Household Savings

The weather can do a number on your home, especially when there is a big storm. Indeed, property owners can experience all sorts of crises such as having the windows blown in, roof damage, structural damage, and flooding. The good news is you can find out precisely what to do if your home has been impacted by storm damage and so return it to normal as quickly as possible. Read on to find out more. 

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Check the safety of your property before you return 

First of all, before you even set foot in your storm impacted home, you will need to make sure that it is safe and structurally sound. If necessary get an expert’s opinion on this because the last thing you want is to be documenting the damage done by the storm and end up becoming sick or injured, as this will only add to your woes and make the process of returning your home to its normal state even slower! 

Speak to your insurance provider

Insurers have 24-hour helplines for a reason, and it’s that they need to know about and assess any damage done to your property as soon as possible. 

Also, while your first instinct may be to throw away any damaged items, it’s best to leave them so the adjuster can see the full impact of the storm in person. Indeed, the more evidence you provide to professionals like The Public Adjuster Miami, the better their chances at securing you the maxim settlement possible. Something that will help get your home back to its typical state, fast. 

Document the damage 

In addition to keeping items for the loss adjuster to examine, it’s a good idea to document any damage so you have a permanent record too. Taking photos is the best way to do this as well as creating a comprehensive list of all the damage. Then, if your insurance company decides to question any part of your claim you will have the evidence you need to fight your case. 

Of course, it is also possible to take video now that everyone has a smartphone. Feel free to do this but do not replace detailed photos with a video. Instead, do both. The reason is that you will want to make it as easy as possible for your insurance provider to see the details of the damage that has been done, something that can be lost in a video. 

Commission repairs 

While your first instinct will be to get plumpers, electricians, and construction teams in as soon as possible to get the ball rolling on repairs it’s better if you wait. Once again, it’s best to leave repairs until your insurance company has given you the go-ahead to proceed, otherwise, you could be left footing the bill. 

Of course, sometimes there will be repairs that need to be completed immediately to make the property safe for inspection. In this case, you will need to document the state of the property beforehand, as well as make sure you keep any receipts to give to your insurer so they can reimburse you. 

You don’t need to overhaul your home to make it look more expensive. If you want to get some top tips then you can find out everything you need to know, right here.

Freshen things Up

A fresh coat of paint can really work wonders, in any room. You do however need to make sure that you are being careful with your colour choices though. If you have a very rich or coloured wall, then you need to make sure that you balance it out with some lighter furniture if you can. This will help you to make the most out of the space you have. If you want to go light, then you need to make sure that you are careful of certain white shades as this can make your room look blander than you’d like.

Flowers

Freshly cut flowers will instantly brighten up any home. The great thing about flowers is that they can be placed just about anywhere, whether it is on the kitchen counter or the bedside table. You do however need to make sure that you are mindful of the colour scheme. It’s helpful to have the same colour scheme everywhere if you can. For example, if you are picking elegant white orchids then use a similar vase or colour of flower elsewhere in the home. The great thing about doing this is that you will find it much easier to bring out the overall look.

Lights

Try and switch out some standard light fittings and instead have something more bold or even more elegant. Modern chandeliers are ideal if you want to try and create a focal point and they can be added to any room as well. You can put them above your dining table, in the bedroom or you can even have them in the living room if you want. On top of this, if you replace your lampshades with something a little more eye-catching then this will dress up your space immediately.

Clean your Windows

If you want to make your home look more expensive, then make sure that you clean your windows. It’s very easy for you to find a good pressure washing service.

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Hang High

Nicer homes tend to have very high ceilings.  If you want to try and bring out the best of your home, then you need to try and create this optical illusion. If you want to do this then hang your curtains as close to the ceilings as you can. Remember the higher that your curtains are, the higher your ceiling will look and the bigger your space will appear overall.

Match Everything

Buy chrome or matching silver picture frames if you can, and make sure that they are all different sizes. If you do, you can then place them on mantles or even on tables. It is important that you try and avoid gold if you can. It may sound counterintuitive, but gold, if you don’t pull it off right, can come across as being cheap or old looking.

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser, Walmart Family Mobile. All opinions are mine alone. #SummerIsForSavings #CollectiveBias #WFM4

Back to school is a busy time for parents and students. Which is why each my family and I pack our bags for an official summertime vacation. Our goal, to pack in as much fun and frugal quality time, and education we can before the start of the next school year. This past weekend we hit the road to check out our state’s aviation, robotics, and engineering museum at Mississippi State University.

As you can imagine, the vacation expenses for a family of three can quickly add up. Even for in-state staycations. Which is why I am always on the lookout for savvy saving ways to cut expenses throughout our household each year. Savings which directly fund our back-to-school trips each year!

This included my family cellular service. At Walmart, I found the LG L59 Grace. Part of the Walmart Family Mobile. A device that helps my family not only communicate better but helps to stretch our family entertainment budget even further. It’s awesome to know that I won’t have to sacrifice service and safety to have great cellular coverage at home and on-the-go.

With this plan, I now have TRULY Unlimited Talk, Text, & Data◊ which is a giant leap up from the plan we previously had before. With Walmart Family Mobile, I’m not paying extra for Walmart Family Mobile’s T-Mobile’s nationwide 4G network.

To get started I simply picked up my phone at my local Walmart and within a few minutes of being home was able to pick my plan and activate my service from the comfort of my patio garden!

There were no activation fees, no late charges, and I now get more data (on most plans) than my previous plan! Walmart has the best pricing in no-contract wireless plans and is the simplest to activate. Since my husband also has Walmart Family Mobile we get a discount for having my new line too!

My new $49.88 TRULY Unlimited Plan from Walmart Family Mobile has become my favorite new way to save for frugal family fun. The best part? This plan helps to give our family the freedom to fit more adventure in our summer budget.

Normally planning summertime trips can be a true drudgery. Luckily, planning this last trip was all the more easy with the $49.88 TRULY Unlimited Plan from Walmart Family Mobile– I was able to plan our trip, map out fuel stations, save directions, buy museum tickets, and reserve our hotel reservation from my home patio. It was that simple!

Then with my awesome new phone in-hand we set off on two days of education-packed fun! As we were anticipating 6 full hours of in the car travel in front of us our first day, I thought this would be the perfect time to use our new LG L59 Grace to get in some educational time in for the kiddo! With the back-to-school season is just around the corner check out our list of the 9 must-have educational apps to get your kiddos ready for the 2017-2018 academic year (especially for long trips in the car).

9 Must-Have Apps For Back-to-School:

1) Socratic: Sometimes, a difficult question can stump your child. That’s where the Socratic app comes in. Just take a picture of a question and Socratic then uses artificial intelligence to figure out which concepts you need to know and shares explanations and resources to help your kiddo complete their homework and assignments. It’s free for ios and Android.

2) WonderBox: WonderBox is a family-friendly app for creating and sharing math and building exercises for kids in a social-style feed. There’s also a collection of YouTube videos to spark real-world creation and play. It’s free for ios and Android.

3) The Everything Machine: The Everything Machine app encourages children to create virtual machines on-screen. It’s a digital sandbox that may inspire kids to delve deeper into microelectronics in the real world. The app also has online resources for parents and children including a PDF manual and a YouTube channel to spark ideas. It’s free for ios and Android.

4) Endless Wordplay: Endless Wordplay is an app that brings together rhyming word puzzles and animated sequences that will have children and parents alike laughing while playing this game. This app is structured into lessons build on word-building and sentence structure success. It’s free for ios and Android.

5) Tynker: The Tynker app aims to introduce children to computer programming. This is done by way of a series of coding lessons and by dragging and dropping blocks of code into place, and running the results to see what happens. There’s also a fun function to teach kids how drones are constructed. Some of its puzzles are free, while others are sold in packs via in-app purchase.

6) Hopster: The Hopster app is a very modern attempt to turn the act of watching tv into a purely fun and academic hobby. It’s like an educational broadcasting network for kids. There’s a $3.99-a-month subscription service with a big selection of cartoons, lessons, language programs, and shows. Many of which focus on learning games including phonics, letter-tracing, and creative tasks.

7) Safari Tales: Safari Tales is an app that makes learning literacy skills fun through creative play featuring animals of the African savannah. While playing, kiddos use a word wheel to ask questions about what they see, practicing their sentence construction and then turn their lessons into digital storybooks that encourage more reading. It’s free for ios and Android.

8) Cursive Writing Wizard: This handwriting app isn’t intended to replace the important physical pencil-practice that children need when learning to write. Rather a complement to it, reinforcing letter shapes and joined-up writing. It’s also very customizable as you can enter your own word lists for your children to trace the letters of familiar words, names, and signage. It’s free for ios and Android.

9) Duolingo: Want your kiddos to learn new languages for free? Then Duolingo is for you! With this app, users are given bite-sized lessons to simply and effectively learn foreign languages including French, Spanish, Irish, Portuguese, and many others. This free app will give kiddos the ability to learn languages in an interactive way that feels more like play than learning. It’s free for ios and Android.

Also during our trip, as a family, we were able to watch a free family movie on VUDU** in our hotel room. Because with the $49.88 TRULY Unlimited Talk, Text, & Data plan customers receive a free VUDU** movie rental credit valued at $7.00 each time they renew their service. Now with this new plan, we can look forward to having an extra family movie night each month too!

All-in-all, we had a blast this past weekend! Some of the highlights of last week’s trip included visiting our state’s aviation museum to tour military plane models, rocket construction modules, robotic modules, STEM learning modulation simulation, and even a lecture on how to bring robotics into your child’s classroom and home. For my husband, a public educator and Robotics coach, this was a trip to remember!

Friends, I encourage you to check out this plan from Walmart Family Mobile. Our summer adventure got a whole lot better thanks to Walmart Family Mobile and your next trip can too! Now I have to ask, where will you head for your next summertime trip? Or do you have suggestions for essential back-to-school apps for the kids this coming academic year? I’d love to hear about them both below!

Disclaimer: All prices for phones and plans included in this post are accurate as of the date of posting; however, these prices are subject to change. Please refer to this page or your local Walmart for current pricing
◊Does not include tethering. Video typically streams at DVD quality. During congestion, the top 3% of users (>32GB/mo.) may notice reduced speeds due to deprioritization. Please always refer to the latest terms and conditions at myfamilymobile.com.
**Limited time offer. Available for lines active with the PLUS $49.88 plan only. VUDU enabled device and account required for digital viewing. Customers must be 18 years or older to open a VUDU account. Movie rental is only available in the USA. Free movie rental provided in the form of a movie rental code to the value of a $7.00 VUDU credit. Movie rental code allows for selection from available movies for rent. May not be readily redeemable on all new releases. Code will be delivered within up to 24 hours of the effective account renewal date. Must be used within 30 days of receiving code. Offer is non-transferable. Limit 1 per customer. Additional terms and conditions on VUDU’s website: http://www.vudu.com/termsofservice.html