THE DOWNLOAD MONEY MATTERS
Depending on your home’s size, a do-it- yourself exterior paint job costs about $500 to $1,000 for paint and supplies.
upgrades also provide a more than 80% ROI. Granite, marble, travertine, and soapstone provide the highest ROI. ROI: 80%-100%.
Get some new flooring. Old carpets
or worn fl oors are often overlooked for fl ashier projects, but replacing fl ooring is an aff ordable job that can add value to your home. Recarpeting bedrooms costs from $2 to $10 per square foot, while refi nishing wood fl oors costs $3 to $8 per square foot. Depending on your room’s
size, you can redo a living space, bedrooms, or whole fl oor with a $1,500 budget, and if you’re handy, laminate or vinyl plank fl ooring can be even less expensive and is relatively easy to install. ROI: Up to 80%.
$2,000-PLUS REFUND Carve out a guest bathroom. “The
guest bathroom might be a surprise on this list, but most people don’t realize how important it is until they don’t have one,” says Mark Severino, a real estate investor at Best Texas House Buyers in Dallas. No homeowner feels comfortable telling guests to walk through their master bedroom to use a bathroom, so having an option for them can be a home game changer.
Fixr.com estimates that a guest
bath can cost anywhere from $2,000 to $10,000 depending on whether you’re updating an existing space or adding a new one. If you have a powder room
that feels dated, a new vanity, lighting, mirror, fl oor tile, and toilet are all relatively inexpensive additions to
upgrade your look. ROI: 50%.
Adding a home of ice. The growing
need for a home offi ce emerged as a direct result of the pandemic, and work-from-home trends aren’t abating in the aftermath. “It is essentially new on a
list like this, because it wasn’t a necessity for most people until recently,” Severino says. With remote work and telecommuting on the rise, having an offi ce space is more valuable than ever. You can turn a closet or storage space into a designated offi ce, or even carve out a corner of the kitchen for a desk area. Depending on how elaborate or private your needs, maybe remaster a guest bedroom to double as offi ce space. A home offi ce can increase your home value by about 10%. ROI: 87%
according to a 2020 HomeLight Top Agent Insights survey.
AMAZON RX PERK Amazon announced a new
prescription perk for Prime members. The new RxPass will allow Prime users to order as many generic drugs as they need from a list of 50 for $5 per month with free delivery. The drugs treat more than 80 common conditions, including high blood pressure, anxiety, and high cholesterol.
MINIMUM WAGE BOOST The federal minimum wage of $7.25
hasn’t budged since 2009, but some minimum wage workers got a boost this year. Twenty-three states and Washington, D.C., have already raised their minimum wage, and four more will follow later this year. The increases ranged from 23 cents in Michigan to $1.50 more in Nebraska.
STUDENT LOAN DEAL While President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan is tied up in the Supreme Court awaiting a ruling, you can still take advantage of the current income-driven repayment plans for student loans. These plans are designed to make your monthly student loan payment aff ordable based on your income and family size. There are four plans, and if you make less than $30,500 as a single or $62,400 in a four-member family, your payments may even be reduced to $0. Go to
studentaid.gov for information.
EGG PRICE BEATER Egg prices have doubled since 2021. The reason? The longest and deadliest bird flu on record. But you can out-stymie the egg shortage by stocking up when you see a reasonable sale price. And you don’t have to limit yourself to what you’ll use in the next week or so. You can freeze your eggs. Just crack them into a bowl, beat them, and place them in portion-sized containers. They keep up to a year in the freezer.
APRIL 2023 | NEWSMAX MAXLIFE 73
FORM/MEHANIQ/SHUTTERSTOCK / COINS/FISHER PHOTOSTUDIO/SHUTTERSTOCK
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