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How Home Equity Can Help Fuel Your Retirement

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  How Home Equity Can Help Fuel Your Retirement If retirement is on the horizon, now’s the time to start thinking about your next chapter. And you probably want to make sure you’re set up to feel comfortable financially to live the life you want in retirement. What you may not realize is you likely have a hidden goldmine of cash you’re not thinking about — and that’s your home.  Data  from the  Federal Housing Finance Agency  (FHFA) shows that home values have gone up nearly 60% over the last 5 years alone (see graph below): And that appreciation gave your net worth a big boost. According to  Freddie Mac , over the same five-year period: “ . . .  Boomer overall wealth increased by $19 trillion, or $486,000 per household, half of which is due to house price appreciation.” So if you’ve been in your house ever longer than that, chances are you have even more equity in your home. If you want to have access to more of the wealth you’ve built up throughout t...
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10 Tips for October Gardening

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  1. Care for your lawn by raking or brushing leaves off the grass. Try collecting them in a leaf bag, which will turn them into useful leaf mould. You can also cut the grass for one last time this year. Make that last cut slightly higher to protect the lawn from winter frost.
  2. Trim hedges so they are crisp and tidy for the winter.
  3. October’s the time for clearing up. Greenhouses, ponds, gutters and water butts may all need cleaning out, wooden garden furniture will need covering or storing for the winter and terracotta pots will need bringing inside.
  4. Divide herbaceous perennials. Plant some back in the ground; take others to pot up and give away to friends in the spring.
  5. In the veg patch plant garlic cloves with their pointed ends up, and spaced 10cm apart.
  6. Plant bulbs for a colourful spring display. Try planting clumps of five or seven bulbs of the same variety through a border for a really effective display.
  7. Plant out spring bedding and biennials, such as wall-flowers, for spring displays. Pots and hanging baskets can be planted with spring bedding, and teamed with bulbs, grasses, cyclamen and violas for a colourful and textural display.
  8. ‘Plant’ prepared hyacinths in vases for winter scent and colour in the house.
  9. Harvest pumpkins for eating as well as carving.
  10. Enjoy the apple harvest! Why not visit an apple day in your area, where you can taste local varieties?  
Original Article via Eden Project