Trim Your Fat for the New Year- The Home Edition Part IV
Trim Your Fat for the New Year- The Home Edition Part IV
Trim Your Fat for the New Year- The Home Edition Part IV-For those of you following along with this series, we have already addressed some of the most common New Year’s resolutions- trimming your “fat”, taking better care of your health, and getting out of debt. Our last segment helps you reach another goal all while continuing to work on the prior three – a healthier home, a healthier you.
Get organized– Decluttering the house can go a long way towards decreasing stress in the New Year. Not to mention your Premier NH Home Inspector will thank you for making your appliances and systems more accessible!
- Resolve to go room-by-room throughout the year and donate anything you don’t use, wear, truly love, or absolutely can’t live without. If you like having yard sales you might even be able to earn some extra money for your “treasures.”
- After that, think twice about your next purchases. Remember the money saved can go towards your next mortgage payment to help keep two resolutions at the same time!
- Create more storage space by getting creative. A simple google search, pinterest perusal, or walk through your local home store or container store can offer a variety of options. Here is one from houselogic to get you started.
- Use simple woven baskets to store useful but not beautiful items such as remotes, shoes, and umbrellas. Use sleek trays to group similar items.
- Clear counters of anything you don’t use on a daily basis.
- Put dishes in the dishwasher every night, dirty clothes in the hamper, and jackets in the closet every day. Remember when mom told you to put your toys away after playing with them? Same thing should apply to items you use in your adult life- put it back in its place when you are done using it!
- Enlist family members on cleaning day- Many hands make light work. Besides that, it helps everyone be better about minimizing clutter during the week and results in more time for family fun by finishing the chores faster.
Many household chores and repairs can also burn quite a few calories and are much more productive and interesting than running in one place on a treadmill. Check out these calorie busters*:
- Vacuuming: 170 calories
- Sweeping: 150-200 calories
- Putting away clothes: 88 calories
- Washing dishes: 88 calories
- Multiple household tasks as once: 100-200 calories
- Moving/carrying items upstairs: 500+ calories
- Cleaning gutters: 272 calories
- Building a fence and similar outdoor carpentry activities: 340 calories
- Caulking windows and doors: 280 calories
- Refinishing cabinets: 238 calorie
- Installing tile: 238 calories
- Interior painting: 136 calories
- Exterior painting: 272 calories
- Chopping firewood: 340 calories
- Mowing the lawn: 306 calories
- Planting shrubs: 238 calories
- General gardening: 204 calories
- Shoveling snow: 340 calories
*based on 150 lb person performing activity for an hour from CalorieLab.com
We hope you have enjoyed this multi-part blog series! Over the last few weeks, we have now shown you how to improve your house to save on electricity bills in order to put more money towards your mortgage in an effort to get out of debt faster all while burning calories to help you keep your 2016 fitness goals. Now that is one efficient New Year’s Resolution!
Like the ideas but don’t know where to start? Contact Premier Home Inspection Services for a thermal imaging scan and home maintenance inspection tailored to your home. Your house needs a personal trainer too!
Unsure who to call to carry out these repairs or help you with any aspect of your goals list? Premier has established a network of professionals who we highly trust and recommend. Visit our Pro’s Page. Don’t see what/who you are looking for? Feel free to call or email and we can surely help guide you in the right direction.