The Basic Home-Care Plan

What could a home-care plan do for you that you’re not already doing?

You are probably familiar with the new home warranty plans that are becoming more and more popular.  The home warranty plan lets you pay a monthly premium so that when disaster strikes, you can put in a claim to take care of the problem.  Problems like the air conditioner going out or the dishwasher no longer working. It’s a plan that bails you out of having a major expense when a problem arises in the home.  

Just like a home warranty plan allows you to plan for disasters, what do you have in place to plan for all the other stuff?  In other words, what’s your home-care plan? To truly have the best picture of having a home-care plan, you must have already started a family plan or are starting your family plan with a home-care plan.  

Do you even have a list of the routine maintenance and repairs you have for your home?  Let me give you a few examples.
Pamela and I have the following home care services:

1. Pest control service
2. Cleaning service
3. Waste management service
4. Lawn care service
5. Sewer Service

I’m certain you can name others.  
I want to give you a few practices that we discovered when we evaluated the list you see above.  It’s this list that helps us be intentional as opposed to reactive with our home-care initiatives.  Here are a few practices we discovered by creating the list you see above.

Practice 1: There are items that must be cut out.  You should make a list of the services you currently have and identify the ones that need to go.  What you don’t see on our list, that once was, is the hair-care services (barbershop and beauty salon).  We decided years ago that we’d do these ourselves so that we could use those funds for some activities that were more important to us.   I became a barber and she become a hair-stylist.

Practice 2: There are items that must be added.  I bet you’re wondering how cleaning services made the list for people who are very money conscious.  I’ll explain. Pamela and I are not very efficient when it comes to cleaning house. Each month, it would take us an entire weekend to complete the task and then sometimes that wasn’t enough time.  She and I hated cleaning the bathrooms and I pretty much refused to clean the toilets. We finally tried a cleaning service and believe it or not what took us a weekend, the cleaning service did in 2 hours and did a better job.  This decision became a no brainer. It’s a waste of time and money not to use them. What are you doing that you shouldn’t or someone else could do more efficiently? The time is worth far more than the money.

Practice 3: There’s time when compromise is a necessity.  Most people can’t afford every service they desire all at once, so a compromise must occur.  When we had the funds available to add a new service to our home-care plan, we had to choose.  Pamela wanted to hire someone to manicure the lawn so that I wouldn’t have to. I wanted someone to clean the house so that she didn’t have to clean toilets any more.  I actually won out, because we agreed that I was pretty good at manicuring the lawn and had it down to a science. We compromised and it’s been one of our best decisions. One day we will have someone take the lawn care off my hands, but for now compromising was a necessity towards us reaching our home-care goals.

Practice 4: There are services that aren’t optional.  When you take a look at your list, you will notice that there are just some services that aren’t optional.  Services like pest control, sewer service and waste management. There’s nothing we can do with those so they’re at the top of the list.  Everything else is negotiable and is subject to budgetary changes. Knowing which are optional and which are not are key to developing your home-care plans.

Today is Friday!
Take a minute and evaluate (with your family) your home-care services.  What items do you need, no longer need, or need to exchange? As I often say, it’s your life, your home, your business.  Now it’s your time to make a home-care plan for your home, your life, your business.

[su_note note_color="#FFFFFF" text_color="#000000"]The Family Plan Binder is available now!

Our team has worked very hard putting it together. We designed it to help you and your family move the needle forward in making your life your business. Find out more about the Family plan here.[/su_note]