If you are thinking about doing any type of home and garden renovation your list of experts to help you might include an electrician, an architect or a landscape gardener. However, have you thought to include a financial planner on your list? It is likely not, as most people think financial planners are only for sorting out investments and pensions. On the contrary, they can assist with any project which requires financing and home renovation is one of them.

There are countless examples of homeowners embarking on a home renovation project, and seeing the whole thing grind to a halt because the project was not planned properly with regards to financing it. The costs might have spiralled out of control, or an expected bill which caused them to reach their credit card limit are just two of the dramas that may have befallen them.

Assuming you don’t want the same to happen to you, the sensible option is to employ the services of a financial planner so that any concerns you may have for your home renovation project are allayed with regards to money and financing.

In practical terms, there are several ways a financial planner can assist you when planning any kind of home or garden renovation. Firstly, they can look at your overall financial health, and suggest ways you might be able to improve your financial situation to make the project more affordable.

There are numerous ways this could be achieved, but some easy ones might be to switch credit card companies to reduce your monthly payment and/or the interest you pay. Another might be to cash in any old insurance policies or company share certificates to generate cash for your project.

For the project itself, the advice you receive from your financial planner will be influenced by the scale of what you plan to do. Smaller projects such as decorating or some decking on your back porch will obviously take less time and resources than an extension being built.

For smaller projects, the advice might simply be to ensure you get multiple quotes, testimonials about the contractor, an agreed price and timescale, plus advice on the most sensible way to finance the project.

Larger projects will require much more detailed planning from a financial perspective. This could be in relation to releasing equity from your property, and the best way to do that, or in the largest of projects even looking at remortgaging your property if it makes sense to do so.

Another positive aspect of using a financial planner is they will be able to advise how much any given renovation will add to the value of your home. This is a huge consideration when deciding how much you wish to spend in the first place.

Ultimately you want to be safe in the knowledge that you won’t run out of funds halfway through the project. By employing a financial planner to forecast your cash flow situation in relation to the project in advance, you will ensure your home or garden renovation gets completed.