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All-cash offers for homes are available all the rage lately, but is it as good an idea as most of us think? While making an attractive offer to the seller, consider the ramifications of tying up your money with an asset like home, as you could make more money in the long run by taking out a mortgage and plowing some of that money into a mutual fund.

Why cash isn’t always king when it comes to real estate

At first glance, it seems so simple: if you buy a home with cash outright, you don’t have to go into debt with a mortgage. Finally, you’d avoid spending $ 129,444 in. to pay Interest alone, for a $ 250,000 mortgage that requires 3% interest over 30 years. Who wanna do that?

Well, the problem is the opportunity cost: if you put most of that money in a mutual fund, the return would exceed the additional interest you would pay on the interest, especially since mortgage rates are so low. For the past 30 years, the S&P 500 index has been one average annual growth rate of 10.7% per yearwhile the mortgage rates are much lower. The average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is currently 2.84%, the average rate of the 15-year fixed-rate mortgage is 2.24%. Investopedia has a great example of how this works:

For example, suppose you bought a $ 300,000 home that has increased in value by $ 100,000 since then and is now worth $ 400,000. If you paid for the house in cash, your return would be 33% (a profit of $ 100,000 versus your $ 300,000). However, if you deposited 20% and borrowed the remaining 80%, your return would be 166% (a profit of $ 100,000 for your down payment of $ 60,000). This oversimplified example ignores mortgage payments, tax deductions, and other factors, but that’s a general principle.

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And if you split that money up, you can benefit from two types of investments, rather than just one. That means that in addition to your property, you could have an index fund with an annualized return of 10% whose average annual return can be anywhere from 5% to 15%. In that sense, paying 3% on a mortgage, for example, isn’t that big of a deal. Because of this, wealthy people strategically take out a mortgage for leverage, even though they could always pay off the loan.

Of course, reservations apply. Investing in both real estate and stocks carries some risk, as past performance is no guarantee of future results. And everyone’s financial situation is different. One of the benefits of owning a property with no funding is that you don’t have to deal with monthly mortgage payments that are a strain on your budget. Plus, sometimes you just need a home, and in this sellers’ market, cash is sometimes really king.

Bottom line

Consider consulting a financial advisor before making any major investment, including a cash home purchase. A house is a great asset, but it is not easy to turn it back into cash when you need it, and you can better use some of that money for other investments.

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If you really want to go the extra mile, you can a Bucket in the shower Washing up instead of letting the water run over you. During a drought in San Francisco, I was with friends who used a bucket in the shower to collect water while they waited for the shower to warm up. You can then pour the collected water into the toilet to activate the flushing mechanism instead of constantly flushing the toilet, which in one action saves water in two ways.

Granted, it’s not the most convenient – but giving up some amenities in order to still have drinking water doesn’t sound too bad.

You may want to reconsider your dog’s raw food diet: According to a study recently published online in the International Journal of Food Microbiology, raw dog food commercially available in Europe contains drug-resistant Enterococcus bacteria. Scientists from the University of Porto and the Instituto Universitário de Ciências da Saúde (IUCS) in Portugal tested 55 types of dry, wet and raw dog food for Enterococcus, which can cause everything from urinary tract infections to endocarditis in humans. They found it in more than half of the samples – including every single raw sample.

Dr. Ana R. Freitas, the lead author of the study, published a research letter in the CDC’s Emerging Infectious Disease journal in which the results of the raw samples are discussed in detail. To put it nicely, they are not “good”:

All samples contained enterococci resistant to erythromycin, streptomycin, chloramphenicol and tetracycline; 93% resistant to ampicillin, ciprofloxacin and quinupristin / dalfopristin; 79% resistant to gentamicin; and 50% resistant to linezolid.

Linezolid is a last resort antibiotic, and half of the strains of bacteria from these raw dog food samples are resistant to it.

Dr. Freitas and her team also found that some of the dog food bacteria are closely related to Enterococcus strains found in pigs, chickens, sewage and even in human hospital patients across Europe – so we know they can infect multiple species. Dr. Freitas closes the letter by saying, “Our data suggest that raw dog food may be a guardian of new antimicrobial resistance traits …

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Should You Put Your Dog On A Raw Food Diet?

How badly you should freak out now depends on where you live and what you are feeding your dog. This study only tested brands of dog food available in Portugal (and Europe), but unfortunately the authors did not reveal any names. You just said they tested two brands of raw dog food, one in Europe and one in the UK. If your brand is from one of these places, then consider throwing it away and switching your dog to dry or regular wet food.

But even if your preferred brand is produced elsewhere, this study should give you a break from the whole “raw dog food” thing. The results are pretty terrifying, but given what we already know about raw pet diets, they aren’t surprising either. The CDC does not recommend them mainly because raw meat contains bacteria that can make both pets and humans sick. A 2019 literature review in the Journal of Small Animal Practice weighed the proposed benefits of raw food against the risks and concluded that “the advice of various professional associations against raw feeding seems justified”, especially for those particularly susceptible to bacterial infections. The “increased frequency and number of antimicrobial drug-resistant bacteria in raw food” is even cited as evidence for this conclusion.

The bottom line is that raw foods for pets and humans are far more risky than anything that has been heat treated. Listeria and salmonella are one thing, but drug-resistant Enterococcus are serious, life-threatening things. With antibiotic and antimicrobial resistance already on the rise, you can’t be too careful here.

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Even if you spend a lot of time, money, and effort making your yard, lawn, and / or other parts of your landscape look good, you may be missing out on some of your garden’s greatest residents: trees. It’s easy to forget trees, especially if they were already on the property when you moved in.

We’re not saying trees need a lot of maintenance – in fact, they’re pretty self-sufficient – but when they’re near your home there are a few things you should be doing to keep them healthy and looking great. Here’s what you should know.

How to care for newly planted trees

Let’s start with trees that you planted. As you’ve probably found out, young trees can be expensive to buy. So not only do you want your baby trees to grow and thrive, but you also want to protect your investment.

This starts when you first plant the tree. As told by Kathy Robinson from Robby’s Nursery in Bakersfield, California 23ABC messages, do this by digging a large hole and filling it with a mixture of native soil and mulch that will help the roots lodge and grab.

Then create a small circle of dirt around the root ball – known as a water well – and fill it with water. “I like to fill it up three to ten centimeters every morning with standing water just above the root ball,” explains Robinson. It should take about a month for the new tree to take root. After that, the water well can go and you can start fertilizing the tree.

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How to take care of mature trees

When it comes to watering adult trees, it’s a balancing act. Both too much and too little water can damage trees. So after Foundation for the Day of the Tree, You want the soil around the tree to be moist, but not muddy. So they propose check the bottom of a tree:

You can check the soil moisture by using a garden trowel and dipping it into the soil to a depth of 2 inches, then moving the blade of the trowel back and forth to create a small narrow trench. Then touch the floor with your finger. If it feels damp, they don’t need water.

Pruning trees is another way to keep them healthy. But it’s about more than just cutting off dead branches: when, how and what you prune depends on the season and the specific needs of the tree. The Arbor Day Foundation has several written and video guides on how to circumcise, including this one:

In most cases, minimal maintenance can keep your trees looking healthy for years.