Thanks to HomeZada for partnering with me on this post. I only write about products and services that make life less hectic, and this app is a MAJOR winner!
Approximately 5 weeks from now, Tim and I will be forking over far more than we earn per hour to have a professional organizer come to our house and help us make some good strategic decisions. We are in the midst of de-cluttering right now, as I don’t want to pay somebody to help me decide whether or not to donate some junk.
What we DO need help with is figuring out where the things we really want to keep should live in our home. A disturbingly large number of items in our house don’t have anywhere to live, and so they find themselves in various piles the grow and grow, and then occasionally get moved around to go live in other piles.
I spend an ridiculously large amount of time moving piles of stuff from one spot to another. Anyone else out there doing that? And every time I start to try to figure out the “where” for all the stuff, I get overwhelmed. And then I throw everything in a pile. It’s a vicious cycle, people.
So I’m willing to spend some money to make some headway in this area and to stop pretending that “piles” are the next hottest home decor trend (I’ve honestly told myself that in a desperate moment. And yes, it did temporarily console me….). Once the house is finally organized (I get almost weepy at the mere thought of it!), that’s when I’m turning my attention to all those house projects I want to do but can’t justify beginning until the house is reasonably organized.
And that’s where everything gets beautifully, wonderfully FREE.
photo credit: blavandmaster via photopin cc
HomeZada
I’ve just started messing around with this app, and I’m totally swooning over it. HomeZada offers many more services than I can even explain in this post , but I want to highlight my absolute favorites:
1.Project list organization. Keep a running list of your “wish list” projects, your projects currently underway, and your completed projects. If you own a home, those completed projects lists will be SUPER helpful at tax time, when you can claim deductions for home improvements you made. That’s money right back in your pocket, thanks to HomeZada! For me, I would be using this to start making a list of all the things I want to do in our house, and then ranking them in order of importance and/or viability due to costs.
2. Budgeting. The app also helps you with budgeting your projects so that you don’t lose control over what you planned to spend in the midst of your project (a very common occurrence, as I understand it!). The premium version of the app ($5.95/month) will help you with real-time price and review comparisons. I’m sticking with the free version for now, but if I were doing something like a kitchen renovation and I was buying new appliances, spending that $6 to find out if the fridge I’m standing in front of at Home Depot gets great reviews, and if the price it is being offered at is the best is money REALLY well spent.
3. Home Inventory. Not only can you keep your receipts in HomeZada (very important for taxes and for insurance), but you can also keep photos of rooms in your home and any important contents that you want to document. If something tragic happens to your home (fire, earthquake, tornado, flood, burglary), but you’ve got your receipts on file with HomeZada, or at the very least photo documentation of the contents of your house, it will make insurance claims MUCH easier to file because you can very easily prove that you did in fact own the things you are claiming you owned.
4. Maintenance Contacts and Calendar. I can’t remember when I’m supposed to change out the air filters in our unit. Nor can I remember the name of the plumbing company we have used in the past. I actually had to dig through piles of paperwork in the midst of the polar vortex most of the country experienced a few weeks back to find the company that we use for our HVAC because ours stopped working during the deep freeze. Now I can store that information in HomeZada and pull it up with no hassle. I can also rely on the app to tell me when it is time for certain maintenance procedures (like the annual sealing of the granite countertops). See how awesome that is?!
HomeZada isn’t going to magically transform your starter house into a mansion, but it is going to help you feel much less overwhelmed by all the stuff that goes along with owning a house, or heck, even just inhabiting one. We don’t own the home we currently live in, and I still see LOTS of uses for HomeZada.
Between us, I think the folks who make this app are just a wee bit foolish for offering so many great features in the free version of the app. But that’s their choice, right? And who are were to judge? 😉 This is an app that I VERY STRONGLY recommend for all the grown ups out there. Taking care of a home is hard, but not as hard as it used to be, thanks to HomeZada.
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