5 Tips for Effective Home Security Under $20

Want a secure home without busting the budget? Need a home security gift idea?

Well, many times going cheap just isn’t worth it.  But, these are quality tips that everyone should seriously consider.

It may not be all you do (I certainly hope not), but it’s an easy start for home security under $20.

The tips that we’ll recommend here are those that have a big impact and a low cost. You can see the complete list of DIY tips that we have collected and sort the table based on cost and effectiveness to see if there are others that you would implement as well.

5 Tips for Home Security Under $20

Here’s our recommendation of the first $20 you spend on home security. Of course, some of these may not be appropriate depending on your particular situation.

1. Adjust sliding glass door height or mitigate excessive vertical travel. One door that I checked was fine, but another one could be lifted pretty substantially. It probably wasn’t enough to get the door out of the track, but the play could have been sufficient to work the lock loose. So, I ran an extra screw into the top of the track to take some of the play out. ($0.25)
2. Add bars in their tracks to stop sliding glass doors and windows from opening from the outside. This is something that was pretty easy for me with materials on hand. I had two doors and one window that I added bars to. I made them out of residual lumber that I had on hand. If you don’t have any lumber or small PVC pipe and wanted to go really cheap, you can always go out and trim a long, straight branch of adequate diameter to withstand an attempt to forcefully open the door if the lock is disengaged from outside. At worst, you can pick up a long wooden dowel. ($0)
3. Implement a timer for lights to make it look like you’re home, even when you aren’t. We set ours to turn a lamp on and off when we’re out of town. ($12)
4. Improve your front door security by fortifying your swinging doors against forceful entry. To do this, I removed the existing screws holding the strike plates for my door locks and hinges and added 3.5” screws. ($4.50)
5. Secure your garage door emergency release. This included shortening the emergency release cord so that it couldn’t be easily hooked and pulled through the top of the garage door and adding guards to the lever itself. ($3)

So, what’s the damage?

[counter num_start=”0″ num_end=”20″ num_prefix=”$” num_speed=”1500″ num_color=”#272727″ text_above=”And the total is . . .”]

There you go! Put any or all of these into use to secure your home. And be sure to check out our home security systems comparison if you’re interested in going a step farther.