Spending lots of time ‘sheltering in place’ gives you a new perspective of your home. Recent conditions have provided an unprecedented opportunity for people to get things done around the house that they’ve wanted to do for a long time but haven’t had time for.  Give yourself a sense of control and accomplishment with spring cleaning & organizing!

 

SANITIZING vs DISINFECTING

Most people use the term ‘sanitize’ and ‘disinfect’ interchangeably, but did you know there’s a difference?   Sanitizers are agents that destroy 99.999 percent of bacteria in 30 seconds during the Official Detergent Sanitizer Test (a public health test).  Sanitizing is a chemical process that lessens and even kills germs on surfaces to make them safe for contact like a kitchen counter, baby toys, or your hands.  Disinfectants are products that destroy all organisms in 10 minutes during the AOAC Use Dilution Test (a test regulated by the EPA to determine the efficiency of disinfectants).  Disinfecting requires a stronger solution to destroy germs rather than simply reduce them.  Some uses would include certain areas of bathrooms, surfaces in hospitals, or any home surface that has been contaminated.  We put a list of germy things you should never forget to clean on our website – please check it out.

CLEANING

Some items to include in your deep cleaning: carpet, tile, grout, natural stone, blinds, ceiling fans, windows, window ledges, & rain gutters.  Please visit our website for links to local professionals that we have grown to trust who can help in each of these areas.

ORGANIZING

A Place for Everything & Everything in its Place

MESS CAUSES STRESS

According to professionals, people tend to feel like life is out of control when they surround themselves with more things than they can manage.

“Clutter in our homes can affect us in surprising ways…having too much clutter can harm our ability to focus, disrupt sleep, and increase anxiety levels.” [Libby Sander, assistant professor of organizational behavior at Bond University in Australia]

“The more clutter a person has, the less life satisfaction they have and the more emotional distress they have.” [Joseph Ferrari, professor of psychology at DePaul University in Chicago]

YOUR WAY IS THE BEST WAY –  No single method of organizing/decluttering appeals to everyone, so the best way is the method that appeals to you.  Realize that your definition of what’s worth keeping will be different from others.  Acknowledge that many items will be related to memories, and that getting rid of physical things does not mean getting rid of the memories.  Only you can decide what is important enough to keep long term, and you have control over what you keep.

BREAK YOUR PROJECT DOWN INTO SMALLER PARTS

• Do one room or one space at a time. If you still feel overwhelmed, break it down even further into one drawer or one cupboard at a time.
• Set a timer for small increments of time to make it more manageable (like 15, 20 or 30 minutes). It will feel better to know there’s an end time for your current task, and it will prevent you from getting lost in the project and wasting time.  Stop when the timer goes off and decide if you want to start another block o
  f time right then, or decide the time you will come back for another increment of organizing in that space.

SORTING METHODS

• Gather 4 colors of Post-it notes and designate a separate color for each category: keep, sell, donate, throw out. Then go around your home assessing items and sticking the color you decide onto each item.
• Create sorting piles with either bags or boxes. Label each one.  Some ideas for labels include: Keep, Toss, Store, Donate, Sell.

Visit these website links to in-depth organizing articles, a list of trusted cleaning professionals, and links to solutions for sanitizing or disinfecting in your home.

Cleaning the cluttered closet

https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-declutter-your-closet/

Decluttering your home – The three-box method

https://www.budgetdumpster.com/resources/how-to-declutter-your-home.php

26 Secrets Personal Organizers Would Never Tell You for Free

https://www.rd.com/home/cleaning-organizing/personal-organizers-secrets-free/

Quick Sorting through Memorabilia

https://cleanmama.com/3-steps-to-quickly-sort-through-memorabilia/

Decluttering paper, closets, bathrooms, refrigerator, etc.

https://cleanmama.com/category/declutter/

 

Barlow Realty Recommendations:

Cleaning Home:

Miriam’s Cleaning Service

805-612-9998

Pristine Cleaning

Will and Teresa

805-200-7914

 

Carpets:

Heaven’s Best Carpet Cleaning

Steven

805-445-1220

 

Carpi Carpet Care

Alan

805-497-3695

 

Windows:

AWC

Aaron Butler

805-558-3840

 

Gutters:

5 Tool Services

Todd

805-701-7143

 

DURING THESE CHALLENGING TIMES, BARLOWS GOT YOUR BACK!

 

It’s that time of year for one of the two certainties of life…TAXES!  The other certainty isn’t found in writing anywhere (unless your birth certificate has an expiration date on it) so it remains the great unknown for all of us.

Record keeping for taxes can be frustrating and confusing.  Don’t rely on LUCK!  Here we bring you a few concepts we hope you find helpful regarding document retention and preservation.

TIME FRAME TO KEEP DOCUMENTS:  First and foremost, you should consult your tax professional so that your document retention is tailored to your personal situation because tax professionals are the only ones who can provide tax advice!  That said, as a general rule most people believe they should keep tax returns for at least 3 years after filing.  Usually that’s because of the time limit to file an amended return and the time frame the IRS has to audit/assess additional taxes.  However, because there are exceptions to the general 3-year-rule, this is NOT the best answer.

On our website we have a link to an article about someone who learned first-hand the value of keeping tax returns longer than 3 years, even when none of the exceptions applied at the time of filing.   A man received an IRS request for a copy of his tax return from 5 years prior.  Ironically, the IRS had records of his filings prior to that year and after, but was missing that one year.  Here’s a quote from the article:

“You see, the three-year statute of limitations applies only when you filed an income tax return. If you didn’t file a tax return, the statute of limitations never started to run.  More importantly, the statute of limitations applies only when you can prove you filed an income tax return. If the IRS doesn’t have a copy of your tax return, it’s going to assume you didn’t file one, and you have to prove you filed it.”

The author of the article did file his taxes for the year the IRS was requesting.  Luckily, he had a copy that he was able to provide them.  The moral of the story is that the burden to prove filing will ultimately fall on the taxpayer.  Keep this in mind as you decide how many years of returns you want to store. This brings us to the next concept…

HOW AND WHERE TO STORE DOCUMENTS: Disasters in recent years have brought home the importance of having important documents stored in more than one place.  Many are familiar with stories of Thomas Fire victims who lost their sole copies of paper documents when they lost their homes.  This emphasizes the important concepts that you should have more than one copy of important documents, and copies should be stored independent of each other.

A good way to store more than one copy of an important document is to have both a hard copy and a scanned, digital copy.  Digital copies should be stored so that they can be accessed independent of the physical computer (in case the computer is damaged or stolen).  Make sure your scanned, digital copy is stored in a safe and secure manner that protects it from online intrusion.

DOCUMENT DISPOSAL:  NEVER throw important documents in the regular trash!  Documents with sensitive, personal information should be disposed of in a way that provides the best protection against data theft and identity theft.  Secure shredding is an ideal way to dispose of hard copies. 

LUCKY FOR YOU, BARLOWS ARE ON YOUR SIDE!

To serve our clients, Barlow Realty will be sponsoring a document shredding day at our office in May.  

We are solidifying a day of the shredding event and then we will let you know.

[Article referred to and quoted above is by Bob Carlson written in 07/2018 on Forbes.com.  A link to the full article.]

 

Links from IRS with Time suggestions

Link 1 – https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/how-long-should-i-keep-records

Link 2 – https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc305

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s 2020, and since we don’t have a crystal ball to give us 20/20 vision into the future, an important step in protecting yourself and the ones you LOVE is to complete the proper legal documents now for life-changing events like illness, accident, or age-related issues that may happen in the future.  One such document is an Advance Health Care Directive.

An Advance Health Care Directive allows you to document your healthcare wishes in writing and name a trusted person to make healthcare decisions for you when you cannot make those decisions for yourself.  Without this, these important decisions can be placed in the hands of family members, doctors and sometimes even judges, any of whom may know little about what you would prefer be done under specific health conditions.  Family members may possibly have to go through the court to get approval for what they think should be done, and not all family members will have the same opinion.  One never knows how people will react in certain situations until they’re actually in them.

To realize what a LOVING act it is to have an Advance Health Care Directive, try to imagine the range of emotions you would feel if you were attempting to make significant life decisions with permanent consequences for someone you love, not knowing what they would want under those circumstances.  Imagine how much more complicated it would be if others around you had conflicting opinions, not to mention no clear legal request for a particular individual to call the shots.  This scenario can make for tenuous relationships between family, friends, and healthcare providers.  Now imagine the ideal: loved ones fully informed of your wishes, an individual designated to make decisions based on your detailed written instructions, and healthcare providers informed of the document so that they are able to take instruction from the person you designated.  Putting your wishes in writing in an Advance Health Care Directive, and providing this information to your doctors and loved ones, can significantly reduce stress and strife among family and friends should such a difficult situation arise.

Here are some helpful links to this form, information about completing it, and other useful materials, including how Advance Health Care Directives can be filed with the CA Secretary of State if a person so chooses.

CA Attorney General sample Advance Healthcare Directive Form

 

Have a HEART and make sure both you and your loved ones have an Advance Health Care Directive.