With the holiday’s here, who couldn’t use an extra $100.00 to spend on last minute gifts, or decorating, or maybe just to buy something for yourself? Well, here’s your chance to get that extra cash! Enter below for your chance to win a $100.00 Amazon Gift Card!

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Giveaway brought to you by TrainACE Maryland. Visit the giveaway page here.

When we first bought our home, we decided to buy an older home, in the hopes of fixing it up and reselling it in a few years. We made sure to find a nice neighborhood, close to a school. We found the perfect house, on the perfect street, with the perfect yard. We were so excited, we were going to own our first home!

What we learned over time, was that owning a home isn’t as easy as it sounds. There’s a lot to do and a lot to take care of.

When it comes time to purchasing a home, there’s a lot more to consider than the neighborhood, the paint colors and the yard. One of the first most important things is a budget! Sure you know how much you can afford when it comes to your mortgage, but what about all the extra little things that tack on to your monthly budget when you own a home. Never mind utilities, what happens if something needs repair? Filters that need changing, light bulbs, gutter cleaning. There’s a lot we didn’t even think of when we purchased our home.

We had a flood happen a few years after we bought the house, of course we had home owners insurance, but you have to remember the deductible that it costs, the money you need to foot out front to get a plumber out, these were some of the things we didn’t have a budget for, and it put us in a financial hole for a while. Our furnace went out on us another time, another cost we didn’t budget for. Landscaping, what? Never thought of that either.

Home ownership is hard, there’s a lot involved and a lot I wish we would have thought about and saved up for before we jumped in head first. There’s always a cost that comes up that’s unexpected, so be sure to think about these things when it comes down to purchasing a new home. Do you have enough set aside for the small things?

Think about your household budget before and after you buy a home, and remember all of the upkeep that’s going to cost you money as well. Having a plan and savings beforehand will save you lots of frustration, and financial strain in the end.

This post was compensated by Genworth Financial. Content and opinions are all my own. Please see my disclosure policy for more information.

Honestly, I have never given much thought to life insurance, I really  didn’t even understand it.   Why have it? Why need it?

Until we had kids, and my hubby had this included in his financials for his job, we had never given it much thought, if we had a will, what did we need life insurance for? It’s not something anyone ever spoke to me about, and how important it is!

Now that we have kids, not only is it important to ourselves, but it’s important to make sure that our daughters are taken care of should anything happen to us. Even if we leave them unexpectedly, it’s still our duty to make sure they’re provided for and protected.

We had absolutely no clue what we were doing when we were looking into it. Like I said, no one had ever spoken to us about life insurance before. Heck I don’t even know if my own parents have it (although I’m sure they do). How much would we need? How much would it work? There were so many questions we had about life insurance, and surfing around the internet did help. We finally settled on what to do, how much we needed etc. It’s almost calming to know that should anything happen to my husband or myself, things will be taken care of.

Right now the girls are too young to understand what it is, how it works, but when they’re teenagers, this is probably something we’ll speak with them about. I’d love for them to go into their adult life knowing what life insurance is and how important it is instead of having it thrown into your face blindly and being clueless.

Do you have life insurance?

How did you go about making the decision?

This post was compensated by Genworth Financial. Content and opinions are all my own. Please see my disclosure policy for more information.

Warner Bros. is proud to announce the release of Thunderstruck on DVD and Blu-ray December 4th 2012.

NBA superstar Kevin Durant plays himself in this action-packed family film about a basketball star who switches talent with a klutzy 16-year-old fan. When Brian (Taylor Gray) magically switches basketball skills with his hero, Kevin Durant, he becomes the star of his high school team… while Kevin Durant suddenly can’t make a shot to save his life! But with the playoffs approaching, Brian learns that being a true winner means working hard at your own game, and he tries to make things right in time to prevent a catastrophic end to his hero’s season.

Sure, the movie is fun, but to get even more interactive check out the app below where you can do any of the following:

• Free-Throw Challenge Game! Are you up for a Free-Throw Challenge? Show us your skills! Make as many baskets as you can and unlock special clips along the way!

• 7 Thunder-ific Tips for Kids! Does your kid dream of going pro? Use these awesome tips to help them sharpen up their skills! “Hard work beats talent when talent fails to work hard.”- Kevin Durant.

• Get Social! Tweet with the #ThunderstruckBluRay hashtag to get revved up for the release of this action-packed family film.

How would you like the chance to enter to win a Thunderstruck Combo Pack (Blu-Ray + DVD + Digital Download)? It’s easy! Just enter via the Rafflecopter widget below!
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With two daughters, safety is always an issue with them being outside alone, traveling with friends, or even at home, when they’re online. Their safety is our main concern. So even in our watch, we’re always making sure, if they are online that they are SAFE!

Have you thought about internet safety for your kids? What steps do you take? Take a look at the infographic below if you haven’t thought your kids need to be safe online, you need to be informed a lot of people have a wake up call TOO late!

Illustration source: Lexero Domain Lawyer
Want to add this illustration to your site too? Get the code here.