It’s been proven. Clutter is a bummer — literally.
Dishes in the sink, toys throughout the house, stuff covering every flat surface. This clutter not only makes our homes look bad, but makes us feel bad, too. Several studies over the past 10 years have connected clutter with behavioral and mental health issues. Research from health care heavy hitters — think Mayo Clinic, Princeton University, and UCLA — have found that clutter can increase the stress hormone cortisol and cause lower productivity, insomnia, weight gain, procrastination, and depression. Now that’s a list of health problems you don’t want to take to your next checkup. UCLA’s Center on Everyday Lives and Families (CELF) explored in real time the relationship between 32 California families and the objects in their homes. The resulting book, “Life at Home in the Twenty-First Century,” is a landmark look at how middle-class Americans use the space in their homes and interact with the things they accumulate over a lifetime. Our overworked closets are overflowing with things we rarely touch. It turns out that clutter profoundly affects our mood and self-esteem. CELF’s anthropologists, social scientists, and archaeologists found:
Adopt the Rule of Five Every time you get up from your desk or walk through a room, put away five things. Or, each hour, devote five minutes to decluttering. At the end of the day, you’ll have cleaned for an hour. Be Ruthless About Your Kitchen Sink Pledge to clear and clean your kitchen sink every day. It takes a couple of seconds more to place a dish in the dishwasher than dump it in the sink. A clean sink will instantly raise your spirits and decrease your anxiety. Put Photos Away Return to yesteryear when only photos of ancestors or weddings earned a place. Put snapshots in a family album, which will immediately declutter many flat surfaces. Unburden Your Refrigerator Door Researchers found a correlation between the number of items stuck to the fridge door and the amount of clutter throughout the house. Toss extra magnets and file take-out menus. Test Whether You’ll Miss It Fill a box with items you don’t love or use. Seal the box and place it in a closet. If you haven’t opened the box in a year, donate it (unopened!) to charity.
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By: Jamie Wiebe A super-easy plan for getting organized without adding to your home-is-school, home-is-work, home-is-everything time burden.
Did you ever notice that your self-improvement pacts with yourself are action oriented? Walk 10,000 steps a day. Fix that leaky faucet. Register for VolunteerMatch. But “get organized”? It’s a goal so broad that just trying to figure out what action to take makes you wonder what you were thinking in the first place. It’s like you need an organizing plan for your organizing. Ta-da! Here it is. Follow these steps, spending less than an hour day (sometimes just a few minutes), to a better organized home: 1. Do That Project “What about your space is making you feel uncomfortable or overwhelmed?” asks Amy Trager, a professional organizer in Chicago. Is it the paperwork disaster in your office? The pile of clothes teetering on your dresser? Or that mess that surrounds your doorway? Start with what’s annoying you, she says. One hour on that task will rev up your organizing engine. 2. Create a Go-Away Box Put in it anything you’re planning to donate (or give to a friend or take to recycle). And keep it by the door so you can easily grab it when you’re leaving. 3. Deal With the Decorations Hallelujah — the holidays are over! When you’re putting away your décor, donate anything you didn’t bring out last season and separate decorations by holiday. No need to dig through your St. Paddy’s clovers when you’re searching for a menorah. 4. Create a System for Your Entryway Set up a “command center” so your front door doesn’t become a lawless accessories arena, especially during winter months. Add hooks for coats, bins for shoes, and a mail sorter if you need it. (Remember to keep a place for your go-away box.) 5. Wrangle Your Pet Supplies Minimize the time spent scrambling when your pup is desperate for a walk or eager for a meal. Hang hooks and cubbies near the door and keep leashes, kibble, bowls, and toys in one convenient spot. 6. Organize Your Spices Arrange your herbs and spices alphabetically, by cuisine, or by brand — whatever makes them easier to find when you’re in the middle of your noodle stir fry. 7. Pare Down Your Utensils You’ve accumulated several dozen kitchen utensils in your culinary career: can openers, microplanes, four wine openers (what?!). Cut back the collection and use drawer dividers to keep the rest in order. 8. Reconfigure Your Pots and Pans Stop digging around in your shelves for the oversized, cast-iron skillet. Donate the pots and pans you hardly use and install cupboard organizers to help manage the rest. 9. Throw Away Expired Foods You’ve never used Worcestershire sauce after that one time. Go through your refrigerator and pantry, and ditch or donate anything past its prime or that you won’t use. 10. Stack Your Pantry Staples Make better use of your pantry by sorting through your staple dry goods — think flour, sugar, pasta, oatmeal, dry beans — and put them in airtight, stackable containers. You’ll free up a ton of space, too. 11. Downsize Your Kitchen Gadgets You had noble intentions when you purchased that spiralizer. (Zucchini noodles every night, right?) Give those space hogs to someone else with lofty dreams. 12. Say No to Coffee Mug Overload Every time you lose a sock, a new coffee mug appears. Keep one or two mugs for every coffee or tea drinker, and donate the rest. 13. Sort Your Food Storage Containers No singles allowed. Toss any tops or bottoms that have no mates. 14. Reassess Your Display Shelves Shelves crammed with knickknacks, books you’ll never read, and stuff you somehow accumulated are just a waste of space. Donate books to the library, discard the junk, and arrange what’s left in a way that pleases you. 15. Deal With Your Cables With a Roku, PlayStation, DVD player, and cable box, it’s no surprise your entertainment center is a mess. Use bread tags or cable ties to create ID tags for each plug and bundle the clutter with Velcro strips. 16. Put Clothes on New Hangers Switch your clothes over to the slimmer, grabbier hangers. They use less space and keep your clothes from sliding down to your closet floor. As you do this, discard the clothes you never wear. 17. Corral Your Accessories Belts, scarves, purses, hats — all the accessories that don’t have a drawer or spot in the closet can end up everywhere. Buy an accessories hanger or install a simple series of hooks to give your wardrobe’s smallest members a home. 18. Purge Under the Bed Under-bed storage is ideal for out-of-season clothing. But when out-of-season becomes out-of-sight and out-of-mind, clear out those clothes you’ll never wear again from this precious storage space. 19. Declutter Your Desk When your workspace is swimming with collectibles, staplers, Post-its, and more, paring down can keep you focused when it’s time to hunker down. 20. Shred Old Paperwork Not every form, statement, and tax record needs to stay in your filing cabinet forever. Check out this list to make sure you’re not wasting space. Shred the rest to ward off identity thieves. 21. Tidy Your Files Now that you’ve shredded unnecessary paperwork, tidy up your files by organizing them and labeling them clearly. Colorful folders can help organize by theme (home stuff, tax stuff, work stuff, etc.). 22. Get Rid of Mystery Electronics Admit it. You’ve got a drawer where black mystery cords, chargers, and oddball electronic bits go to die. Free up that drawer for better uses or at least get rid of the items you know for sure are “dead.” 23. Pare Down Your Personal Care Stuff Your intentions were honorable when you bought that curl-enhancing shampoo — but it expired two years ago, and you haven’t used it since. Throw away any expired potions, salves, hair products, and medicines. 24. Tackle Under-the-Sink Storage Clean everything out. You’ll be amazed at what you find (like those Magic Erasers you could never find). Then put everything you’re keeping back into bins you can easily pull out so that nothing gets lost again. 25. Hang a Shelf Wall storage is so often overlooked. Find a spot in your home where a shelf would solve a problem and hang it. Maybe it’s for some toiletries in the bathroom, laundry supplies, or your kid’s stuffed toys. 26. Reduce Your Towels and Linens There are the towels you use — and the stack of towels you never use. Donate them to the animal shelter. Those torn pillowcases? Convert to rags or toss. Same for napkins, dishtowels, potholders, etc. 27. Hang a Shoe Organizer Hanging shoe organizers can solve a ton of storage problems beyond the obvious. They can store scarves, mittens, cleaning supplies, craft supplies. You can even cut them to custom-fit inside a cabinet door. 28. Organize Your Junk Drawer for Good There’s no shame in a junk drawer, but why not organize it? Dump the whole thing on one surface and sort everything into piles. Use drawer dividers to keep each pile in its own space. 29. Store Your Tools the Right Way Finding the right Phillips-head screwdriver to put together that cute IKEA bookshelf shouldn’t be so hard. Track down your hammers and screwdrivers, and arrange them in one easy-to-access spot, like a pegboard. 30. Plan for the Future See how much you’ve accomplished! Take a look around your newly organized home, noting any spaces you missed. Then dream a bit about your next home project. Maybe paint that dining room, finally? By: Lynn Ettinger Home buyers who do mortgage loan shopping can avoid leaving money on the table.
Whether you’re shopping for new bed sheets or a new car, the drill is usually the same. Hit the reviews, check with friends, and scope out the best deal. After all, who wants to buy a car that racks up repair bills right away? Yet when picking a mortgage loan, borrowers don’t always think about comparison shopping. In a Bankrate survey of recent home buyers, 12% of millennials said they believe their mortgage rates were too high. Some buyers may think that when mortgage rates are low, they don’t need to shop for the best offer. But even a few basis points can make a difference of thousands of dollars over the life of a loan, according to Bankrate, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the Federal Trade Commission. You may think mortgage shopping is about as much fun as prepping for a tax audit. It’s true that comparing home mortgages can get complicated. But you don’t need a finance degree to make an informed decision. Here are some steps to get there. Find a Few Lenders When looking for lenders to consider, loan officers recommend going to a few sources:
During a meet and greet, you and the loan officer will usually ask each other questions, and the loan officer will use that information to assess your qualifications. That may sound cut and dried, but the meeting should be fluid based on what you’re ready to do. Typically, the loan officer would schedule a meeting focused on comparison shopping separately. If that sounds painful to borrowers who want to (literally) get moving, no worries, Koch says. “The borrower may be well versed and want to get right to what’s most relevant for them, which are the financial and comparison details. But a lot of people need to go over their own questions or cover key topics first.” Want to meet virtually? “Some folks are just more comfortable virtually, and that’s OK,” DeMarco says. “I’ve closed loans with people I’ve never talked to on the phone. It’s all via text.” Interview the Mortgage Loan Officer Whichever way you choose, this meeting is prime time to interview the loan officer. Borrowers need to find someone who will be in there with them and can problem solve. “We call unanticipated problems ‘icebergs,’” DeMarco says. “You think there’s smooth sailing. And then, suddenly, you smack into an iceberg.” Check out the lender’s communication strategy and their process for delivering on time. “The process is highly complex, and you’d think professional lenders all would have mastered it. That’s not the case,” says Koch. “When a loan isn’t delivered on time, people’s finances and lives are basically balanced on the head of a pin, which is the closing date.” To avoid problems, ask questions like these: Fact finding about the process:
You can also use the meeting to clarify general info you’ve picked up online and talk about your concerns. DeMarco gives a couple of examples. “You may have switched careers or industries in the last year or started having bonus or commission income. Your research may have shown you can just divide your salary by 12 to figure monthly income. But it may not be as simple as that.” You’ll also want to bring up concerns like the impact on your credit score. Thirty-eight percent of buyers think comparing multiple mortgage offers in a short time will hurt their credit rating, according to a 2020 LendingTree survey. “As long as the lenders all pull the borrower’s credit within a couple of weeks, it’s counted as a single credit inquiry. So, it’s not a problem if they do it within a narrow band of time,” Koch explains. Get and Compare Financial Information Whether you’re looking at a federal form called a loan estimate or a precursor form called the fees worksheet, you’ll see a breakout of closing costs, explains Koch. “To compare the lender financials, you’ll want to drill down to origination charges in the lender section. Make sure you’re comparing apples to apples. If one lender is offering a 30-year fixed rate at 2.875% with no lender fees and another is offering 2. 75% with $1,500 in lender fees, those are unlike products. Get the fees at the same rate to find out which is less expensive.” 6 Tips to Get Mortgage Loan Information Comparison shopping can get complicated. Here are six ways to keep it simple: 1. Keep Your Pool Manageable Mortgage shopping “depends on the borrower and the personality type and how they’re wired,” Koch says. “The process can seem overwhelming. That’s why it makes sense to have a select few options to compare so borrowers can process and assimilate them.” 2. Get a Fees Worksheet The best way to compare effectively is to zero in on the fees worksheet, which the loan officer should provide. “You’ll be able to figure out just what the lender’s direct fees are, and you can make a nice, simple comparison,” Koch explains. 3. Understand a Fees Worksheet Versus a Loan Estimate The numbers on the worksheet are estimates and not locked in. Interest rates are fluid and change daily or even more often, DeMarco says. On the other hand, after you have a contract with a seller, “the loan estimate and loan application are where the information is binding, barring structural changes to the loan,” Koch says. Make sure the information reflects previous discussions with and disclosures by the loan officer. 4. Be Careful Interpreting Third-Party Fees Third-party fee estimates are included on the worksheet. Two lenders could each come up with different estimates for title, escrow, or appraisal fees, Koch explains. But not all are negotiable. For instance, the seller chooses the title company, so the lender doesn’t control the choice or the fees. The lender could be choosing the high or low end of a range, but it’s only an estimate. 5. Think About Timing Make sure lenders are using the same time frame for locking in pricing and that it will extend through the closing, Koch notes. “A lender might offer a rate that’s a lock for three weeks, but if you anticipate or know your closing date will be five or six weeks out, that’s a problem.” 6. Consider Applying for Loan Approval Before Finding a Property “Many lenders will not do this,” Koch says. “But some will allow borrowers to go through the formal underwriting process — not just pre-approval — without having a property. The borrowers can get a bona fide mortgage commitment with all of the major buyer financials truly underwritten at that point. Then when borrowers make an offer, they can close more quickly.” You’ll have to invest some time and effort into comparison shopping for a mortgage loan and selecting a lender and a loan officer. But your return on investment can pay off over the long haul. |
AuthorJason Gelios, SRES-Senior Real Estate Specialist, Author, Public Speaker, and Expert Media Contributor of real estate expertise across the globe. Archives
March 2024
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