Enjoying Life Work Balance with Recreations

To enjoy life, we need to have a well-balanced world of work and play. We need to support ourselves and our family with the basic things and necessities, so we need to work and earn to sustain our needs. This is the reason why we study and earn degree so we can compete with the corporate world and be stable to start a family of our own. I learned this thing early in life as my father retired early in life because of failing health and my Mom became the breadwinner and reared us all the way to earning a degree in college. God is so good that all of us made our way through college and got a stable job with only one parent earning an income. My family has a very positive attitude in life, and it reflected how we lived our life. 

I also learned that we need a life work balance not just for our physical but mental health as well. This is the reason why we need to have hobbies and sports to beat the stress we sometimes get in the hustle and bustle of life. Work can be boring sometimes because of the routines and repetitive procedures, and you can only be revitalized if you have something that will take your mind off your work. It could be some hobbies like listening to music, watching shows, cooking, painting, photography or it could be enjoying some games. Games are not only for children but for grown up individuals also who need to keep their minds refreshed from the daily work activities. 

Well, everyone has their own stories of childhood and how they spent their young life with the happiest of games and outdoor sports. In our younger years in the rural areas, we’re content playing in the fields running carefree, swimming in the rivers and having fun with whatever nature has to offer. When we lived in the urban areas my siblings and I became so fond of playing table tennis, word games, chess and just playing anything that we found interesting and funny with our friends in the neighborhood. We had so many happy childhood memories that we passed later on to our kids. I would not exchange it for the world. 

Now that I have a family of my own, I’m seeing a different world with the new technology of games for the kids. When my kids were younger, I let them experience those games I had and they’re happy about it. But times keep changing and games evolve also, we just have to enjoy what’s in our plate now. It’s actually more affordable now to play online games because in our days we have to buy video game consoles from Nintendo, Atari and some other developers. Among those that we love to play are Super Mario Bros, Tetris, Pac Man but you can’t play them if you don’t have the handheld consoles unlike now that you only need a mobile phone and internet connection, and you can play all you want. I personally love playing blocks and word puzzles as it stimulates my mind so well. Life is so good when you divide your time wisely enjoying work, family and recreational hobbies and games. 

I enjoy so many hobbies of my own; cooking, calligraphy, baking, gardening, photography and watching movies. My hobbies make me happy and excited for little achievements I gained from those, not to mention that it also relieves stress and make my time worthwhile just like when you play games. They’re both good in balancing your personal life and work. Up until now online games never cease to amaze me because they have everything for all ages and for all walks of life. I find educational games like Educational Math 4 Kids helpful because it does not only entertain kids but educate them as well. Children are now hooked on everything that’s online, and this kind of games will bridge the need for math education and the excitement of playing games. 

From time to time, I explore games that our family can enjoy and play together like Mobile Chess and Word Games. A little thinking over some questions will be just as exciting as the real word games like the mobile responsive crossword puzzle found in calculators.org. The young and old me love word games and so are my whole family. It’s fun to play games and exciting to see how we compete with each other. My kids are as competitive as their Mom. I just love them.

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Ways on How to Plan Your Own Home

Owning a home is everyone’s dream and a must if you want to be independent from your family and if you want to settle down and start a family of your own. Not all people has enough finances to build their own home and most likely they resort to renting apartments which is the quickest way to have your own place to live. If you think wisely you’ll realize that it’s more expensive paying monthly rentals to a place you can’t own and it’s better when you consider estimating affordability  and searching for a good real estate company that offers the right house plan for your requirements. Since it’s a bit costly to invest in real estate, people find it best to apply for house financing plans. 

Taking out housing loan is a major financial decision that people should be thinking about carefully because mortgage term usually lasts for 15 to 25 years. In entering mortgage agreement it is vital to consider some factors before finalizing your decision. You should compute your monthly income against your monthly expenses to see if you can get through the mortgage payments for the next several years of your life. You can also have some of the printable amortisation schedules  to calculate your payments and decide if your income can afford it. 

It is also important to know the status of real estate in this period because a lot of things changed when COVID 19 hit the globe. It greatly affected the way people live and work. It changed their outlook in life, became cautious in socializing with friends and how they spend their money. People became wise in spending only for the basic essentials in life – food, medicine and home essentials. With these changes brought about by the crisis in health, some businesses suffered economic crisis. 

Some people lost their jobs because companies suffered either decline in profits or bankruptcy. Real estate investments were not spared from this as it's frozen for a time. With the rise of health crisis people missed mortgage payments, sales of properties declined, leased contracts were cancelled and cash flows were minimized to just surviving the company operations. Many people opt to sell their properties to survive the health crisis and some who are planning to invest took a break and decided to wait until the pandemic is over. 

So many things have happened in the past two years and people learned how to live with the simple things in life prioritizing what’s essential in living. Now that the world is slowly returning to normal, some businesses are gaining income again and picking up where they left off including the real estate industry. People can now go back to planning their own home and consulting loan estimator to check whether it’s viable to enter new mortgage or if it’s best to consider remortgages, whatever fits their economic status. 

Well due to financial difficulties some people cannot really save money to buy their homes because house prices are also rising tremendously. For those who cannot invest without help there’s a way to do it with some assistance from the government. There are governments who launch various schemes to help homeowners fulfill their dream of having their own home. You can take ideas from the Government Help to Buy a Home: Schemes & Guidance and seek for advice.

My family is also thinking about entering a mortgage to renovate and upsize our home because some of us are working from home and we’re thinking of making a bigger home office for a more comfortable working environment. We want to estimate payments first before entering a house loan so we will not be burdened with the heavy monthly mortgage. It’s always best to plan and think of ways to maximize income to cope up with the new payments to make. 

I even know some people are doing loan overpayment and asking the help of online calculator to have a graph of monthly and yearly amortization tables. It works really well whether you’re considering buying a new home or even refinancing your old mortgage. It works both ways and it always pays to have a careful and detailed financing planning before deciding to buy a home. If you’re up to it you can visit some mortgage calculator sites.

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Recreational Game Bonding with the Family

Having a big family requires a lot of attention and recreational time for the kids to enjoy family bonding together. It’s when they spend their time away from school and from the hustle and bustle of the outside world. As a Mom I usually spend my weekends cooking for my family for them to enjoy not just our time together but their favorite foods as well especially when I have free days away from my work. At the end of the day we spend the rest of our time either watching netflix shows or playing games be it real games or free online games. Kids these days are fond of playing online games which requires creativity and fun actions. 

My kids enjoy fast paced games like network gaming, word games or puzzles that brings out the best of their intellects, as long as the challenge is there they seem to like it. I join them when they play online word puzzles like scramble video game.  The game is very interesting and having played scrabble and word factory games a lot I seem to enjoy it. In this game you just use whatever letter tiles you see in the playing field to create words, you type it and submit. I need to be fast in creating and submitting words or the letters will pile up and gets jumbled. I get excited whenever I finish one level after another. It brings out the best of my vocabulary words and I also learn from it. I’m actually amazed that my kids are even faster that I am. 

My son who loves blocks usually plays minecraft and tetra blocks game as he feels good setting up all those blocks into some sort of order. Though it’s easy on the starting point it gets harder when you miss the right order of blocks and the tower gets higher and movements get faster. Well this is also my favorite and I can play it with much ease and comfort just like my son. We reached higher points than others and we just love playing it over and over again especially when we see the stars brighten upon connecting them next to each other. Games can really make you young at heart. 

My husband sometimes splurge into playing to rest his mind off his busy work schedule but he relaxes when playing the good old school game solitaire as it’s a really relaxing game where you can play at your own pace, just thinking on the moves and completing the pile of cards. He just needs some concentration and he can enjoy it without pressure. Well everyone has their own preferences when choosing games and it always depends on what triggers your curiosity or what challenges you more. What matters also is enjoying every minute of playing so it will be a happy moment not just for you but for the whole family as well. So whenever you have free time from your busy work days start your own family game bonding and look out for some free, fun games on solitaire.org.

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Plan Your Way to a Debt-Free Life

With the onset of the health crisis around the globe comes the struggle in the economy of most countries. As the economy affects business and the consumers a great percentage of the consumers applied as much loan as they can get just to get through these hard times. These loans became long standing debts that ballooned into an amount that is harder to pay because of the interest. Debts stemmed from expenses that we could not include in our monthly budget like home repairs, car maintenance, emergency hospital bills, sudden death in the family, educational expenses and some other unavoidable costs that may arise in our everyday living. As all of these necessities are part of our daily lives we have to deal with these even if it means borrowing money from any available lenders. 

Most of the debts nowadays come through credit cards as they are the most convenient and readily available channel that we can get easy cash and can be used for all purchases that we may need for our home and personal needs. The problem from having various credit cards is that we tend to spend more than we need and with a big enormous credit line it’s just so easy to get as much items even if some are not necessities. Soon this will become a problem as we may not be able to deal with the billing statement from the bank creditors. 

The real problems begins when our monthly payments for our debts takes up more than half of our monthly income. This happens to most people and I’m pretty sure that it’s the cause of anxiety and stress for most people with big debts. With this is mind there are things that we can do to settle our debts and bring our finances to good standing.

1. Analyzing Your Financial Situation and Comparing Expenses Against Your Income. We should study about the portions that we should allot for all our expenses. Remember the Spending Plan Pie Chart that we learned from school where we divide 100% to all our expense categories like Housing, Transportation, Living Expenses, Savings, Debt, Insurance, Education, Utilities and Other Miscellaneous Expenses. Percentage depends on your status in life, your needs and priorities. 

If you’re renting or paying for your home mortgage you should allot the right amount for it but if you already own your house you can just plan some amount for repairs and maintenance. If you have children who are still studying you should put adequate percentage for tuition fees and other school fees. Same goes for other categories and it varies depending on the size of the family and the monthly income. 

2. Setting Priorities. We should set our priorities and make a list of our basic necessities and the things that we want to buy if we have extra budget. This way we can easily budget our expenses in the right perspective and eliminate unnecessary expenses that will burden our spending plan. 

3. Knowing the Origin of Your Debt. Analyze where your debt comes from. Are you burdening yourself with high interest from lending institutions? Or do you have too many credit cards that entices you to buy unnecessary luxury items. Debts can come from house and car mortgages too and you should analyze if your debts should be managed properly to avoid high interest. You can read and visit some financial sites to view more  ideas on these things. 

4. Organizing Your Debt and Setting Up Goals to Achieve Lower Debts. Make a list of all your debts and try to learn more from some financial experts on how you can consolidate your debts to lower monthly payments. Debt consolidation is a good start to organizing your debt as it merges your multiple debts into a single debt which will allow you to pay only one bill and think of one monthly deadline with lower monthly payments as well. 

It takes not only money to reduce your debt but good planning ideas as well. Planning comes easy if you have someone who can assist you on your debt consolidation needs. Click here  for guidance on setting up your goals on reducing your debt and try to learn about the pros and cons to fully understand what you’re getting into. They offer fast money solution to get personal loans from a nation-wide marketplace of lenders and lending partners. Funds will be deposited directly to your bank account and you can pay all your debts instantly reducing your various debts to only one debt which you can manage easily. 

So think about this opportunity as a better way to unload your financial anxiety and stress and make your first step to a debt-free life.

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