From the inbox: how much should I budget for home maintenance?

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Ooh. This is a good one. The general rule of thumb is one percent of the purchase price of your home, annually. Jeff Brown, from Main St, has quite a good breakdown on what this means for you as a homeowner.

For a home price of $200,000, that’s $2,000 annually it’s recommended you plan for. You may not always spend that much but I do recommend you save it…because there will be times you do.

Last year, I had to replace my roof ($1K deductible) and repair some damage from a washer that failed ($15 part, $1K deductible).

Knock on wood and I really shouldn’t say this but this year we have been fortunate (so far) and not had any major home maintenance issues.