How To Get Involved In Your Community
So you’ve moved to a new neighborhood: such an exciting experience! There’s nothing like that sense of pride that comes with being a new homeowner and having a place to put down roots. But whether you’ve been there a few months or even a few years, it can take a while to feel like you belong in your new home. What’s the best way to feel at home sooner? Believe it or not, it has less to do with fixing up what’s inside your four walls and more about what surrounds them: your community.
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The time comes in every homeowner’s life when they must ask the question: “Is my home still meeting my needs?” Life events — such as a new job, growing family, or empty nesting — will make your once-perfect home less perfect as time goes on. Maybe you’re bursting at the seams and can’t fit any more relatives around the holiday table, or perhaps your once-full house now feels like an empty, open space. Whatever the reason, if you’ve realized it’s time for a change, the next question becomes: “Should I relocate — or renovate?” 
When you own your home, it’s more than just a place to live; it’s also a financial asset. As you pay your mortgage each month, the money you put toward principal acts as a kind of forced savings. In other words, your money is never really “going down the drain,” so to speak. That’s because, as you pay down principal, your equity (the amount of your home you actually own) grows. This equity can eventually become liquid cash that you can access, either by selling your home or borrowing against it.
As the school year approaches and schedules begin to fill up again, we all might be experiencing a little more stress than usual. Amidst the hubbub, it’s important to have a place of rest to return to after a long day. But does coming home make you feel restless rather than relaxed? If so, it may be time for a change of scenery … inside your home. Your physical space has a big impact on your mood and overall well-being, and with a few key changes, you can turn your space into a tranquil paradise that you’ll love coming home to.
Let’s face it: As soon as the summer heat really kicks in and you turn on the AC for the first time, you start to dread seeing your next energy bill. But while we know air conditioning can be a major energy sucker, there are also some other not-so-obvious culprits that could be hiking up your energy bills all year round. Since we’re all looking for ways to save energy (and money!), we drew up a list of some of the biggest energy suckers in your home, so you can stop them in their tracks.
Now that the New Year has arrived, we’re all looking for ways to make improvements in our lives, from getting fit to reexamining our finances to remodeling that horrid 1970s-style bathroom. If you’re planning to make any improvements to your home this year, here are some things you need to know about home upgrades and their tax implications.*
