Remodeling ideas for two-story houses

In the 1970s, split-level houses were the best parts of the block. In the mid-1970s, 12% of new homes in the United States were two-story (21% in the Midwest), but today they represent less than 1% of new homes. Its heyday has passed. Split levels are not only unpopular, but actively avoided. Modern homebuyers comment on the split-level homes’ retro 1970s feel, as well as their awkward, cluttered layouts. Although they were once loved for their low price, the fact that they didn’t need a dug-out basement, and stepped floors that allow for plenty of privacy, today’s homeowners tend to find them outdated and dark. Fortunately, there are plenty of split-level home remodeling ideas that allow homeowners to open up the space and eliminate that stale vibe.

Let’s start with the first thing you see when you walk into a home: curb appeal. Common complaints regarding split-level homes include large and distracting garage doors, a sea of ​​unattractive siding, and awkward gaps between windows. One of the best ways to enhance the curb appeal of a split-level apartment is to emphasize the entryway. Adding a porch, portico, canopy or enclosed mudroom to the home will draw attention away from the garage and could also add functionality to the home (a mudroom could be a great place for additional storage, a porch gives you the option of benches and pots, etc.). You can also change up the façade treatment or add dormer windows to the roof to add some visual interest.

Split-level homes often fit rooms into small spaces, and more often than not, this is a fact you’ll have to accept. Unless you want to dismantle the house entirely, you’re stuck with the basic layout. However, you do have a few options. You can remove unnecessary walls or add an addition to the house. Families these days love to entertain in their kitchen, so an open kitchen that takes advantage of a back-of-home addition is a perfect idea. You can fill the space with more storage, an island, or a breakfast patio. And if you’re planning an expansion, consider adding two levels. While you’re expanding the kitchen, you could also make a more spacious master suite upstairs.

Finally, since these homes often lack light, an easy upgrade is to add windows. Use large windows, and consider installing them on either side of a corner, allowing for lots of extra light. You can also install a patio with glass or screen walls, which allows light to enter the back of the house through the patio.

Instead of searching for a new home or staying depressed about your current home, use our split-level home remodeling ideas to update your home to make it more functional and beautiful. You just might come to love your quirky split-level home.

Interior Design: The art of defining your inner creativity!

I believe that creativity resides in everything, the way you dress, the way you talk, the food you cook, the way you write, the way we express our thoughts and even the way you arrange the furniture in your home.

Interior design is an art to define your thoughts, personality and creativity. Everyone has a different sense of spilling art in different ways by their thoughts. Mine is also different.

As an interior designer, I have experimented with many different styles for different homes that all turned out to be successful. Let me share some of the best interior design ideas, which will be useful for you too, let’s take a look at them:

Relive the lively vibes of Kitchen Garden

The kitchen is the place where you can easily flaunt your creative thoughts by adding designer and stylish kitchen cabinets. You can arrange kitchen furniture in a creative way, for an instant, you can make a small garden in your kitchen.

But how?

Here is the output.

If you have a spacious open kitchen, you can use small wooden planters in the middle and divide the area into a kitchen and a dining room. You can separate the spacious kitchen into a kitchen and a dining room.

You can grow your favorite herbs and vegetables in these pots and make them attractive and beautiful. You can grow herbs like curry leaves, thyme, Tulsi and mint leaves in these pots. You can also grow vegetables like green chilies, tomato bonsai plants, coriander, and others.

The greenery from your small garden will look amazing in your kitchen and will spread its magical aroma in your kitchen and dining room.

A home theater setup for your living room

Living room – a place where all your family members spend their quality time and enjoy each other’s company. This place must have a lovely lively atmosphere that can make you relax and feel comfortable.

With the creatively designed living room, you don’t need to wait for the weekends to watch a movie with your loved ones. You can turn your living room into a small home theater by adding some stylish and functional media devices and furniture. You can enjoy the movie here.

Put comfortable mattresses on the floor and throw some soft cushions on them, and make your seats comfortable. Put heavy, dark-colored curtains on your living room windows and doors. You make you give your living room a darker light for better movie effects.

Place a large wall mounted TV unit with a large screen LED TV in front of the seating arrangement, and voila! Your own home theater is ready and now you can enjoy the movie comfortably, lying on the comfortable mattress.

Enhance the look of your home with interesting walls

Big spacious blank walls look dull and pale. You can make them functional and interesting by adding full-size wallpapers, colorful wooden wall shelves, and attractive paintings or photo frames.

If you are bored enough to change the dull pale walls into a creative and useful one, apply your creativity to them.

Add a great creative wallpaper; it gives a spark and theme to your place.

Attach some colorful wall cabinets or open wooden wall shelves to the wall. Decorate them with your best and unique decorations.

Place a small sofa along this wall, and fix the photo frames and painting above the blank space of the sofa. This arrangement will have your guests going crazy with your fabulous interior design ideas. This is sure to enhance the overall appearance of your home’s interior design.

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Tips to protect your granite from cracking and sagging: there is a simple solution

Granite and other heavy stones or surfaces will crack and warp if left unprotected.

You may think that a surface like granite is strong and does not need protection against cracking or buckling, but you will find that if it is not properly protected, you will need a very expensive repair or replacement of your granite.

Granite is the choice for countertops, shelving, bathroom sink tops and more in interior and exterior use today. It is a beautiful natural stone and can provide long lasting enjoyment and appreciation.

If you are installing granite that has an overhang in your kitchen, bathroom, or outside counter, you will need, or your granite installer will need, to assess or determine if the overhang needs support underneath to protect your granite from buckling cracks.

Granite can crack or warp from the sheer weight of the protruding granite. Cracking or sagging can also occur through weight applied to the surface. For example, if you have a granite bar overhang and people are sitting on the bar and leaning on it with their elbows; is causing stress on the granite surface. Some people think that the granite can support their weight and it will sit on the granite overhang. Children love to hang on and swing from things, like countertops. These are things that can present a problem for your granite or other heavy counter surfaces.

Yes, granite is strong, hard, and beautiful, and will provide lasting beauty and enjoyment, but at the same time, when suspended beyond a supporting surface, you will need a support brace in the form of angle brackets, braces, or corbels. .

Determined by your granite installer, you will know if you need support, and if so, what type of support or bracing is required for your particular situation.

There are several types of braces or corbels that will support a suspended surface. They are known as angle supports or corbels. Angle support corbels or corbels come in various materials such as plastic, wood, thin metal, cast iron, and heavy-duty wrought iron along with other materials.

With a heavy surface, you’ll want to get the best support available. You don’t want to settle for inferior material such as plastic, cast iron, or a thin metal. The wood is available for indoor use, but will deteriorate over time through the elements and weather in outdoor conditions. Heavy-duty wrought iron is a good choice for indoor use and is ideal for outdoor use as a support for countertops, pergolas, pergolas, or other bracing needs.

You’ll find that wrought iron angle brackets, or iron corbels as some call them, come in various sizes and styles that will actually accentuate your surface and enhance through your design flair.

It is important to determine the size and quantity of angle support bracket needed for proper coverage and support. This is established via the depth of the surface and the length of the surface. It is best to bring the depth of the corbel to within 2-3″ of the depth of the granite or counter surface. For the number of corbels, it is determined by the length and spacing of the corbels. Corbel spacing 24″ – 30″ spacing is a general rule of thumb. Again, your installer or professional can make this determination for you. Sometimes installers will put a sheet of plywood under the granite, and sometimes they won’t. This can also influence the size and spacing of the brackets.

With all of this information in mind, you’ll find several great websites with excellent heavy-duty support products for home improvement and commercial use of granite or other heavy surfaces. Do some research and buy the best quality, granite backed, and you will enjoy your granite, worry and worry free for years to come.

The biggest problems with knives and cutlery

Looking back, knives were first used millions of years ago as essential tools, first made of stone and flint. It was through technology that has developed blades made of copper, bronze, steel, ceramic, and titanium along with the practicality of flint as an effective cutting instrument. These have inspired the production of a wide range of different patterns and styles of modern blades that we know of today.

Generally, we see different versions of a knife depending on the culture and origin, but still, the useful feature of the knife made it the best tool that passes the time in the hands of cooks and chefs. Different types of kitchen knives provide different efficiency and precision when cutting different types of food, but we didn’t know that the biggest problem in almost every home kitchen is dull knives. Many people find it the biggest hurdle in the kitchen.

In almost every kitchen of my friends that I go to, I see different types of knives, but very few are sharp. The only kitchens I’ve been in where there are sharp knives are those of meat stewards who are selling meat and those where no one cooks and where knives and cutlery are kept inside drawers. If most of your kitchen knives are dull and you don’t sharpen them regularly, even on high-end cutlery, your knives are almost certainly dull.

The myth says that a sharp knife is safer than a dull knife. This is because using a dull knife requires excessive force to cut through the food, which may slip and cause injury to the user. A sharp knife cuts food finely requiring only a little force, so cutting becomes much easier along with good knife control, and the user is more likely to be safe. Since kitchen knives dull over time, you just need to take better care of them by sharpening them regularly. It is also one of the ways in which we can make our knives useful and durable.

Another thing that the knife myth says is that it should have a full tang. This probably works for heavy knives forced to cut through thick leather and firewood, but not for paring knives that are generally only designed for delicate cutting of soft food ingredients. On the contrary, it will give you trouble getting full tang knives, as these are rarely high-end kitchen knives, or even full tang stainless steel knives. In short, learn the types of knives you need most so you don’t fall for the marketing hype.

Another thing that is both true and false is that knife sets are better than individual knives. Although you do get more metal in a set compared to buying the same pieces individually, large sets usually come in a large number of knives that you won’t be using. On the other hand, you can use the other metals when the tools become dull, dirty or break. So, you can buy a set of premium knives, cutlery and accessories or get individual pieces of premium chef’s knife, small paring knife, carving knife and bread knife, both of which can be considered the best deals.

Having a professional array of knives, cutlery, graters, and mandolins in your kitchen, I don’t think you’ll ever have a problem working with them. That is if you spend most of your life in the kitchen.

Expat Parenting: Adjusting to Family Life Abroad

How is parenting as an expat different from parenting at home? Just as the three rules of real estate are location, location, and location, most would agree that the three rules of parenting are love, love, and love. We can differ greatly in how we express that love, depending on our personalities and how love was expressed to us as children. And even within the same family, some kids seem to need “tough love,” while others need plenty of snuggle time. But all children need to feel loved and I believe that one of the main tasks of parents is to let them know that they are worthy of love.

When raising an expat in a foreign country, and particularly a third world country, I would add three other parenting rules; support, support and more support; first for us as parents, and second for our families. I often think of the monotonous flight attendant’s talk about putting on your oxygen mask before helping your child or someone else. For me, this is a clear metaphor for parenting: if I can’t breathe, how can I help my child or anyone else?

One of the main ways that parenting as an expat is different from parenting at home, at least initially, is the lack of our usual support network of family and close friends. And if we’re a non-working spouse, we may also lack emotional support from our partner, who is often up to his neck with new challenges and responsibilities, and simply doesn’t have much to give at the end of the day. (More on this later).

Therefore, finding ways to get the support we need as parents is a major concern for expats, especially non-working parents. Fortunately, in most major cities around the world there are organizations that help expatriates, particularly expatriate women, find support. We may also find, upon settling in, that we have more free time due to (hopefully) capable domestic staff, which I will also discuss later.

I urge expat stay-at-home parents to find something to do that they are passionate about. It can be something you have done before or something totally new that you would like to explore. If you think back and remember a time when you were doing something that felt like a few minutes, and when you looked at the clock an hour had passed, you were doing something you were passionate about. It could be learning something new, like the local language, yoga, volunteering at an NGO or at your child’s school. Just make sure it’s an activity that involves others, as this is a wonderful way to bond and start building a new support network.

As suggested above, it may be a lax proposition for the non-working spouse to seek out their partner to meet all their emotional needs. In fact, I’ve heard women say that being an expat wife is like being a single mom without dating privileges.

While this may be an exaggeration, it’s important to note that you simply can’t get blood from a stone. If your spouse feels burned out, stressed, and overworked, you won’t have much to give. All the more reason to start building a support system outside of your home. And the same is true for the working parent. If he or she comes home at the end of the day and expects her partner to be a supportive shoulder to lean on, this can have some unexpected results. Particularly if the stay-at-home parent has been providing support all day and has not met her own support needs.

Children may also miss the working parent with whom they have enjoyed a close relationship in the past. They may be confused and angry that they have so little time with their mom or dad. It’s important to really listen to your child’s feelings without trying to talk him out of it. Parents need to function as a “container” for their children’s strong emotions. I often use the milk carton analogy: if a quarter of the milk is spilled on the kitchen floor, it’s a big disaster, but if that same amount of milk is in a carton in the fridge, it’s no problem. .

So let your children have their feelings and teach them how to express their feelings in a safe way. If a child is angry, for example, research has shown that speeding up or slowing down are effective tools. For example, you can suggest that your child run up and down the stairs counting to 100 forwards and backwards based on her age. Any repetitive activity that gets your heart rate up, while at the same time giving your mind something to occupy itself with other than anger, will work. The slow down activity involves breathing slowly, with your child repeatedly counting 4 full breaths, one inhalation and one exhalation counting to one, etc. You can also have him lie down holding a pillow. As you inhale, ask him to squeeze the pillow as hard as he can, count to three, and exhale slowly. The next time your child is angry, she tries these tools, they work!

At the same time, it is important to reassure your children that they are deeply loved by both parents. If possible, try to plan one family event each week, such as dinner or Sunday brunch together. Ideally, children should also be able to spend some one-on-one time with each parent whenever practical.

One aspect of parenting that tends to crop up in third world countries is the need to explain a wide variety of topics and customs that are new to you and your children. Issues such as your relationship with your children and domestic staff and poverty are two of the most obvious.

Most Westerners have never dealt with the problems of having a domestic staff, except for a weekly cleaner. This is a far cry from having someone who is not a member of your family in your home day in and day out. The concepts of privacy and boundaries that we take for granted are actually tied to culture, and most people in third world countries don’t understand them. This is an area where we can learn from other expats about what has and hasn’t worked for them. A word of warning: I suggest you refrain from sharing your “problems” with home staff with friends back home. I have found that they have no sympathy for us in this regard!

It is important to you and your family that you find people to work for you that you can really trust. Honestly, there’s no need to settle for less. This may require several rounds of hiring and firing, but it’s worth every minute in the end. The way you talk to and interact with your staff, of course, sets the tone for how your children will behave. I have heard teenagers order staff around in a condescending manner. This is a good opportunity to instill in your children the importance of treating all people with dignity and respect.

A younger child may quickly bond with a babysitter or caregiver. This can lead to concern, even envy and jealousy that your children seem to bond better with their babysitter than with you. There may be several reasons for this: your child may be angry with you for causing this change in her life, or it may be an indication that she is not getting the kind of love from you that she needs. Be open to honestly exploring this with a new friend, spouse, or therapist should this occur.

Let me say a few words about poverty in third world countries – this is a whole subject in itself and one that expat children have a lot of questions about, particularly when it comes to children begging. Children have a variety of responses to this, depending on their age and ability to learn the information. Most importantly, they need to know that everyone should be treated with the same kind of respect, regardless of who they are. If they want to help and are old enough, you might want to suggest ways you can volunteer together to help the kids, or you can get involved in a volunteer project at school. Treating this topic as a teachable moment about basic human dignity will do your child a lifelong service.

A challenge that arises in some Asian cities is that outdoor activities are curtailed for part of the year due to the heat. If you have young children who are used to playing outside, this can become a problem for both the children and the parents. Arranging playdates whenever possible is a partial solution. If you decide to hire a babysitter, make sure she is someone who likes to get on the floor and play with the kids. If she is not comfortable with this, she is probably not the best person for her child. Fortunately, most international schools have a wide variety of extracurricular activities to keep your children busy.

If you keep in mind the 3 rules of expat parenting, support, support and more support, you will find that adjusting to family life abroad will be rewarding for you and your children. And when all else fails, talk to family and friends on Skype!

The fish we cook, swaii and barramundi

SWAI Swaii is a form of catfish that is imported from fish farms mainly in Vietnam. Its popularity has increased considerably in the United States since the trade embargo was lifted in 1994. The swaii is a river fish that can grow up to 4 feet in length, but farmed fish are generally sold in the 2- to 4-foot range. pounds. The adult fish is almost uniformly grey. Swaii are often sold under the name pangasius or basa. The basa is a similar fish that is actually a bit better in quality, so you should check the labels. Basa fish are much more expensive because it takes up to 4 times longer to breed. Swaii is a very important fish commercially and is sold all over the world. It is similar to American catfish but is usually cheaper in price which has caused the US government to be very specific with labeling. Basa is a soft fish with white meat and a texture similar to American catfish. Swaii is also a mild fish, but the flesh is slightly darker and the fillets are thinner than basa fillets. The best way to cook swaii is to bake, fry, fry or grill.

BARRAMUNDI

A fairly new fish to the US market, the barramundi is found in both fresh and saltwater in the area from the Persian Gulf to Australia. Another common name for barramundi is Asian seabass, but it is also found under the names largemouth bass, giant sea bass, and Australian bass. It is a popular fish for both sports and commercial fishing. Most of the fish on the market comes from farms, with Indonesia being the largest exporter. The United States has also gotten involved in raising barramundi on fish farms with production in Massachusetts and Florida. The barramundi is a demersal fish, which means that it gets its food from the bottom or near the bottom. Bottom feeding fish usually have much less oil than open water feeding fish. It is a strong fighting fish that has been known to reach 80 pounds and 4 feet in length. It is a good ranching fish because it grows fast and can reach its market size of around 2lbs in about 1 year. Smaller fish are known to be better eaten than larger ones. Barramundi has a pearly pink flesh that turns white after cooking. It is mild in flavor with a flaky pulp. The best way to cook barramundi is by deep-frying, pan-frying, sautéing, oven-frying, or baking.

Winter Carp Fishing Bait and Recipe Tips!

Get ahead this winter with these unusual and insightful tips based on 30 years of winter fishing experiences and catching big carp and make your prepared baits and homemade baits catch a lot more big fish!

Highly viscous and extremely soluble substances are very effective in catching more carp in cold conditions! Obviously, highly soluble substances such as alcoholic flavorings are very effective in winter, but other less soluble substances are also very useful for getting bites, especially if they are emulsified or partially emulsified with liquid lecithins. Terpenes, oleoresins and essential oils etc. are all proven winter winners.

Glycerol or glycerin is a very useful substance because it mixes 100 percent with water, and many successful flavors are based on it. Alcohol flavors are also highly soluble in water, so they will easily travel from your bait, thus forming a concentration gradient that carp can focus on. I personally find mixing glycerol and alcohol based flavors with ones based primarily on natural or other natural or nature-identical esters or diacetin types is very successful.

You can even boost a propylene glycol-based flavor by cutting it with vodka (preferably at home, not at the bank). Many things can be used to alter conventional concentrated flavors, including natural raspberry puree and a probiotic agent like marmite.

Kettle is very rich in flavor-enhancing factors, for example, ribbons and glutamine. Add Talin as an electrostatic carrier and also other soluble sweeteners, flavor enhancers and flavorings etc. it helps produce unique homemade flavors, but this aspect is so important that I have written a book about it. I’ve been doing this kind of experimentation with my baits, both homemade and off the shelf, since the 1970s because it works amazingly well, especially in cold water conditions.

But, of course, the concentrated flavors are not the only useful substances; and some substances can be too soluble, and actually leach out of baits too quickly, since they have infinite solubility, as in the case of glycerol-dominated flavors, for example. It is wise to try to mix flavors and other substances so that all the flavors percolate at different rates, leaving some concentrated attraction in the vicinity of the bait. Using pure glycerin, vodka, and a blend of concentrated sweetener and molasses and marmite, soluble fish protein, and lactose, for example, is a bit alternative, producing different effects and impacts at different ranges.

For an easy homemade method or bar-style mixes, simply make a fluffy breadcrumb-based mix moistened with their unique liquids to produce a ground bait mix that will disperse easily, releasing soluble lure and food particles into the water column. and attracting carp like crazy! The use of anything from hemp oil, essential oils and fruit oils etc. in your mix, it will make the particles better pull the fish down from the upper layers, as the oil will tend to rise in the water. Maybe add crushed tiger nuts (tigernuts) too, as this will leave an oily coating on the bottom that will lift easily when disturbed by the fish and excite them even more!

An easy way to create a flavorful alternative zone for winter fishing is to mix breadcrumbs with your old favorite Nesquick milkshake powder. I really like to use extra sweetened oils in many forms, as long as they are mixed with liquid lecithins, but I advise you to avoid bulk marine and fish oils that simply solidify at low temperatures; test in the refrigerator or outside overnight using a thermometer if unsure.

While fishing and testing oils, I found that a thermometer placed in oils in a pot in the water is quite illuminating! This is especially since I did my bait cooking video for CC Moore TV and did more research on my practical fishing for my exclusive Crafty Carper Carp Food Column magazine.

Fruit oils are readily available online, and you don’t always have to go to fishing bait companies to find something slightly different or alternative; After all, that is one of the biggest proven advantages in carp fishing! In addition to using any oil, I highly recommend using Phil’s High CP Liquid Lecithin at CW Baits (online) as this will drastically improve bait performance and increase the digestion of baits as well as add more feeding triggers. and nutrition to your baits.

Test any oil you use in your winter baits to make sure it doesn’t solidify in the water temperatures of the lake you’ll be fishing in. This may seem very obvious after all, how much more difficult is it for a fish to spot a bait that is simply a ball of grease, compared to finding a bait that very actively releases oils that can be easily dispersed in the water? For example, in cold water, avoid using salmon oil and use very viscous hemp oil, perhaps with added liquid lecithins and perhaps essential oils based on cloves, cinnamon or chilli, for example.

In really low winter temperatures, solubility is really a big factor to take advantage of, and in such conditions it often doesn’t make sense to use a conventional paste-coated boiled bait, when you can just use paste on the rig and really know every bit of it. your bait. it’s working for you (and not rendered ineffective due to being sealed within the clotted protein formed by heating the bait!)

I won’t go into which bait products to use here because there are so many great ones for winter and spring fishing to choose from, but a key aspect in choosing substance is how well they will disperse in water, especially cold water! ! To find out, simply take samples and mix them with cold water. In a way, it’s like comparing salt to betaine crystals, or whole milk powder to various caseins, grits or cornmeal, or malt extract, for example.

Just one example of a really good winter hack is to make a paste with CC Moore Feedstim XP Liquid, his Feedstim XP powder, his Belachan powder, pure betaine and Red Venom liquid, hardened with whole wheat flour. Note that egg is not used in this paste as you would to make boilies, as this bait can be as water soluble as you like and will last longer in very low winter temperatures. Add powdered milk to this bait for added nutritional stimulation.

Milky baits break down and cloud the water, thus stimulating the feeding behaviors of fish on sight! It is cheaper to use Vitamealo and Five Pints ​​​​milk powder than caseins, whey proteins and caseinates; however, remember that using higher quality protein can really pay off, especially for larger fish! Revealed in my exclusive eBooks on Prepared Baits and Homemade Baits, Carp and Catfish Baits is much more powerful information. Look out for my unique website (Baitbigfish) and see my bio below for details on my eBook deals right now!

By Tim Richardson.

Incremental housing: an excellent pay-as-you-go solution

Buying an existing home or building a new one is an expensive proposition, but if you’re willing to take an unconventional approach, you can build your own home in increments and spread the cost over a period of years, possibly saving yourself a mortgage. .

The first step is to find and buy a property. You must have the property inspected and found acceptable for sewer or septic system and availability of water and other utilities, and ensure that the land is zoned for residential use. Make sure you get all the building permits and other documentation you need, and then plan your house.

You may want to look at house plans, for sale in bookstores and through various magazines, or you may want to design your own home. Think of ways you can build your house in stages, making sure the house is livable early in construction. A young couple decided to build a conventional stick-built house, but finished the basement area first and covered it over, then lived in the basement while they built the rest of the house.

There are companies that offer modular homes that are largely built in a factory and then assembled on site. [http://www.shelter-kit.com/lofthouse.html]. Some of these are created in segments that can stand alone or be assembled, either all at once or over a period of time. The manufacturers will be able to give you valuable advice on the best way to proceed.

Make sure the most necessary parts of your home get built first. If you must, you can essentially live in one room that serves as a kitchen, living room, and bedroom (efficient apartment renters do this all the time), but unless you want to live very roughly and use a latrine (no! that’s a nice thought!) One of your first priorities should be to build a fully functional bathroom.

Also make sure that even if you plan to add to your house in increments, you plan the entire structure of the house in advance. You may decide that you will add a laundry room in two years, for example; You’ll want to have the plans for that laundry room now, so expensive plumbing and electrical work can be done as efficiently as possible. This usually means grouping rooms that need a water supply together to minimize the material needed.

Building your home over a period of years using your own money or accessing short-term unsecured personal loans, or a combination of both, will allow you to own your home immediately and save many thousands of dollars over your lifetime. If you’re willing to be patient and live unconventionally for a while, it’s a great choice.

Funding and Price

Israeli American psychologist Dan Ariely has done extensive research on the psychology of pricing, that is, people’s behaviors regarding the prices of goods and services we encounter. His interest in the psychology of prices was aroused when he first visited an expensive chocolate shop. There before him was an array of unbelievably delicious truffles with equally unbelievable prices.

“I was thinking about what I wanted,” he said, “and I realized two things. One was that I quickly adjusted to the price level. I didn’t think about how much chocolate costs in the supermarket.” The other thing was that “I was very amenable, willing to accept whatever suggested price the store told me was the right price to think about.” (Ariely, 2009)

Ariely later became a professor of behavioral economics at Duke University. He is responsible for some of the most compelling demonstrations of just how fluid prices really are.

One experiment Ariely collaborated on was a silent auction of quality chocolates, bottles of wine, and computer equipment. Bidders, potential MBA candidates from MIT’s Sloan School of Business, were asked to enter the last two digits of their social security numbers (to serve as an anchor). Each bidder then had to choose whether they would pay more or less than that two-digit number, in dollars, for each item up for auction. Finally, the bidders wrote down how much they were willing to pay for the item (an actual reserve price). Winners paid with their own money and kept the items they won. One of the items auctioned was a bottle of 1998 Cotes du Rhone. So, as an example, my social security number ends in 78, so the first question I would have to answer is “Would I pay more or less than $78 for this bottle of wine? The second question then is “How much are you willing to pay?”

As expected, the results of the experiment showed a very clear anchoring (I should clarify that anchoring is the influence of perceptions by an unrelated stimulus, in this case, random social security numbers). Bidders with “low” SSNs (defined for the experiment as those ending in the digits 00 to 19) were willing to pay an average of $8.64 per bottle of Cotes du Rhone. Bidders with “high” SSNs (ending 80 to 99) were willing to pay $27.91 for the exact same bottle of wine! The same phenomenon occurred with chocolates and computer equipment. When all the data from the experiment is plotted on a graph (the price one was willing to pay versus the final SSN digits), the results are surprising. Price bidders willing to pay for each and every item went up in unison with their final SSN digits!

I’ll leave the implications of this in your hands.