Parents have a lot of responsibilities to their children. They have to provide food, shelter, clothing and love. In addition, they have to teach manners, how to tie shoes and how to use the potty. While parents do have a lot on their plates, they can’t forget the importance of teaching their kids health and fitness.It’s very important that children learn at a young age about healthy eating and exercise. If they learn to love fruits and vegetables and enjoy being active as children, it will really help them the rest of their lives.It can be easy for parents to get caught up in other things that they don’t think about health and fitness. With work, errands, cooking, cleaning and just taking care of a child’s need, it can seem that there is no time to devote to exercise or think about what kids are eating. After all, it’s quicker to give your kids a processed snack or pick up fast food than it is to prepare a healthy snack or lunch.Parents can use many excuses for not doing the right things. They’re too busy, too tired, or they just don’t know what to do or how to change. You can always find an excuse for not doing something. At some point, you just have to come to the realization that it’s important and you have to find a way to make it happen.Childhood obesity is a major problem and it’s because too many parents make excuses. They don’t take responsibility for their child’s health. The easy route is to let your kids watch as much TV as they want. But the best thing for them is to make them turn of the TV and do something active. The same is often true for food.First, parents should start educating themselves about health and fitness. Purchase more fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds and stop buying a lot of processed snacks. Take 30 minutes out of your day to participate in some fun kids exercises with your children. If you do it with them, they are more likely to join in.Teaching your kids about health and fitness is a conscious choice. It takes effort, but in the end it is well worth it. Show your kids that being healthy will help them feel better and live a long, happy life. As a parent, that is one of the greatest gifts you can give them.
How does one determine when to sell a rental property investment? If you are going to buy rental properties – having a plan in place for the appropriate time to sell is important.I have worked with many individuals over the years and showed them how to buy rental property. There are many things that need to be considered when purchasing for investment purposes. There is also – definitely – a time to sell.How to Buy an Investment Property- Is the property in a convenient location? Is it near shopping, in a neighborhood with good schools, and is it easily accessible to interstates and connecting roads?- Does the potential investment property have a sound foundation? What sort of issues does the home have? If it needs a new roof or the foundation is sunken in and is creating issues within the structure, it might not be a good investment at this time. If the issues are only cosmetic (needs a new bathroom floor, or painting, or carpeting) it may be worthwhile. Inspection reports will reveal the property’s flaws so the buyer and real estate professional can make a good decision.- Do you have enough of a down payment to purchase the rental property so financing will not be an issue? In the current real estate market, most lenders will see a down payment of 40-50% as a good risk. If you can invest 100% into the property – this is even better.- Income gained from the property needs to exceed expenses. Identify a credit worthy tenant, a reliable property manager, and a solid lease to make your property investment profitable. Property management fees are tax deductible.- For residential property investments, single-family homes as well as multi-tenant properties such as duplexes and fourplexes are great ways to build income and wealth. Some investors may want to consider apartment complexes. In this case a commercial property loan will be necessary to obtain financing.- Use depreciation on the investment property as a way to receive an annual tax deduction. Check with your accountant, who will apply the depreciation deduction on the building, appliances — even window treatments. The government still allows tax deductions for accelerated depreciation on properties. Savvy real estate investors use this deduction to increase cash flow and net operating profit on a property.When to Sell a Rental PropertyI have a term for properties that need to be sold: alligator properties. These are properties that are eating the investor alive with carrying costs. When an investor looks at the bottom line on an alligator property – there is no profit – just expenses. An alligator property today may have been a good investment ten years ago. But some individuals will continue to hold a property until it depletes all of the profits they may have made in the first 5-7 years.If a property has sentimental value (it was your first home, or your mother once owned it but now she’s deceased), some investors may tend to want to hold onto it. Having an emotional attachment to an investment property that is supposed to be generating income is not good. Sometimes an individual will hold this type of property even if it is not profitable. It may be time to consider selling this property.- After a certain number of years, the depreciation tax deduction is used up on a property. Ask your accountant when this depreciation is no longer applicable. When the investment can no longer be depreciated – it’s time to sell that property, and purchase another rental.- Consider selling the property and applying the 1031 tax code, so no capital gains tax is imposed on the profits. To paraphrase, the code states that an owner can sell one property in exchange for a securitized piece of property or tenant in common piece of property. Roll the profits from one property into a new investment to increase wealth and maintain it.- On average, in the 12th year of property ownership — it is time to sell an investment. The decision to sell will depend on two factors. 1. Is there enough equity in the property to sell? Or, have you pulled out too much equity in the property? 2. Will the real estate market allow you to sell and obtain a nice profit? Ask a real estate professional for a custom market analysis on the property to see if it’s realistic to obtain a price that nets a nice profit.- Alligator properties are not profitable for a variety of reasons. I am amazed at the number of investors who are not even aware that their property is losing money. If you have a property that might be losing money, then ask your real estate professional or accountant to perform a cost to income analysis. If it is indeed an alligator property — consider selling.Investors buy and sell equities all the time. There is a time to purchase and a time to sell a home as well.
Most people conclude that making money online is very difficult and it cannot be done without having computer skills, knowledge of programming, and marketing experience; however, there is a specific formula that lets you earn money online without any of those special skills.The most rich and successful online marketers are using this exact formula, or some variation of it to make handsome full-time livings online. In fact, the median salary for an Internet marketer is over $80,000 per year. In this article you will find the 5 key steps to take anyone from zero dollars online to regular and predictable money online.The five steps to making money online are as follows:1. Pick a niche
2. Choose products to promote
3. Build the foundation
4. Give away something amazing for FREE
5. Build a relationship and make offers to your prospectsNow, let’s discuss each of these five steps in detail so you can get a better handle on what it really takes to make money online.Step 1: Pick a niche
One of the most crucial things that beginners tend to get wrong is choosing the right niche or marketplace to build an audience. Most novice marketers will skim over this step which is the surest and fastest way to go broke when trying to make money online.Now, the important thing when choosing a marketplace is to do enough research to conclude whether or not the niche you want to enter is profitable. Also, if you choose one that is too big then you will find it to be insanely competitive and it will be hard for you to find an identity. It’s also very hard to create compelling value for a huge group of people with different sub-interests.The best advice when choosing a niche is to drill down on a narrow sub-niche of a marketplace that is already profitable. To look at an example, a popular (but big) niche is the health & fitness marketplace. If you wanted to choose a sub-niche of this marketplace you might look at a few options like Organic Diets, or KettleBell Workouts, or Lose Weight From Home. These examples are small segments of a huge marketplace, but if you spend a little time to uncover them you will be ahead of the 95% of people trying to make money online.Step 2: Choose Products to Promote
Many entrepreneurial addicts want to do everything, especially when it comes to creating and building the product. When just beginning, avoid the urge to build products. To quickly start making money online you should start out by selling other people’s stuff. This business model is called Affiliate marketing and is most commonly used by brands like Amazon, Netflix, and the like.Affiliate marketing will let you earn money online faster than creating your own brand of products. Once you have put together a system for nurturing new leads, marketing products, have built a small one page website (more on that in step 3), and have learned which hooks to avoid, you can start to build your first product. Luckily, you can take advantage of a new business model very similar to affiliate marketing, but with a slight modification making it immensely more profitable. More on that in a moment but you can immediately take advantage of sites like ClickBank, JVZoo, Commission Junction, and thousands of other different affiliate programs.Step 3: Build the Foundation
Making money online requires real estate dedicated to conducting business, a sort of store front. Simply sending traffic through your affiliate links will not sell many products in the long term. Doing this is a sure way to waste your ad spend and sacrifice long term business relationships.For a real business savvy long-term approach to earn money online, I suggest to establish a website. Your website can be as simple as a one page “landing page” which captures leads via an opt-in form. Modern software allows smart marketers to create drip fed campaigns of automated emails that go out to nurture your prospects. This tool is the crucial secret that will help you to make money online systematically and predictably.Step 4: Give away something amazing for FREE
On your landing page give away something absolutely amazing, meaning something your prospects will literally walk over glass barefoot to get, and give it to them for free.Specifically if you’re marketing other people’s products you will want to pre-sell the service or product, add on top of the value, and foster a sense of trust. The way to achieve this outcome is by giving away free content that will attract your target market, and have them saying “Did I pay for this?”After opting in to your subscriber list prospects will be drip fed a series of emails which establish authority, trust, nurture a relationship, and make relevant value-driven offers. Image being able to communicate specific conversations with each of your leads you get… in a specific order, at specific times according to their subscription signup date. This strategy is very powerful.Step 5: Build a relationship and make offers to your prospects
By using autoresponder software like Aweber or GetResponse you will have the ability to create automated campaigns that can build your authority in the eyes of new prospects, and nurture your relationship. This ability is paramount in successful business because people do not buy from people they don’t know, like and trust.Inside the same campaigns that build trust and authority with new prospects will also feature your affiliate campaigns. Now that you have built trust and authority with your community of subscribers they will be molded and receptive to your endorsement of products that can help them achieve their desired result.
Whether you’re in the market for a major interior overhaul or you’re simply looking to give your home a quick and easy update, chances are you’ve spent some time online hunting for ideas and inspiration. That said, it can be pretty deflating to stumble upon a look you love only to discover the price to achieve it is well above your budget.
Fortunately, there are some killer home decorating blogs that show you how to refresh, revive, and fall in love with your home anew without breaking the bank. For a home that looks far more expensive than it costs to create, check out the following blogs for all of the interior inspiration and DIY tutorials you’ll ever need.
Welcome back to the week 5 update for the One Room Challenge. Check out the blog posts and updates for week 1, week 2, week 3, and week 4 if you missed them. It’s crunch time now and I’ll be honest… I don’t know that this project will be completely wrapped up for the reveal date. The great thing is the reveal and hitting a deadline is not the only goal of reason for this challenge. Ultimately having a fully functional and hopefully beautiful bathroom is where we want to end up even it things are a bit delayed.
Disclosure: this post contains affiliate links.
When we left off last time the countertops had been templated, the trim was freshly painted and the hardware had been ordered. The hardware took about 1 week to arrive. We chose the Menlo Park 4″ pull from Schlub in chrome because I think the pull has the perfect mix of square and some rounded elements that make it a great transitional hardware option. We went with all pulls for the drawers and doors since the knob option in that line weren’t our favorite.
Guest Bathroom Reno: Quartz Countertops and Grout – One Room Challenge Week 5
The quartz countertops are now installed and things can be put back together. Rectangle, undercount sinks were also purchased through the fabricator. The Marble look quartz from Pental and it is gorgeous with the warm gray veins running throughout. For the edge went for a flat polish eased edge for a clean, simple look.
Guest Bathroom Reno: Quartz Countertops and Grout – One Room Challenge Week 5
Two days after the quartz countertops were installed the tile installer came back to finish up tiling the niches, installing the tile base and grout everything.
Guest Bathroom Reno: Quartz Countertops and Grout – One Room Challenge Week 5
The electoral is being relocated for the new lights. There are some drywall and painting touch ups to do and plumbing fixtures to be hooked up. Plus adding all the finishing touches ???? All those little things like towel hooks, curtain rod, and accessories will bring this whole thing together.
It’s been too long since I’ve updated and even longer since this work has been started. This is me sharing remodel updates, mostly for myself (but also for my nagging family members). I’m sharing photos of the progress that has been made while also document the craziness that has gone on. This is just the beginning of the remodel.
Prior to moving in I had 3-4 weeks where my apartment lease overlapped with the possession of my townhome. This allowed me, with the amazing help of my family, to paint, tear-out carpet and somewhat put back together the upstairs portion of my place so that I could have a clean room to put a bed. At least one that wasn’t completely torn apart. One area that felt more livable that the rest. If you haven’t seen or don’t remember these are the before photos from when I took possession. To list it out here are the main things that I was tacking during those week prior to me moving in.
Phase 1 Remodel Projects
ripping out baseboard, carpet and tack strips upstairs and preparing for new hard surface flooring. (this flooring will go throughout minus the stairs and bathrooms/laundry)
installing flooring upstairs (one of my installers did this)
mostly gutting the master bathroom
installing a new tub and rough in plumbing for the master and powder bath
ordering and installing a rift white oak vanity for the master
Painting (and priming where needed) the ceilings and walls of the bedrooms. Caulking and painting the crown molding in the master
replacing and upgrading the baseboard heater in the master and patch the drywall
painting the hallway and down through the stairwell
adding skirt board to the stairs
installing new carpet and pad on the stairs (my carpet installer from work did this)
removing upper cabinets on the fridge side in the kitchen
partially demoing the wall diving the kitchen (prepare to move switches, outlets, heater and thermostat)
removing drywall on wall next to bar in dining area
painting the downstairs powder bath and removing vanity to prepare for a new floating vanity
Those were the main projects that took place and then I moved in the day after Thanksgiving. Getting rid of the original, nasty cat carpet and new flooring made a huge difference to the upstairs. Also neutralizing and lightening the paint made things feel so much more fresh. I still have no baseboards but I’ll get on that one day! For now here are some photos that I snapped along the way.
It’s been a while since been posting on here but I have some new updates and projects that I have been working on. Last summer into fall I was house hunting while knowing the lease on my apartment would be expiring end of the 2019. It felt a little crazy but was a fun process for me. After a bunch of searching I found and closed on a new home!
I was lucky enough to have a few weeks of overlap with my apartment (I ended up moving out 1 month early) so I was able to get started on projects and updates prior to moving in. I’ll share more about those in the coming weeks (there are still so many unfinished things!) but for now I think it’s best to start with some before photos. Also, follow along on Instagram where I post current project updates more often. The pictures show it in the state I bought it in. It’s a great first place to me and was functional as-is but as you might expect I’m here to make things my own by doing updates that I will enjoy while living here and that will also add value and functionality to the space down the line when I sell… or maybe even keep it as a rental. My dog, Nova, has been enjoying the space as well ???? There are a couple of things to miss about my Bothell apartment but I am very ready to have my own place and space.
In 2017 the guest bathroom was remodeled. You can see more photos and read about that here. Almost everything came out and all new things went back in. From emails and comments people have been asking for sources so I have rounded up what I could in this post to share paint colors, products and links that I could find for the bathroom.
Bathroom Sources and Details:
Wall color: BM Balboa Mist
Trim and door color: BM Chantilly Lace
Floor Tile: Pental Mark Chrome 12×24 matte
Shower tile: Jeffrey Court Weather Gray 4×12 gloss subway
Niche tile: Daltile clio mosaic
Bathtub: Maax Rubix tub
Cabinet: Spencer Cabinets – painted BM Cape May Cobblestone
Countertop: Pental Quartz Misterio polished 3cm
Cabinet hardware: Schaub Menlo Park Pull in chrome
Faucets: Hansgrohe Metris single handle in chrome
Shower trims: Kohler slide bar kit, wall mount supply and Hansgrohe tub spout in chrome
Mirrors: Homegoods
Towel Hooks: Delta Tolva robe hook in chrome