Around 6 million people purchased homes in 2019. Approximately 33% of those people were first-time homebuyers. If you are considering a home purchase, it is crucial to understand what the most common mortgage terms mean. Some words are self-explanatory; others are not. Knowing these can help you navigate through one of the more confusing aspects of homebuying.
Adjustable-Rate Mortgage
An adjustable-rate mortgage or ARM has a flexible interest rate that changes over time. This can vary your monthly payment drastically depending on the National Interest Rate. Sometimes the fluctuation makes your payment lower, but it can also make it higher as well.
Balloon Payment Mortgage
A mortgage where the last payment is considerably higher than the others, essentially paying off the mortgage. You hear this term more when dealing with investment property than other types. When you have a balloon payment, you either have to refinance your home before the end of the term or have the money to pay that final payment.
Contingency
A contingency is an agreement or stipulation that needs to be satisfied before the home is sold. This could be a home inspection or repair. Many mortgage companies will put contingencies on a property before lending money.
Encumbrance
An encumbrance is any monetary lien that lowers the home’s value, usually lien, such as a tax lean, EPA lien, or mortgage. If a property is encumbered, the amount of the encumbrance must be paid before the property changes hands. This is done before the sale, or it is included in the buyer’s mortgage.
Prepayment Clause
A penalty that you pay when you pay off your mortgage in advance. Bank loans with a prepayment clause usually force you to pay off things like interest before you can pay off the mortgage.
Buying a house can be an enjoyable experience if you know what you are doing. These are just a few of the terms you should know while you shop for your new home.
With summer in full swing, it is the perfect time to enjoy the beauty of the outdoors. If it’s a little too hot for your liking, you can always bring the scent of the outside in with powders from Sacred Kratom. However, if you are feeling more adventurous, you can venture out to some of the most beautiful botanical gardens around the country.
Japanese Garden in Portland
A 5.5-acre retreat from the hustle and bustle of Portland, Oregon, this oasis is home to five different gardening styles. The authenticity is unmatched outside of a true garden location in Japan, and it boasts a tea garden, strolling pond, flat garden, sand and stone garden, and a natural garden. This is a great place to find serenity in the city.
Brooklyn Botanical Garden
An oldie but a goodie, this botanical garden founded in 1910 is home to more than 10,000 different kinds of plants from around the world. Even in the wintertime, you can enjoy the indoor tropical garden, but many plan their visit around springtime for the annual bloom that occurs on dozens of cherry blossom trees.
Desert Botanical Garden
Off the more traditional interpretation of botanical garden but just as impressive it is the Desert Botanical Garden in the heart of Phoenix. There are more than 140 acres that display over 50,000 plant species. Visitors to the garden can walk five different loops to enjoy the showcase of herbs, wildflowers, and cacti. The garden also hosts special events such as ballet presentations and outdoor music concerts.
Longwood Garden
If you’ve never been to Versailles, this is a comparable substitute. Founded by Pierre du Pont, the property reveals how beautiful a symmetrical hedge can be and how fountains can indeed be jaw-dropping.
You don’t need to stay cooped up indoors spraying room mists to feel the magic of nature. Head off to a botanical garden and soak in the sun and smell of all the beauty that Earth has to offer.
You know how much I LOVE spending time in the Hamptons. I have spent many summers wandering in and out of the local shops, sitting on the beautiful beaches, visiting all the local farms, stalking Grey Gardens, and enjoying so much more that the Eastern End of LI has to offer. When I saw this book over the weekend, The Ladies Village Improvement Society Cookbook: Eating and Entertaining in East Hampton, I had to order it. This book is choc-full of such amazing recipes and beautiful photographs.
A delicious melding of traditional taste with the flavors of the Hamptons, this cookbook offers 100 recipes for entertaining as well as for everyday meals.
Gifted with waters brimming with local fish and with farmland that produces a bounty of fruit and vegetables, the Hamptons have long been a destination for food lovers. Now, one of the most historic organizations on the island pairs with legendary food writer Florence Fabricant to capture the local color through a collection of recipes from members of the Ladies’ Village Improvement Society, renowned chefs and celebrities who live or vacation in East Hampton (including Martha Stewart, Ina Garten, Hilaria Baldwin, Alex Guarnaschelli, and Eli Zabar), and favorite local figures like farmers and vintners.
Organized into twenty menus, including “Dinner After the Movies,” “Autumn Catch,” and “Lunch by the Pool,” the recipes encompass the uniquely broad range of gatherings, from special-occasion celebrations to casual family meals or big beach picnics for a crowd. Vibrant original photographs shine a light on the freshness and originality of the food and the local spots from beaches to farm stands, while historical photographs and anecdotes from the Ladies’ Village Improvement Society archives and local newspapers express the best of Hamptons eating. – Amazon.com
For more information or to purchase this book, click HERE.
If you’re like a lot of people, then recent events may have forced you to take a look at the line of work that you’re in and question just how reliable it really is. If you’re not certain, then perhaps it might be time to take a bet on yourself, instead. Here, we’re going to look at how to know if you’re ready to build a home business, and what you might want to do to startup
Are you ready to bet on yourself?
There are all kinds of home business ideas such as those at Goodfinancialcents.com you can look up for some inspiration if you don’t know exactly what you want to offer. However, regardless of what idea you choose, you need to strongly believe in your ability to succeed in your own direction, and you have to be passionate, motivated, and show some discipline.
Do you have the money for it?
One of the benefits of running a business from home is that you can cut the startup costs associated with opening an office. But you might still need to invest in the right equipment, software, and marketing. To that end, look at your finances and see that you have the funds to start your business and sustain your lifestyle until your business starts making good money.
Do you have space for it?
It’s not easy to run a business from home. You need to make sure you can work to a schedule and in a space that suits you. This might mean designating a room as the home office. If you cannot, however, then it’s wise to find a specific space of the home you can use for work and make sure that any family or housemates that live with you respect that space and don’t distract you.
Can you build a good brand?
Being able to sell yourself is just as important as delivering a high-quality product/service. To that end, get to know how to market your business. This can include coming up with a unique value proposition to build an online marketing campaign around. Besides, work on every possible marketing trick to get your campaigns noticed. For this, optimize landing page of your campaign, and use other SEO strategies to get more and more people to try your end product/service. You might also want to use services like PhysicalAddress.com to help your business look more established. There is, unfortunately, a stigma around home businesses that you need to work around.
Do you have a business plan?
You might feel like you can wing it and simply enjoy growth as it comes. However, to sustain any business and the costs (both time and money) that it takes to run, you need to have a plan to see some profits. Sites like Bplans.com can offer you templates that relate to your own business type and teach you how to personalise your goals and plans to better fit your business’s unique circumstances.
Of course, above all else, to run a home business, you must have an idea for a product or service you can offer. It doesn’t always have to be particularly original, but it has to offer the value that you specifically can deliver upon.
Smoking cigarettes is one of the most addictive habits a person can have. Research shows that smoking cigarettes can have severe negative impacts on a person’s health. This leads many to investigate quitting the habit, but this venture comes with many challenges. Symptoms of withdrawal can be overwhelming if the process of quitting is not handled properly. If you are looking to quit smoking cigarettes, consider these options to help ease you out of the habit.
Create New Associations with Cravings
Cigarette cravings are powerful for those trying to quit. It is important to avoid giving in to these cravings. This can be done by creating new associations and doing something else whenever you feel a craving. The next time you crave a cigarette, consider chewing on a piece of gum, drinking a glass of water or sucking on a piece of hard candy. Over time, this re-trains your brain and can help break the habit more quickly.
Use a Cigarette Alternative
Quitting smoking cigarettes altogether by going “cold turkey” is not easy to do. Many people choose to use cigarette alternatives to help ease the process. There are products available that imitate the effect of cigarettes. These smokingthings often include lower doses of harmful ingredients such as nicotine, which is the main addictive ingredient in cigarettes. These products can help ease you off of high nicotine doses without completely changing your routine.
Start Exercising
Regular exercise can improve your physical and mental health and help distract you from cigarette cravings. Activities like going for a jog, playing group sports with friends, and weightlifting help mitigate the feelings of cravings by engaging your body and directing your attention to a productive and healthy task. Exercising can also help build long-lasting healthy habits, can help improve heart and lung function and can help prevent weight gain.
Reach Out to Friends and Family
Social isolation can be harmful to someone struggling with quitting cigarettes or experiencing withdrawal symptoms. You do not have to tackle this challenge alone and should utilize the love and support of people around you. Make a commitment to contact friends and family members regularly. You can ask them to help keep you accountable or create a check-in system to help keep you on track. Remember that your loved ones are there to help and want the best for you.
Quitting smoking cigarettes can be difficult, but with conviction and a well-prepared plan, it can be done. Use these ideas to help you along the way.
If you feel like you’re not really in control of your mental health and you’re not sure how to improve things, your feelings of insecurity are understandable. We all feel like things are overwhelming us from time to time. But there are plenty of ways to improve and work on your mental health if that’s something you’re really serious about doing. Here are some ways to better your mental health today.
Aim to Get a Good Night’s Sleep Each Night
One of the best things you do for your mental health is try to get a good night’s sleep each and every night. You’ll face the day in better shape and be less irritable when you have a full night of sleep behind you. If your sleep patterns are irregular and you get less than 7 hours a night, this is something you need to work on for the sake of your mental health.
Take Time to Laugh and Love
For the good of your long-term and short-term health, you should always find the time to laugh and love. Yoru days can’t be filled with work and tasks you don’t want to be dealing with. If you want to achieve positive outcomes in your mental health, you also need to foster positive relationships with others and find time to laugh and feel good about things. That’s what makes us happy as human beings.
Harness the Power of Creative Expression
Unleashing your creative side and making something out of can be hugely satisfying. All kinds of studies have found that creative expression can help to create more positive mental health outcomes. So if you don’t often give yourself the chance to be creative, that’s something you should look to change. And the great thing about it is that creativity can take any form.
Find Healthy Ways to Relieve Your Feelings of Stress and Anxiety
It’s important to be able to overcome those feelings of stress and anxiety. Otherwise, those feelings will simply overwhelm you and your mental health will suffer as a result. You can use things like CBD from ghost bubba to calm and relax yourself. You can also try things like meditation, breathing exercises and things like that when you need to relax yourself and calm your anxiety.
Take Regular Digital Detoxes
These days, we’re all addicted to our devices. But from time to time, it pays off to digitally detox. Take some time away from technology and gadgets and do something old-fashioned. Talk to friends, walk through the woods or take a bike ride. Being away from technology from extended periods really can benefit our mental health.
We all owe it to ourselves to work on our mental health and to continually improve things. With the help of the tips above, there’s no reason why you can’t take your mental health in the right direction. And every aspect of your life will improve when you take the time to work on your mental health in this way.