Your home should be your sanctuary, right? In a perfect world, it would be a place where you could retreat from the stresses of daily life to relax and rejuvenate. The reality is that sometimes a house can actually cause us to experience unwanted stress, adding to our already pressure-filled lives.
Fortunately, there are some actions you can take to minimize the stress of running a home. Here are some of the most common sources of home stress, along with some tips for how to relieve them:
1. Not Managing Your Home Expenses
Managing a household budget can be daunting for some people, especially for first-time homeowners. Having a budget in place that serves as a road map for anticipating home expenses can actually help you feel more secure and in control.
How to start budgeting
• Track your weekly, monthly and annual expenses, so you can see where your money is going and make accurate predictions for future expenses.
• Your house budget should include, at a minimum:
1. Mortgage
2. Taxes
3. Home insurance
4. Utilities
5. Food
6. Maintenance costs
7. Savings for future repairs
• Set up a separate budget for your house expenses, or incorporate them into a family budget worksheet that incorporates all your family expenses.
• As much as possible, plan your spending on a weekly basis, which will help you stick to your budget.
• Review budget progress regularly. Build in some goals and rewards for staying within your budget parameters.
2. Messy Home, Messy Mind
Disorganization in the home is a reported universal home stressor, however, getting organized while de-cluttering your space can leave room for more ease and relaxation.
How to be more clean and organized:
• Eliminate clutter. The more stuff you have, the harder it is to clean and stay organized. Get rid of the things that you no longer use or that you no longer enjoy.
• Clean a little at a time. It’s much easier to spend a short amount of time cleaning your home every day than to motivate yourself to spend an entire day on household chores. Set aside some time each day to clean one entire room, or to perform one whole home task, like dusting, vacuuming, or mopping.
• Create a cleaning carryall with all the cleaning products that you use in one place, so you have everything at your fingertips and can easily transport the supplies from room to room.
• Devise a quick cleaning routine or checklist that enables you to whip your home in shape in under an hour.
• Get help. If your household budget allows, get professional cleaning services from time to time.
3. Not Enough Time in the Week to Prepare Dinner
By squeezing in more time for household dinner preparation with quick and easy dinner recipes and food preparation, you could be saving a lot of energy during the week trying to get food on the table in time for dinner.
Start off by making a meal plan:
• Keep a running grocery list. Whether you use a paper list, a computer list, or a phone app, keeping a grocery list in progress will help you remember the things you need when you are shopping, eliminating the stress that comes from running out of staples or when don’t have what you need for a recipe.
• Organize your pantry, refrigerator, and freezer. This will enable you to find things quickly and to see when supplies are running low.
• Have several easy, nutritious, and inexpensive recipes that you can prepare quickly on busy nights.
• Cook double batches of recipes and freeze one portion for later use.
• Make cooking a family affair. Assign different family members to be in charge of food preparation one night per week, and encourage them to be creative.