Nine Ways to Get More Money When You Buy a House

Should Families Settle in the City or Suburbs?

Every family has unique needs, desires, and lifestyles. This means that it’s impossible to fit every household into a one-size-fits-all type of living situation. Some people are well-suited to the hustle and bustle of urban life, enjoying the crowds and the high level of city activity. Other people prefer a quieter environment with space and fresh air. Deciding whether to live in the city or the suburbs is primarily based on individual preferences and what works for that person or family.

As it turns out, over half of prospective home buyers participating in a recent survey indicated that they would prefer to live in the suburbs or country instead of the city. The study included folks from all demographics who were considering buying a home, including millennials who some might assume would prefer an urban setting. Two important factors for living location include employment, commute, and school districts.

With lower land prices existing outside the urban sprawl, and construction often more affordable outside city limits, many families are being drawn to country life. It’s even likely that families will be able to build more house in the suburbs than they would be able to afford in the city. The bottom line of where to put down roots is a multi-faceted decision. While affordability is one factor, there are other things to consider as well. After crunching numbers, considering drive times, and examining the schools, it really comes down to personal preference and lifestyle.

Is the heart of the family immersed in the opportunities available in the city, or would the less frantic lifestyle of the suburbs be a better fit? The answer to this question is as individual as every family and its unique members. The final answer might also change as a family evolves. What feels right when children are small could change with teenagers and also as the empty-nest years approach. Buying a home need not be a static decision.

Monday Wake Up Call

Your Motivation, Inspiration, & Direction for the Week Ahead

Meditation, Prayer and Yoga… New Study Just Released! Good morning! I want to share something exciting with you this week: A new study from Harvard confirms that prayer, meditation and yoga can rebuild the brain’s grey matter in just eight weeks. It’s the very first study to document that meditation produces such changes. When it comes to “prayer” or “distant healing” — directing human attention on physical systems — significant results warrant further investigation. Scientists at the Heart Math Institute have demonstrated that when a person is feeling really good and is full of positive emotions such as love, gratitude and appreciation, his/her heart beats out a different message that’s encoded in its electromagnetic field which, in turn, has positive overall health effects. Meditation, yoga and prayer are all grouped into a category the medical community calls “relaxation-response techniques.” Studies show that these techniques directly affect physiologic factors such as heart rate, blood pressure, stress, anxiety, oxygen consumption and more. Based on data from 4,000 people who participated in the BHI Relaxation Response Resiliency Program over the past eight years, and comparing it with 14,000 participants engaging in the relationship program, there was an average reduction of 43% in regular healthcare services in the year following their participation in the project. Something to Think About Herbert Benson, founder and director emeritus of the BHI and co-author of the current study, had this to say: “I think of it this way: There are many gates to wellness, but not everyone is ready to walk through a particular gate at a given time. From a public health perspective, it is better to be prepared to offer these tools to people in their customary settings than to wait for them to seek out these interventions. For that reason, we feel that mind-body interventions – which are both low-cost and essentially risk-free – should perhaps be incorporated into regular preventive care.” Ask yourself: Are you willing to walk through that gate? Weekly Challenge This is a special and important message for those you love. Grey matter contains most of the brain's neuronal cell bodies. It includes regions of the brain involved in muscle control and sensory perception such as seeing and hearing, memory, emotions, speech, decision-making and self-control. Do you know someone suffering in any of these areas? With meditation, yoga and/or prayer, they can start to see improvement in just eight weeks. That’s amazing! Words of Wisdom “Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own thoughts, unguarded.” – Buddha “It feels good. Kinda like when you have to shut your computer down, just sometimes when it goes crazy, you just shut it down and when you turn it on, it’s okay again. That’s what meditation is to me.” – Ellen DeGeneres “You should sit in meditation for twenty minutes a day, unless you are too busy — then you should sit for an hour.” – Author Unknown “Prayer is when you talk to God; meditation is when you listen to God.” – Author Unknown “Quiet the mind, and the soul will speak.” – Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavati

MONDAY MORNING WAKE UP CALL

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Your Motivation, Inspiration, & Direction for the Week Ahead

 

Celebrate, and Have Fun!
Good morning! Wow, this is a fun week! Today is the Chinese New Year, and tomorrow is Mardi Gras! According to the Chinese calendar, this is the year of the monkey. The years of the monkey are 1932, 1944, 1956, 1968, 1980, 1992, 2004 and 2016. Were you born in one of those years?

The monkey is a clever animal and is usually compared to a smart person. The general image of people born in the year of the monkey includes being smart, clever and intelligent, especially in their career and wealth. They’re lively, flexible, quick-witted and versatile. And their gentleness and honesty bring them an everlasting love life.

Are you wishing you were born in the year of the monkey? Don’t worry… you don’t have to be born in one of those years to be any or all of those things. Those traits are in you; sometimes you just need to work to bring them out.

Make it a great day!

Something to Think About
We each have our own definition of smart or clever, gentle or honest. Maybe you admire those who are intellectually smart, or maybe you’re attracted to those who are street smart. We each bring something to the table. It’s what you walk away with that counts.

Weekly Challenge
Take a few minutes from your busy day to think of someone who is smart, someone who is clever, someone who is gentle and someone who is honest. Surprise each one with a phone call to share the impact they’ve had in your life.

Words of Wisdom
“Goodness is about character – integrity, honesty, kindness, generosity, moral courage, and the like. More than anything else, it is about how we treat other people.” – Dennis Prager

“It's discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit.” –Noël Coward

“Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters.”– Albert Einstein

“It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one.” – George Washington

“You wear a mask for so long, you forget who you were beneath it.” – Alan Moore

Monday Wake Up Call

Your Motivation, Inspiration, & Direction for the Week Ahead

Groundhog Day! Tomorrow is Groundhog Day. I don’t celebrate all of the crazy holidays, but I like this one because it reminds me of the movie Groundhog Day. It’s one of those movies that I can watch over and over and still laugh at the silly, insane theme. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it for two reasons: First, laughter is good for the soul, and it’s guaranteed to make you laugh. Second, and more important, it has a very thought-provoking message. The movie depicts a man living one day over and over again until he “gets it right.”    Groundhog Day stars Bill Murray as a crabby weatherman who’s tired of his job, tired of his life and especially tired of covering the annual Groundhog Day celebration in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. That’s when fate intervenes. The coolest thing about the movie is thinking about what you would do if you could live one day over and over. What great skills could you master? How could you improve? What life lessons would you learn? Definitely something to think about. Have an amazing week! Something to Think About Lessons exist in everything we do and in everyone we meet. We just need to slow down long enough to notice. Think of your career or personal life. Have you learned something “the hard way”? Did you take that lesson and apply what you learned the next time that scenario appeared in your life? That’s the lesson in Groundhog Day. Pay attention, and you’ll find the clues to “getting it right” are right there in front of you every day! Weekly Challenge Watch the movie Groundhog Day, and have a discussion afterward. Ask these questions: Why was Groundhog Day the day that Bill Murray had to keep repeating? How did his life improve through this experience? How were his communication skills different at the end of the movie compared to the beginning? If you could live one day over and over, what skill would you master? My favorite part is when his granddaughter kisses him. One of the things on his bucket list was accomplished in a way he never imagined. What was it? Words of Wisdom “Your big opportunity may be right where you are now.” – Napoleon Hill “Whatever we plant in our subconscious mind and nourish with repetition and emotion will one day become a reality.” – Earl Nightingale “I tell a student that the most important class you can take is technique. A great chef is first a great technician. If you are a jeweler, or a surgeon or a cook, you have to know the trade in your hand. You have to learn the process. You learn it through endless repetition until it belongs to you.” – Jacques Pepin “Repetition of the same thought or physical action develops into a habit which, repeated frequently enough, becomes an automatic reflex.” – Norman Vincent Peale “You affect your subconscious mind by verbal repetition.” – Clement Stone