While I'm a firm believer that everyone is creative, I understand that many people aren't comfortable with the idea of painting or drawing their own wall art. Heck, I've worked with paint all my life and sometimes I still don't feel completely at ease with a paintbrush in hand! The wonderful thing about art is that you can make it out of pretty much anything. So if you're looking for a way to decorate your walls, instead of going downContinue reading on Curbly.com
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Are you selling your home? Here's how to stage it for a quick sale!It is important to bear in mind that most people go online to find properties that they want to view. They tend to browse through listings very quickly. Deciding within seconds which houses they want to see and consider buying. If the photos of your property are not good, they will quickly move on to the next one. Therefore, your home has to look really good in the photographs. It needs to stand out in a positive way. If you want to sell your property fast, and get the best price, it is a good idea to take the time to stage it properly. With most potential buyers, you have to paint a picture, show them what is possible. That is exactly what you are doing with home staging, which is why it works so well. Here are some tips on how to do it. Modern FurnitureHow you furnish your home has a huge impact on how it looks. If it is old and grey, that is how your property will seem to be to a potential buyer. But, crisp, clean modern furniture creates the opposite vibe. Luckily, you do not need to buy anything because you can hire everything you need from firms like Emblem Furniture. Freshen up your FloorsIt is important that your floors are pristine when you take the photos or potential buyers come round. The worst bits of worn floors can be covered up using rugs. However, if they are badly worn it may be worth laying some new flooring. These days, you can easily buy cheap carpet, laminate flooring, and PVC flooring. It may not be 100% to your taste, but this does not really matter. Remember that what you are trying to do is to make your home look as attractive as possible to potential buyers. If all goes to plan you will sell your house and be moving to a new one very soon. Once in your new house, you can decorate to suit your personal tastes. Update your ArtworkYou should go through your home freshening up your artwork. Bright, bold images work best. Again, do not spend a lot to do this. You can usually pick up what you need in charity shops or simply take a few posters you buy, cut them to size and put them into some cheap, but modern, frames. Another alternative is to create something yourself. Again, this is far easier to do than you realize. Here are a few ideas to get you started; most of these projects would take you about an hour to make from scratch. Reduce the ClutterDe-cluttering is essential. Sadly, your beloved collection of Lilliput houses or Lladro figurines is just clutter to most other people. It gets in the way of them being able to see the potential of a room. So, you need to get busy with the bubble wrap. Basically, you need to pack away most of your personal possessions before inviting people around to view your property. Tidy up OutsideKerb appeal matters, so do not forget to tidy up your garden. Also, take the time to clean or paint your front door. Provided you do the above, your home will seem more attractive to potential buyers. Your estate agent can also help you to identify changes you could make, so do not forget to ask them for advice too. Are you selling your home? Here's how to stage it for a quick sale!It is important to bear in mind that most people go online to find properties that they want to view. They tend to browse through listings very quickly. Deciding within seconds which houses they want to see and consider buying. If the photos of your property are not good, they will quickly move on to the next one. Therefore, your home has to look really good in the photographs. It needs to stand out in a positive way. If you want to sell your property fast, and get the best price, it is a good idea to take the time to stage it properly. With most potential buyers, you have to paint a picture, show them what is possible. That is exactly what you are doing with home staging, which is why it works so well. Here are some tips on how to do it. Modern FurnitureHow you furnish your home has a huge impact on how it looks. If it is old and grey, that is how your property will seem to be to a potential buyer. But, crisp, clean modern furniture creates the opposite vibe. Luckily, you do not need to buy anything because you can hire everything you need from firms like Emblem Furniture. Freshen up your FloorsIt is important that your floors are pristine when you take the photos or potential buyers come round. The worst bits of worn floors can be covered up using rugs. However, if they are badly worn it may be worth laying some new flooring. These days, you can easily buy cheap carpet, laminate flooring, and PVC flooring. It may not be 100% to your taste, but this does not really matter. Remember that what you are trying to do is to make your home look as attractive as possible to potential buyers. If all goes to plan you will sell your house and be moving to a new one very soon. Once in your new house, you can decorate to suit your personal tastes. Update your ArtworkYou should go through your home freshening up your artwork. Bright, bold images work best. Again, do not spend a lot to do this. You can usually pick up what you need in charity shops or simply take a few posters you buy, cut them to size and put them into some cheap, but modern, frames. Another alternative is to create something yourself. Again, this is far easier to do than you realize. Here are a few ideas to get you started; most of these projects would take you about an hour to make from scratch. Reduce the ClutterDe-cluttering is essential. Sadly, your beloved collection of Lilliput houses or Lladro figurines is just clutter to most other people. It gets in the way of them being able to see the potential of a room. So, you need to get busy with the bubble wrap. Basically, you need to pack away most of your personal possessions before inviting people around to view your property. Tidy up OutsideKerb appeal matters, so do not forget to tidy up your garden. Also, take the time to clean or paint your front door. Provided you do the above, your home will seem more attractive to potential buyers. Your estate agent can also help you to identify changes you could make, so do not forget to ask them for advice too. Are you selling your home? Here's how to stage it for a quick sale!It is important to bear in mind that most people go online to find properties that they want to view. They tend to browse through listings very quickly. Deciding within seconds which houses they want to see and consider buying. If the photos of your property are not good, they will quickly move on to the next one. Therefore, your home has to look really good in the photographs. It needs to stand out in a positive way. If you want to sell your property fast, and get the best price, it is a good idea to take the time to stage it properly. With most potential buyers, you have to paint a picture, show them what is possible. That is exactly what you are doing with home staging, which is why it works so well. Here are some tips on how to do it. Modern FurnitureHow you furnish your home has a huge impact on how it looks. If it is old and grey, that is how your property will seem to be to a potential buyer. But, crisp, clean modern furniture creates the opposite vibe. Luckily, you do not need to buy anything because you can hire everything you need from firms like Emblem Furniture. Freshen up your FloorsIt is important that your floors are pristine when you take the photos or potential buyers come round. The worst bits of worn floors can be covered up using rugs. However, if they are badly worn it may be worth laying some new flooring. These days, you can easily buy cheap carpet, laminate flooring, and PVC flooring. It may not be 100% to your taste, but this does not really matter. Remember that what you are trying to do is to make your home look as attractive as possible to potential buyers. If all goes to plan you will sell your house and be moving to a new one very soon. Once in your new house, you can decorate to suit your personal tastes. Update your ArtworkYou should go through your home freshening up your artwork. Bright, bold images work best. Again, do not spend a lot to do this. You can usually pick up what you need in charity shops or simply take a few posters you buy, cut them to size and put them into some cheap, but modern, frames. Another alternative is to create something yourself. Again, this is far easier to do than you realize. Here are a few ideas to get you started; most of these projects would take you about an hour to make from scratch. Reduce the ClutterDe-cluttering is essential. Sadly, your beloved collection of Lilliput houses or Lladro figurines is just clutter to most other people. It gets in the way of them being able to see the potential of a room. So, you need to get busy with the bubble wrap. Basically, you need to pack away most of your personal possessions before inviting people around to view your property. Tidy up OutsideKerb appeal matters, so do not forget to tidy up your garden. Also, take the time to clean or paint your front door. Provided you do the above, your home will seem more attractive to potential buyers. Your estate agent can also help you to identify changes you could make, so do not forget to ask them for advice too. Hey, friends! We did a little sprucing up on the front porch for a fun project with Kirkland's this weekend, and I'm excited to share a few photos of what we pulled together! If you've followed along here for a while, you know that we recently had the porch painted (Palladian Blue on the ceiling, […] The post Spring Front Porch Decorating appeared first on The Lettered Cottage. A reader writes in, asking:
To the first question: yes. Investing in your own earnings potential is often a very good idea (e.g., by getting a particular certification, license, or degree in your line of work, or by putting money into a business that you're starting), even if it means putting off saving for retirement for a brief period. This is especially true for people early in their career, because the increased earnings will be in effect for many years. I did this myself, a little over 10 years ago. There was a period of almost two years (around age 23-24) when my wife and I saved nothing for retirement, because we were putting money into my publishing business. The business was growing, and it seemed likely that additional funding would pay off - and it has. The resulting increase in our income has significantly exceeded the return that we would have achieved via additional 401(k) savings. (Plus, now I get to do work that I find much more enjoyable than what I was doing before.) How to Calculate a Projected ReturnIf you want to actually make a comparison of rates of return, you first need to come up with a year-by-year estimate of the cost and the payoff from the investment you're considering. In some cases you may be able to find good statistics on the topic (e.g., how much more, on average, do people in your field with a particular certification earn than people without that certification?). Then you can use the IRR function in Excel to calculate the rate of return from the projected cash flows. The tutorial in the previous link explains how to use it, but it's pretty straightforward. You type the projected cash flows in a column of cells, with the cash outflows (i.e., the money you expect to spend) as negative values and the cash inflows as positive values. Then, in another cell, you use the “IRR” function, selecting the range of cells that includes your projected cash flows (e.g., “=IRR(A1:A17)”). Then you can compare the calculated return from your projection to the return you would expect from additional investment in your portfolio. (Important note: in each case, you want to adjust the cash flows to account for taxes. For example if you expect an additional $10,000 per year of income, and you have a 25% combined state/local marginal tax rate, you'd enter $7,500 as the expected cash inflow in each cell.) It varies quite a bit from one case to another, but it's not at all rare for the rate of return from career-related expenditures to greatly exceed the rate of return you could expect from regular stock/bond investing. How Risky Is It?It is important, however, to recognize that comparing a projected rate of return from career-related spending to the rate of return you would expect from additional retirement savings isn't an apples-to-apples comparison, as the risk level may be quite different. For instance, if you're a 23-year-old accountant, getting your CPA certification is very likely to substantially improve your earnings over the course of your career. Frankly, this is probably less risky than putting money into a stock index fund. Conversely, investing a lot of money into an entrepreneurial endeavor can be super high-risk. You're essentially buying a single stock (i.e., an undiversified investment), and it's a riskier stock than your typical publicly traded company. (See, for instance, this cautionary tale I recently encountered of a man whose failed restaurant endeavor cost him his house.) But, in summary, yes, investments in your own earnings potential are worth considering, even if they would require you to put saving for retirement on pause for a brief period. And this is especially true if:
What is the Best Age to Claim Social Security?Read the answers to this question and several other Social Security questions in my latest book:
Disclaimer:Your subscription to this blog does not create a CPA-client or other professional services relationship between you and Mike Piper or between you and Simple Subjects, LLC. By subscribing, you explicitly agree not to hold Mike Piper or Simple Subjects, LLC liable in any way for damages arising from decisions you make based on the information available herein. Neither Mike Piper nor Simple Subjects, LLC makes any warranty as to the accuracy of any information contained in this communication. I am not a financial or investment advisor, and the information contained herein is for informational and entertainment purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. On financial matters for which assistance is needed, I strongly urge you to meet with a professional advisor who (unlike me) has a professional relationship with you and who (again, unlike me) knows the relevant details of your situation. You may unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link at the bottom of this email (or by removing this RSS feed from your feed reader if you have subscribed via a feed reader). |
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January 2019
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