Upkeep on your home

The importance of up keeping your home over the years is very important this is a big piece of your overall investment portfolio so you want to maintain it and protect your investment. As with any home they have wear and tear from inhabitants as years go by takes a toll on your home. 

You should always budget for yearly maintenance on your house. Along with a budget for maintenance you should also have a plan for cleaning as well as inspecting your house. Think of your house apart of your business it has to be maintained and updated in order to keep its value if sold or passed on to the next generation.

Keeping up with a home whether its new or old can save you a lot of unnecessary and unexpected costs in the long run. Keeping up with home maintenance is not a hard thing to do.

I’ll share with you a few things that I do for my house throughout the year for maintenance. In the Spring I usually check all cracks and crevices around the house. I look for things like cracks that could possibly be getting bigger that could lead to foundation problems and so forth. I usually run over the small cracks with caulking. I’m checking the paint on the house and inside the house. I check my filters for the AC unit as well as all air filters throughout the house. I usually check all my fire extinguishers installed throughout the house to see if they are good. There are a number of other things that may need checking but I hope you just get the idea and awareness that you need to check period.

Always be observant of what is going on with everything working and a part of your house. When finding things that need to be repaired you can always DIY or hire a professional if it is something that requires a professional. You have to be able to manage whether or not you will need a professional or if you can do it yourself. It’s best to always try and research whatever problem you have before calling in a professional this can also save you tons of money. With Google and YouTube the sky is the limit on how much work on your home you can do yourself, not to mention Home depot, and Lowe’s are always there for you to converse with the associates and get info on how to get things done.

Bonds

A bond is a loan given to a company or government by an investor in a nutshell. When a corporation or government entity needs money they issue what is called a bond. Investors buy these bonds with terms of say a year or more. In turn for the investor buying the bond, they are given interest on the bonds bought.

A company and government usually issues bonds when they have a new project like a bridge or some sort of ongoing expenses. For example if a city wants to build a new basketball coliseum, it needs to raise the money to be able to build right? The city will then issue a number of bonds for say $1000 and promise an annual return rate of 5% with a maturity rate of 10 yrs. So each year you will get a payment of $50, and at the end of the 10 yr. maturity rate you will get back your $1000 investment.

Some investors use bonds to hold a lump sum of money and while doing so they are able to generate a small revenue return. Bonds are considered a low risk and low return investment. Bonds do come with risk. Bonds with higher default rates come with a higher return rate but are more so than likely to default. Meaning the issuer can go bankrupt. 

The amount of risk to the investor depends on the reputation and financial stability of the issuer. So government bonds tend to be more stable than corporate. You will more than likely find a higher rate of return on bonds from corporate than from the government but they come with more risk if that makes sense.

There are a number of credit agencies that assign credit rating to different bonds to help investors make informative decisions. These agencies include Standard and Poor, Moody’s and Fitch ratings. Standard and Poor assign bond ratings of AAA, AA, A, BBB, BB, B, CCC, CC, C, and D. The D rating means the issuer of the bond is in default.

When investing in bonds keep in mind that it should be a part of an overall strategy of a portfolio of investments. Stocks, Dividend stocks, ETF's, Mutual funds, Home equity....etc