With crime rates increasing across the country, it seems that even middle-class suburbs are no longer the safe havens that they once were. I don’t consider myself an alarmist by any means, but I do take safety seriously — particularly where my family is involved. That’s why I’ve spent the last couple of weeks shopping around for a good home security system.

I have never had a home security system before, so I was under the impression that they were extremely expensive, complicated to set up, and required long-term contracts with an alarm monitoring company. However, after I started looking into these products a bit more, I learned that none of my initial fears have any real merit, as home security systems have become far more affordable to the average consumer in recent years.