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Like most homeowners, you probably have your water heater strapped down and you flush out the gutters every spring. But there are many other tips that make a big difference in terms of both safety and thriftiness.

The home safety watchdogs at FamilyHandyman.com offer seven tips to start with:

Monitor furnace filters. Clogged furnace filters cost you in both efficiency and higher bills. For peak performance, replace them every 30 – 60 days. Keep track of when you replaced them last by buying several and labeling them by month.

Shut off the water when on vacation. Every insurance adjuster hears it: “We left town on Friday and returned Sunday evening to find thousands of dollars in water damage.” Before going on vacation, turn off the main water valve. In less than a minute, you can eliminate the most common cause of home damage.

Dont leave the remote in your car. Anyone who breaks into your car can grab the remote for easy access to your garage, and the registration card in your glove box gives the thief your address. Ditch the remote on your visor and buy a keychain model you can take with you every time you leave the car.

Think about replacing pipes. If you have galvanized steel pipes in your home and low water flow at faucets, chances are the pipes are to blame. Galvanized pipe is prone to mineral buildup, which eventually chokes off the water flow. Replacing the pipes is the best cure, especially if you live in an older home.

Check the breaker first. When a light goes out or a switch doesnt work, check the main electrical panel for a tripped circuit breaker. Look for a switch thats not in line with the others. Flip it to the ‘off’ position and then back on.

Get low flow showerheads. Showerheads are heavy water users and major energy eaters, since 70 percent of the water used is heated. By reducing hot-water consumption, a low-flow unit can pay for itself in just one month. Many of todays water-efficient showerheads now provide a high-flow feel.

Install ceiling fans. Moving air increases evaporation from your skin and helps keep you comfortable at higher thermostat settings.

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Wood floors are a top choice for modern homeowners. Proponents believe they offer warmth as well as elegance, but they do require care to maintain their luster and are costly. Fortunately, say flooring exerts, technology makes it easy to achieve the look and feel of wood flooring without the need for special care”and at a far lower cost.

Check out the look and feel of these alternatives at local flooring or big box stores. (If you don’t plan to do it yourself, factor in $30 to $45 an hour for professional installation):

Bamboo
Bamboo flooring is an eco-friendly alternative to hardwood that is easy to clean, shrugs off wear and tear, and results in a similar look. Available in vertical, horizontal or strand-woven varieties, it will cost $2 to $5 per square foot.

Engineered Wood
Designed to handle moisture and wear, engineered wood flooring is durable, moisture resistant and available in a variety of wood-look patterns. This faux wood flooring is so much like the real deal (because it includes real wood in the layering) that it can even be refinished. Expect to pay $8 to $12 per square foot.

Laminate
Laminate vinyl is a photo of wood that is laminated onto vinyl flooring. Very resistant to high-traffic wear, it’s available in a wide variety of wood-like designs. It’s moisture-resistant, making it a great choice for kitchens and bathrooms. Laminate vinyl can come in sheets, tiles or planks. The price is significantly less than hardwood, with luxury vinyl tile coming in at $2 to $5 per square foot.

Porcelain Tile
A perennially popular flooring material, porcelain flooring comes in a variety of sizes, colors, and designs, many of which mimic wood-grain textures. In general, tile is durable, easy to clean and water resistant, making it ideal for bathrooms and kitchens. Large-format tiles can serve as a dramatic decor element, visually expanding a room due to minimal grout lines. Average cost is $4 to $9 per square foot.

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Saving for a home, retirement, a vacation or anything else can be difficult.

The median retirement savings of all working-age families in the United States is $5,000, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Given that many financial advisers recommend having about $1 million in retirement, that leaves many families far short of their retirement plans.

Don’t let such big goals keep you from striving for them. Many mobile apps help people reach multiple savings goals, often in painless ways that only require the change you’d normally get at the cash register.

For a retirement plan, home down payment or other large financial goal, you’re probably best off by maximizing automatic paycheck deductions or contributing regularly to a savings account. For smaller savings goals, here are some apps to check out:

Qapital: Set multiple savings goals and have money moved into savings based on rules you set. The service is free.

You won’t have to sacrifice the things you love buying. Buying an espresso every morning at your local coffee shop? Tell the app to save $5 every time you buy coffee. Or it can round up that coffee purchase by a lower amount, such as moving a $3.50 coffee to $4 and putting that extra 50 cents in your account.

Digit: This service has a different way of helping users save money. It connects to your checking account and analyzes your income and spending and finds money it can set aside for you. It never transfers more than you can afford, so you don’t have to worry about overdrafting your account.

Digit used to be free, but now charges $3 per month for its service. A 100-day free trial is available.

Acorns: This micro-investing app turns every purchase you make into an investment.

It connects your accounts and cards that you use to make everyday purchases and rounds your purchases to the nearest dollar. That spare change is automatically invested. You can also set up recurring or one-time investments.

Acorns costs $1 per month to use. For accounts of $5,000 or more, the fee is 0.25 percent per year.

SmartyPig: This online saving account lets you save for specific goals by making automatic transfers from your linked bank account. Want to save for a new TV? SmartyPig can help you set up an account for that.

The service is free. Up to six withdrawals per account can be made each month.

I hope you found this helpful. Contact me for more insights and info.

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To stop a criminal from using your personal information to open a credit card in your name, start by preventing lenders from checking your credit unless you first unfreeze your information.

Even if you have poor credit”or are low on savings”protecting your credit from identity theft by taking advantage of a free credit freeze is a good idea.

Thieves can steal your personal information (i.e., Social Security number, driver’s license number and birth date) and create new identities to fraudulently get loans and open credit card accounts in your name.

A credit freeze prevents lenders from checking your credit in order to open a new account. So, if a criminal has your personal information and tries to open a credit card in your name, a credit freeze will stop the lender from checking your credit. If you have a credit freeze in place, you must remove it to apply for credit.

Also called security freezes, free credit freezes were required under federal law in May 2018. The three major credit reporting bureaus”Equifax, TransUnion and Experian”now allow free freezes of consumers’ credit files. The freezes prevent information from being provided to lenders unless you “thaw” the freeze with a personal identification number.

While identity thieves can steal personal information through data breaches such as the one that occurred at Equifax in September 2017 that compromised sensitive information for nearly half the population of the United States, it’s important to remember that consumers are responsible for initiating the freeze.

In addition, consumers must also keep track of the necessary PINs in order to lift the freeze before applying for any new credit. It’s also important to note that credit freezes will need to be thawed at all three credit bureaus since it’s impossible to know in advance which credit bureau a lender will use.

The new law also allows parents to create and freeze credit files for children under the age of 16 so that their identities aren’t misused.

If you’re looking to protect yourself by setting up a credit freeze, make sure you freeze your information at the three major credit reporting bureaus, as well as at the National Consumer Telecom & Utilities Exchange (NCTUE). With the NCTUE, a consumer reporting agency that provides data to some cellphone, subscription-based television services and utility companies, a freeze is free. Bear in mind that freezing your credit reports at the main credit bureaus isn’t always enough, as identity thieves can still steal your information by hacking cellphone companies and other utilities.

Setting up a security freeze is a good start when it comes to protecting your credit from identity thieves, but it won’t protect you from other types of fraud that involve someone using the credit card number you already have or impersonating you to claim your Social Security benefits.

To prevent these types of fraud, check your credit card statements for suspicious charges, check your credit reports periodically and monitor your online Social Security account.

This article is intended for informational purposes only and should not be construed as professional or legal advice.

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Paying your medical bill is one of the last things on your mind when youre at a hospital emergency room. And how that bill could affect your credit score is probably much less of a concern. But even a non-emergent hospital visit can result in a large medical bill months after your health insurance covers a portion of it. If you dont pay the bill or pay it late, it can go to collections and hurt your credit score.

Here are some of the ways unpaid medical bills can hurt your credit:

Late Payments
An unpaid medical bill can end up on your credit report in a few ways. Your doctors office may report a late payment or unpaid bill to the three major credit bureaus. A large hospital may report the outstanding bill, but a small doctors office may not. If it goes to a collections agency, the debt will likely be placed on your credit report. The largest part of a credit score is payment history. It accounts for 35 percent of a score, and shows if youve paid past credit accounts on time or missed payments entirely.

Medical Debts Weigh Less
Medical debts have less of an impact on credit scores from the Fair Isaac Corporation, or FICO, which are the most widely used. Most lenders in the U.S. use an older version of the FICO credit scoring system which doesnt pay much attention to the type or balance of a collection.

Under the old system, a small, unpaid medical bill could hurt a credit score just as much as a larger debt. The new scoring system protections dont apply if you paid the medical bill with a credit card. If the credit card bill is paid late, your credit score could still be dinged.

Wait Seven Years
Legally, collections can only stay on a credit report for up to seven years. If you can wait that long, then the medical debt will go away and your credit score should gradually improve.

If you want your credit score to improve during those seven years, some lenders may want to see that youre paying off collections that are less than seven years old. Others may not care and may continue denying you credit during that time. The more recent a collection is, the more it will hurt your FICO score.

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