Dear Heloise: It’s the time of year when people start spring-cleaning and adding fresh touches to their homes. One of the best things that you can do to improve your home is to declutter. When I say ‘declutter,’ I don’t mean throwing things out and replacing them with new clutter. I mean getting rid of items that you don’t love, gifts that you don’t like, and all the craft materials for that one hobby you’re going to do … someday. These hints might be of help to you as you go through your home: — Don’t do the whole house at once. Take it one room at a time, but get busy and dig in! You might do your closet today, and two or three days later, you can tackle the rest of the room.

You’ll avoid burnout this way.

— Don’t say, ‘I might need this in the future.’ It’s clutter, so get rid of it and remember that you might never need it!

—You live in a home, not a storage unit. Stop saving stuff that you don’t use or like. If you haven’t worn a party dress in two years, you probably never will again.

— Donate items to charity or have a garage sale, but don’t box up clutter and store it in your attic, basement or garage.

Get it out of your home and off your property.

— Before you buy anything new to replace what you parted with, ask yourself: ‘Do I really need this? How will this make my life better?’ —Once you get rid of all the clutter, your home will be easier to clean.

You’ll improve its appearance, and it’s a wonderful sense of accomplishment to open up the kitchen junk drawer and see it organized beautifully.

Many people experience a sense of freedom once all the clutter is gone.

Good luck, and remember to be ruthless when decluttering! — J.L., in Massachusetts KEEPING THE HOUSE COOL Dear Heloise: Our neighbor gave us a great suggestion to lower our cooling bills during the summer. He installed solar and sun screens on the windows that are on the sunny side of his house. These screens block the majority of the UV rays on the hot side of his home. So, we had a mobile screen company come to install them on ours.

Oh, it’s so easy. And I’ll do anything to save money! I love your wonderful column. Keep it up! — S., in California GARAGE DOOR KEYPAD Dear Heloise: A lot of folks have an outside keypad to open their garage doors. With many brands, though, the ‘enter’ key will also have a down arrow so you don’t need to enter a code to get the door to go down.

That being said, some folks like to leave the garage door open a bit for air circulation or pet access. In this case, someone can push the enter key to cause the door to go down, then push it again so that the door will go up. Then they are in your garage. Try it. Thanks! — C.M., in Houston HIGH-TECH WAYS TO TRACK YOUR PETS Dear Heloise: There are a number of new gadgets to monitor your precious pets, such as collars with a GPS and a video camera. Boarding and daycare places have doggie cams so that you can check on your pooch from your laptop or smartphone. — B., in Washington

(Send a money-saving or time-saving hint to Heloise@Heloise.com. I can’t answer your letter personally but will use the best hints received in my column.)