Empty nesting syndrome is mostly known for making people feel lonely after their children leave for college. There is a practical version of it as well though. Namely, when you have children you get help on chores (sometimes) and get used to having them help. For residents of CT this can be mitigated, with the massive amount of universities in the state it’s easy to keep the kids local enough to help out with some of the chores. However if you can’t entice them back for a weekend of manual labor in exchange for laundry and food, what can you do to make your life easier? One option is to invest in products that make house maintenance easier. A prime example of which would be gutter guards.
Gutter guards are simply shields that make falling leaves fall off the gutters instead of getting stuck in them. They’re nothing but simple little covers that can save you hours on top of a ladder. Another possible investment would be a snow blower. The point of these investments is to make the chores easier to do without having to add a high marginal cost. A snow blower isn’t cheap, but neither is having a full plow and shovel service come to make up for the fact that you don’t have your kids there to help.
Being warmer than the rest of New England CT tends to get more damp winters with heavier denser snow. Gutter guards cost money, but it’s cheaper in the long run than hiring any sort of cleaning or landscaping service. With time you might also want to invest in a leaf blower. In terms of expense, one thing to keep in mind is depending on how college is being paid for your expenses might have just dropped and you’re now feeding one less person in the house.
The goal is to find a way to reduce the amount of extra work you have to do to perform basic tasks and chores to reach closer to what you were doing when you had the help. It’s more money upfront to invest in these things, but long term they can pay off in big ways. Gutter guards are fairly affordable and can save so much misery and trouble, not to mention expense. Even if you’re lucky and live in eastern CT and your kid goes to UCONN, or ECSU, not needing to rely on them coming home to help with the chores. Just when you price these things out, compare it to the cost per visit of professionals and gauge how long it will take to make the money back. You’d be surprised how quickly things like gutter guards, snow blowers, and leaf blowers, can add up to being a net savings.
Even if you have help with the chores, gutter guards can be a great investment for any family in CT. With the sheer amount of leaves that fall it can take a lot of time to clean the gutters. V. Nanfito is a company with almost 50 years of experience serving the Nutmeg state. Call V. Nanfito at 203.639.1634.
