*This is a guest post*

You may be looking to purchase a new home and land package, or buying an established new home off the lot. Regardless, you are searching to buy a home for you and your partner, currently family and potential family in the not too distant future, right? If so, you may want to consider the type of home you purchase initially that will best suit your expected family size. You don’t want to be making family decisions down the track, solely based off the size of your current home at the time. You’ll be asking yourself, how many kids can we have? Is the house suitable for the amount of kids we want? Is the neighborhood suitable to raise kids? Etc., Etc., Etc., Here’s a few tips for you to consider when buying your new home to ensure there is room to grow with the growth of your kids and family size.

Plan Ahead

If you are in the midst of discussing family size with your partner, you must have some general idea of how many kids you plan on having. Sure, your original ideas will change based on the path that life decides to take you. You may receive job promotions, move overseas or come into some poor health (let’s hope not), regardless of the scenarios, you’ll have a general indication of eventual family size. So you can plan around that.

Buy a Home to Accommodate Your Expected Family Size

This could be a little more expensive initially. However if you plan on having a certain number of kids, you should buy a home to accommodate all at once. This may be a little extreme if you plan on having 10 kids and only have 1 at the moment. Based on a more respectable scenario, if you plan on having only a couple kids, buy a home with 4 bedrooms opposed to 2. This way your family will grow into the home.

Use Spare Rooms for Other Purposes

With the unused spare rooms you currently have, you can utilise these for additional guest rooms, living rooms or play rooms. You can get the most out of the free space initially, then once more kids come along, you can simply create a room to accommodate them.

Buy in a Suitable Area

If you are buying a home in a selected neighborhood, do your research to discover if there are respected schools, parks and other suitable facilities that will be required with the growth of your family. It would be pointless to buy a home in a residential area that doesn’t have any nearby schools or shopping centres. These will be used constantly once your family grows and the closer these resources are, the more convenient it will be in the future.

Planning ahead to buy a home to accommodate for your non-existent family isn’t easy. You can only plan to the best of your ability and follow these tips to buy a home that will be house your intended household. When choosing off house plans, do the best you can to select a plan that will best suit your expected family size.

Written by Keith Hensley

*This is a guest post*

With the recent announcement of one of the youngest female billionaire in the world, Lynsi Torres, many people want to learn more about female entrepreneurs and their impact on the world. Since Lynsi inherited her empire, she has not had the opportunity to make her mark on the world, but she will have big shoes to fill to be as inspirational as some of the other female entrepreneurs that have done great things with their fortunes. Here are some of the most inspiring:

1. Gina Rinehart

Gina Rinehart has a net worth of $10.3 billion and is one of the most inspirational female entrepreneurs in the world. Rinehart became the benefactor to Hancock Prospecting, which is a mining empire. She learned the ropes of her father’s business from the bottom up and also dedicates her time to numerous environmental political circles.

2. Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Winfrey earns $165 million annually and has a net worth of $2.5 billion. At one point in time, Oprah was the only black billionaire. She is a talk show host, a philanthropist, an actress, and a producer. She came from humble beginnings and started her career as radio host. She is arguably one of the most influential women in the world and was an instrumental person in Barack Obama’s election.

3. Diana Williams

Diana Williams is a self-made Aussie fitness mogul of a company called Fernwood Fitness. She began the fitness gym in 1980s and has been growing the business since this time. To begin the business, she used her own savings. Though the industry was dominated by males when she started the company, she continued to invest her time and money to grow the business to 74 fitness centers across Australia. She delineates her club from others by offering free breakfast and a 12-week challenge program to help people meet their New Year’s resolutions.

4. Mary Kay Ash

Mary Kay Inc. was started in 1963 with $5,000 and nine independent beauty consultants. The business now yields more than $1 billion in sales annually. Though she passed away in 2001, she is considered to be a pioneer for women in business. The company has independent consultants in 19 different countries. The unique part about this business is that the company values God and family before work and rewards associates with pink Cadillacs and other incentives.

5. Janine Allis

Boost Juice mogul got her idea for a smoothie chain after visiting the health bars in America. She started Boost Juice franchises in Australia and went global shortly after its success. She received help from Nestle in the United Kingdom and has won numerous awards. Boost Juice earns $54 million AUD annually from 88 stores around the world.

Get Inspired by These Female Entrepreneurs!

Read these stories and get inspired to start your own business. These women have amazing stories, and many of them began from nothing. Draw from their ideas and business strategies and develop a set of best practices for starting and running your own business.

Written by Beth Gadd
Beth runs a small business in IT related field. She operates at home while also had her Servcorp virtual offices set up recently.

*This is a guest post*

If your family hardly ever sits still, and fitness and fun are the daily norm, then you’ll want to make sure that your dream home accommodates your family’s active lifestyle. An environment that’s conducive to your family’s passions is essential, so here are some easy tips to follow when building the fit and active family home.

Choose a Fitness-Friendly Location

When choosing where to build your dream home, consider the surrounding facilities. It’s great to be able to have plenty of locations available and accessible to encourage the family to keep active, whether it’s a public pool, cricket nets, soccer ovals or even just walking or cycling tracks. The closer the better as it’s less of an ordeal to transport the family there, and if close enough, walking or riding to these locations can be encouraged.

Some housing estates are especially mindful of this, and actually provide their own facilities for residents to use. A prime example is Maddison Estate ), which provides an array of state-of-the-art facilities all over their estate, including a fitness centre, an aquatic centre, tennis courts, ovals, parks, cycling and walking tracks and even a skate park and BBQ facilities, meaning residents are always encouraged to get the family outside and active.  

Plenty of Outdoor Space

A yard with plenty of space for activities is essential to the happiness and comfort of the active family. There’s so much benefit to having a few sporting or fitness facilities available right there on your own property, rather than having to travel to them. For example, a basketball hoop with a cement area or a soccer net on a nice big patch of lawn means a spare half-hour can be used for sport rather than having to put aside a whole afternoon, or wait for a training session each week.

Plenty of Storage

The active family often experience clutter, with all sorts of sporting equipment taking up room in the house. Clever storage is a great way to be able to accumulate all the required equipment without having to deal with constant mess and mayhem. For example, hooks in the garage for bikes will mean less inaccessible floor-space as bikes are removed from ground and stored out of the way. A big cupboard in the garage means dirt-encrusted hockey sticks can be stored out of sight without being dragged through the house, and a shoe-rack at the front door means you’ll always know where the footy boots are, and no grass ends up mashed into the carpet at the front door.

Home Fitness Center

It’s great to be able to have some gym equipment in the home. If you can designate a room just for fitness equipment, you’ll have created a separate space where the family can burn away some energy at night or on weekends without having to leave the comfort of the home. Some simple weights, a treadmill, a rowing machine – anything that your family will all find enjoyable. Don’t choose any equipment that’s only going to gather dust.

Keep the TV Separate

To keep the active family active, it’s important to design your house in a way that discourages bad habits. For example, having the TV in the same area as the dining table or the kitchen can tend to integrate TV too heavily into daily life. Have a separate media room, so that watching TV, a movie or playing video games remains an activity that has a designated time and place.

Simple yet effective, these easy steps will ensure your active family has what they need and are never left bored or stifled, and can rest soundly at the end of the day with no more energy left to burn.

Written by Natalie King

*This is a guest post*

Building a playground in your own backyard can give your children lifelong memories, cultivate their imaginations, and instill healthy habits of play and fitness. Read on for some key tips on how to design the ultimate kid’s playground.

Consult the Kids

Once you’ve decided to build a playground on your property, do some initial research to determine what elements you can include given your budget and space constraints. Once you have a few options to choose from, start talking with your children about what they’d like to see in their playground. There’s no point in spending time and money building a playground that your kids won’t enjoy, so involve them in the planning and designing process. Playgrounds can be great spaces for kids to forge friendships and creatively collaborate, so encourage them to think about what types of playground equipment would be most fun to play on with friends and neighbors. Once your children are excited about the playground, it’s time to start planning with their fun, and safety, in mind.

Creative Spaces

As you begin to design your playground, think beyond the typical swing and slide set-up. Playgrounds can be a great place for children to explore and imagine, so try to incorporate some elements that allow for that. A sandbox is great start, but you can take it further by providing buried treasures and fun tools for the kids, like shovels and archaeologists brushes for them to indulge their paleontologist dreams. Other fun additions include tunnels or talk tubes, so kids can play hide and seek and send secret messages across the playground.

Durability

More practically, it’s important to build your playground out of durable materials. Wood may seem like your best bet, but be sure that it is properly treated to withstand the elements to avoid termite infestation or water damage. Wood can be cost-effective, especially when it comes to repairs since typically you can swap out the damaged boards without having to replace a whole section of the structure. Steel is quite durable, but can be too hot or slippery in very hot or wet weather. Generally speaking, synthetic materials are more expensive, but typically last a long time and are resistant to rust and water damage.

Safety

Of course the most important consideration when designing a playground is safety. Consider the areas where kids may be most prone to fall, and reinforce them accordingly. Most slides come equipped with safety bars or fencing at the top, and you can also install springy surfaces made from recycled rubber in order to cushion stumbles and tumbles. The greatest injury prevention comes from adequate adult supervision on the playground, so be sure to give plenty of space for you to watch out for smaller kids on the equipment.

Building a playground is a great way for kids to get exercise, be creative, and enjoy the outdoors. No matter what equipment you choose, your kids are sure to have a blast, and they might even let you take a turn on the monkey bars.

Written by Lachlan Gadd
Lachlan is a proud dad of three boys and runs a construction business in Queensland, Australia. He regularly uses MetroSteel for his steel supplies. When Lachlan isn’t working he spends lots of time in his home workshop doing DIY kids furniture.