With housing costs averaging $17,000 a year we all need to find ways to reduce on our largest budgetary expense; our household.

Here are 5 ways to save you thousands of dollars this year!

1. Appeal your tax bill. Recent market declines mean you may be paying too much in property taxes. Contact your local assessor or tax collector for details. You may even be able to do it online.

2. Look into refinancing your property while interest rates are still low

3. Look into reduce your mortgage payments through a loan modification. Check out www.makinghomesaffordable.gov for details.

4. Consider boosting the deductible on your homeowners insurance policy.

5. Cut back on energy usage. Just dropping your thermostat from 70 degrees to 68 can save you big bucks.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 15th, 2010 at 12:40 am and is filed under Investing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.