Archives for 2020

When you get right down to it, money has two basic uses. It can be employed to make more money, or it can be used solely to acquire goods and services. Here’s the thing, though: If you use money to make more money, you’ll always have cash for goods and services.

Helping children learn this lesson at an early age greatly improves the nature of their relationship with their finances. Moreover, educators agree learning is most effective when it’s combined with fun. These board games you can use to teach children about money will make doing so much easier to accomplish.

Yes, there are many online games and apps designed for this purpose as well, but they tend to be solitary in nature. The beauty of the classic board game is the entire family can play together, making it a social event as well as an educational opportunity cloaked in fun.

Monopoly

This classic has been around since the early days of the 20th century. Originally patented as The Landlord’s Game, Monopoly is primarily focused around real estate transactions, but it also involves budgeting, investing and using money strategically. Kids are introduced to idea of paying taxes, too. While the goal of the game is to bankrupt your competition and gain monopoly status, it also imparts the lesson that managing your money wisely is how you win the game.

The Game of Life

Another long-lived “pastime,” The Game of Life debuted in 1960. As its name implies, playing it touches upon circumstances children will experience as they progress in life. The game covers getting a secondary education, selecting a career path, choosing a life partner, becoming a parent and, of course, handling money. To win, a player must set aside a nest egg and retire — both of which can be accomplished more readily with a sound education and well-reasoned investments.

Pay Day

Dating back to the 1970s, Pay Day helps children understand how to use money wisely. Lessons imparted include the fundamentals of budgeting as well as engaging in entrepreneurial activities. Newer versions include windfall situations such as sweepstakes, lotteries, casino nights and jackpots, which can make winning easier. Meanwhile, early versions of the game have insurance and savings options that are missing from later versions. Not sure what this says about modern attitudes but do your kids a favor and scour eBay for older versions of the game.

Act Your Wage!

Noted debt guru Dave Ramsey came up with Act Your Wage to help children learn to see debt freedom as a desirable outcome. Players win by saving a $1,000 emergency fund, budgeting using the envelope system and paying off debt using the snowball effect.

About the only thing missing from the game’s debt eradication scenario is the option to contract a debt negotiation firm like Freedom Debt Relief to help make overwhelming debts more manageable.

Charge Large

Also designed to teach the benefits of living debt free, this game acknowledges the fact that certain uses of credit can be both beneficial and necessary. Simply put, Charge Large teaches children how to use debt wisely. Players begin with a cache of gold, an entry-level credit card and cash. They must upgrade that basic card to a black one, accumulate $2,500 in cash and achieve debt freedom.

Using board games like these to teach children about money is far better than letting them grow up to learn the hard way — with no guidance. Plus, these games present an opportunity for the entire family to spend fun time together, even as you impart valuable life lessons.

People renovate because they want their house to look more beautiful and feel even more comfortable. Take your home renovation plan as a business plan, or as a unique project, you are starting from scratch. You can choose to hire architecture to plan for you, but to save money, the first thing is to take charge of the project and do it to yourself.For those looking to find out ways to renovate their house beautifully but economically, then the information below will help.

Divide and Conquer

As earlier mentioned, effective planning is the key driver for effective renovation. If you choose to renovate yourself, then you should focus on both the bigger picture and the smaller parts. But when you hire an architect for renovation, he will carefully assess your requirements and then renovate accordingly.

Budgeting

Now that you intend to renovate your house economically, it is critically important for you to decide the total expenditure requirements that will lead to effortless, expertly created home renovations. It is also important to remember in your budge that you cannot overestimate it, always keep your budget underestimated and then move on to researching for things you need.

Research

You will be surprised at the number of choices you have once you start your research. The most beautiful lamp that you love at a high-end store might be purchased at a lower price from elsewhere. This implies that during the renovation of your room on a budget, you must remember that: When you research to find the furniture you need, paint you like or the decorations you would require in your house. You are most likely to find most of the supplies at a relatively low price. Taking advantage of shopping online, thrift stores, and even second-hand furniture shops and see how far you can go.

Doors Create the First Impression

The entry is the first impression of any house. If you are not able to change your door completely and if the existing entry is in excellent condition, then you must repaint your door. Your doors will also affect the lighting of your room, and you can benefit from this fantastic technique interior design.

Paint Affects Lighting

As mentioned before, painting effects lighting; hence during renovation, you might opt for new paint. In such a situation, if you are already on a budget, purchasing a variety of colored pallets

might seem counterintuitive. If you are on a relatively tight budget, then go for a black and white palette, it will give your house a modern, appealing look and you will have the guarantee that you will never go wrong with white or black.

Light Comes through the Windows

When renovating your house, ensure you install large windows. Sometimes you may not have enough money to change your window, in such case play around with paint and paint your windows a lighter shade than the rest of the room to allow maximum light coming through the windows.

The goal of renovating your home on a budget is to find effortless, expertly created home renovations that will last longer.

Those moms who are trying to balance the work of raising their children and also the task of bettering their careers can lead busy lives. It can be difficult for a person to focus fully on their family and also on their job. There are some things that you can do as a busy mom to advance your career.

Take on a side hustle

A side hustle can be a great way to earn some extra money, but it’s also useful for developing your career and maybe give you the option to pursue something you really care about. Are you into fitness? Why not get a group exercise certification and start running some classes? You could also turn your passion for writing into a blog or become a freelance copywriter. If you have skills you want to explore before taking the plunge full-time, then a side hustle is a great way to do this.

Look into Online Degree Programs:

When a person expands their education, they advance their career and open new doors for their self. Busy moms should consider online accounting graduate programs and similar opportunities online to further your education. Taking classes online might help you to move up the ladder at your current job or find a new position at another business.

Find Simple Ways of Adding to a Portfolio:

If you are a creative individual and you have a portfolio that you have put together that shows some of the work that you have completed, you should always be looking for simple ways of adding to that portfolio. If you create birthday invitations for your friend’s child, you should add a sample of those to your portfolio. If you design something special for one of your children, you can add that to your portfolio to help show off the work that you can do.

Take on Projects at Work When Time Allows:

When there are extra projects that someone needs to complete at your business and you feel like you have the free time needed at work to complete one of them, take that on. If you are able to fit in a little extra work while you are at the office and you can get something done without spending more time away from your children, jump on that opportunity to prove yourself and possibly advance your career.

Network and Make Connections:

Do what you can to connect with people who are working in fields related to the one that you are working in. Do what you can to meet new people on a regular basis and to share your contact information with them. Networking is something that is important for any person who is looking to advance their career, and it is something that even a busy mom can focus on and accomplish.

Make a List of Goals:

It is important for a person to know what their goals are in life if they hope to advance and improve. If you are looking to  go back to school and/or do better in your career, you need to know which ways you are hoping to improve and what you are going to do to make progress toward your goals. Figure out what you want for the future, and then advance your career by working toward – and accomplishing – your goals.

There are things that busy moms can do when they are looking to better their lives and advance their careers. A mom focuses on her family all of the time, and there are simple things that moms like you can do to turn some of your attention to your job and make advancements in the workplace.

People spend thousands of dollars on home upgrades. They might be thinking of selling the home right now or are looking to sell the home in the future. They think they can get the money back when they sell the house, but they rarely do. Some renovations are not worth the money. For example, Readers Digest listed 32 home improvement ideas that are a huge waste of money.

Included on their list were items such as:

· New HVAC systems

· New decks

· Sunrooms

· Swimming pools

· New faucets and fixtures

· Built-in swimming pools and hot tubs

· Expensive, out of the ordinary landscaping

· Murals and wallpaper

· Built-in fishtanks

· Home gyms

· Saunas and steam rooms

· Fireplace mantles

· Solar panels

· Over renovating bathrooms and kitchens.

Many home improvements provide a rotten return on investment

For example, a basement renovation typically only returns less than half of the money spent on it. The same with a major kitchen remodel. They say kitchens sell homes, but what good is that if you only get back fifty percent of the money spent.

Seven things you can do inexpensively

There are several things you can do inexpensively: 1. For a few hundred dollars, companies such as Rustica can set you up with fabulous interior Dutch doors between your living room and the kitchen. For your front door, you can add a little paint, preferably black or smokey grey, the colors Zillow says to add to get the most return on investment, and you’ve made a terrific start. 2. Buy one quality appliance instead of remodeling. According to keenlykristin.com, buying one quality appliance makes a ton more sense than remodeling an entire kitchen and losing thousands of dollars in resale.

3. Use tile or high-grade linoleum over hardwood. Both tile and modern linoleum are fantastic choices over hardwood. They are infinitely cheaper, yet even linoleum looks terrific in the modern styles available.

4. Think about refinishing the deck. If you sand down your original deck and re-stain it, it will look like a million bucks for perhaps $200 or less.

5. Think about revamping your kitchen cabinets. If you sand and repaint your kitchen cabinets then repaint them, you’ll wonder if you are even in the same house. True, it takes some elbow grease and a creative touch, but you can have a completely new looking kitchen for around $100.

6. Repaint old faucet fixtures. Modern paint companies such as Rustoleum make modern spray paints in metallic look gold that looks fantastic and runs around $7 a can. This will save thousands on a bathroom remodel. Add a new rug and a shower curtain, and you are gold.

7. Consider stenciling a custom floor. You can give any room in your home a thousand dollar look with ordinary wall paint. Check out this YouTube video, Stenciling Floors, to learn how.

Saving money

Search the internet and you will find literally dozens of home remodeling sites. If you look further, you will see the vast majority of them treat home remodeling like money is no object.

While it’s true that if you plan on living in a house for another 20 or so years, a home remodeling project may make life more livable. People are moving out of their homes and relocating or staying in the same city, but they are either downsizing or upgrading at an increasing rate. The average is around 11 years in one home in most cities, but in that span of time, some people will have moved in and out of their home three or four times.

With rapid relocation, in many cases, it makes sense to do as little as possible to renovate your home. Instead, it makes financial sense to cut loose with the old and buy new. This is particularly important advice for those in transition periods such as when an elderly parent dies or their children grow up and go to college.

Still, to sell quickly and at a good price, a home needs to look modern. So it’s a great idea to investigate inexpensive ways to renovate a home.