Tag: home

Hey, it’s hard not to lose your cool with a difficult child. And once you do, you probably feel guilty or a failure as a parent. You deserve credit for trying to be better, but the easiest way to improve your parenting is to know what you are doing wrong first. Good parenting means knowing what not to do as a parent.

1. Do not treat your child or teen like another adult who knows how to behave appropriately and has memorized the rules, even the unspoken ones. Answer your child’s frustrations (with you) by offering explanations that show how reasonable you are.

If you're a new empty nester, know that what you’re going through is a challenging transition. My heart goes out to you because I’ve been there. As parents, we need to honor the significance of the sacred task we spent the last two decades doing, and it is entirely appropriate that there would be some sorrow at its close. There will be a time of adjustment, and that period will be different for everyone. Here are five things you can expect as you adjust to the empty nest.

1. Fluctuating emotions. Intellectually, you can probably acknowledge that it was time for your kids to move beyond the nest.

After living as renters for the first seven years of their marriage, Geoff and Kristi decided it was time to purchase their first house.

They chose to pass on making a purchase earlier in their lives for reasons ranging from unstable job security to high mortgage rates. Whether justified or not, Geoff and Kristi kept making excuses for not pulling the trigger on a new-home purchase. They had no idea of the opportunity they were missing to start building their personal wealth through home ownership.

There are many advantages of home ownerships, but it ain’t all roses and peach n’ cream and such. Before making (probably) the biggest financial decision of your life, you should do your homework. If you don’t, your dream can very well turn into your greatest financial nightmare.

Let’s face this reality, some people out there have no business owning a home at all, ever. Most of you, however, will eventually buy a home and be perfect homeowners. You just need to do a little legwork and for some of you, address a few poor early 20’s life choices.

After months or years of planning and preparation, you are finally getting ready to say, "I do" to your beloved and a little time off. While you are understandably excited about your upcoming getaway, it is important to take some home precautions while you are away.

In order to be sure that your home is not broken into while you are gone, heed the following advice:

Stay quiet on social media. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have become virtual travel itineraries for many people; log on at any time and you can see where many of your friends are currently on vacation, and how long they plan to be gone.

The first major expense for most couples is their wedding. After spending months or years of planning, you might think you can relax a bit before jumping into other major buying decisions. However, most newlyweds realize it’s now time to say, "I do" to other major financial purchases. Check out this list of big buys that come up during marriage, along tips on how to handle them.

Home ownership, a vital element in what constitutes The American Dream, is certainly a blessing. Unfortunately it also contains the seeds of what can be financial misfortune, perhaps never more graphically depicted than in a 1986 Steven Spielberg movie, The Money Pit, in which a young couple experiences every calamity possible in remodeling a dilapidated house. To help aspiring homeowners avoid some common errors, I want to pass on five tips.