • Inspect washing machine water supply hoses

Depending on your home, you may need more or less items on your fall home maintenance checklist. In our home when I find light bulbs out or batteries low, I jot them down on my “Honey-do” list. As Paul has a few moments to spare, he will work through the list to keep our home operating efficiently.

In using time wisely schedule your fall home maintenance. Create your own list to perform monthly or quarterly checks. Heading off problems before they happen will save you money, energy, and time. Happy maintaining!

Question: What additional items would you add to this fall home maintenance checklist?

* This post contains an affiliate link to Amazon.com (disclosure policy). Should you choose to purchase Home Maintenance For Dummies, Using Time Wisely benefits. 😉

Filed Under: Household, Maintaining Tagged With: maintenance, fall

Money Saving Tips

February 19, 2011 by Tracy

Saving money in the long run may require spending money at the onset. For example, I took my car to the mechanic for routine maintenance. The car needed an oil change and tire rotation. Since I get free tire rotation where I bought the tires, I paid for the oil change and drove to Discount Tire.

When the tires were rotated, the Discount Tire technician found my new front tires were worn down. The recommendation was to apply the credits from our warranty on the existing tires to purchase two new tires.  With the credits, I would owe $130 for two new tires, which is about the price of one.

Though I could have driven with the existing tires, I would have worn them out in about a year and had to purchase two new tires at full price, costing around $260. My husband and I chose to pay the $130 now to save $230 in the long run. My husband then took the car for a front-end alignment which should correct the wear on the tires.

I love to save my family money. Whether it is finding deals on items, events, memberships, or insurance policies, I desire to get the most out of each dollar spent.

Did you know you could get free toothpaste at CVS this week? Yes, in the CVS sales flyer (Feb. 13-19), All Colgate Sensitive 6 oz. or Total Advanced 5.8 oz. tubes are on sale for $3.79. After purchasing the toothpaste with your CVS card, your receipt will print with a $3.79 Extra Bucks (which is store credit) at the end. You could then use the $3.79 Extra Bucks for anything you need at CVS.

The scenario above would be getting the toothpaste minus tax for free. Since I currently have two coupons for Colgate Total in the amounts of $1.00 and $.75, I would use the coupons and get two tubes (limit of 2 per the advertisement). I would checkout with $3.79 (one tube) + $3.79 (2nd tube) = subtotal: $7.58. Then I would use my two coupons: subtotal $7.58 -$1.00 (coupon)-$.75 (coupon) = total $5.83 + tax. I would pay around $6.20 and receive a store coupon on the end of my receipt for $7.58 ($3.79 for each tube). I would have made $1.38 in store credit and have 2 tubes of toothpaste.

The cabinet under our bathroom sink houses the 30+ tubes of Colgate toothpaste I have acquired by playing the drugstore game. Stay tuned each Saturday as I share more  money saving tips.

Filed Under: Stretching Your Dollars Tagged With: money, spending, tips, dollar, stretching, CVS, dollars, drugstore, tires, routine, maintenance, car, care, saving

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