Moving across the country or even across a state or province can be stressful. The move can become even more challenging if it includes relocating a vehicle.

Here are some tips from U-Haul on how to make moving day a bit easier:

• Move on a weekday if you can, when banks, utilities and government offices are open.
• Order preprinted address labels with your new address as soon as you know it. It makes the change-of-address process much easier.
• Keep a utility log to check service-transfer dates. If you’re moving locally, leave the power and water on at your old address a few extra days so you can go back and clean up after your move.
• Choose a “packing room” ahead of time and box up a few things each day.
• To save time, rent a carpet shampooer at the same time you rent your truck.
• Mark each box with its contents and destination room. That way, you and your helpers will know where each box belongs at your new home.
• If moving locally, you may want to leave your pets with a friend during moving day. Animals can become confused and frightened during a move.
• Remember to allow for extra braking room when driving a moving van. Anticipate stops and allow a 3-second gap between you and the vehicle in front of you.
• U-Haul moving vans require up to 12 feet of overhead clearance. Watch out for drive-thru restaurant and motel over-hangs.

Seattle-based real estate website Zillow.com has partnered with Apartments.com to add 90,000 rental listings to it’s database.

According to a news release, Zillow now has 150,000 listings for single-family and apartment rentals. The site says 2 million of its 12 million monthly visitors are renters.

The listings also will be available on Zillow’s mobile app, which is supported by iPhone, Android, iPad and Windows Mobile. Zillow says its app has been downloaded more than 2 million times.

Zillow has been listing rentals since late 2009 and had a budding rivalry with Apartments.com. Apartments.com charges $79 for a 30-day listing.

Seattle and the surrounding area might not be known for its unique architecture. But it is known for its population of nonconformists. Maybe that explains why Zillow.com’s list of 10 one-of-a-kind homes includes three properties from the Pacific Northwest: a floating houseboat on Lake union, a renovated dairy barn on Bainbridge Island, and a decommissioned Titan 1 missile complex listed for $3.5 million in Othello, Washington.

The front door of the missile complex is a two-ton hatch that leads down six flights of stairs to a network of subterranean rooms and tunnels. Enjoy your own private well, generator power, and live off the grid.

Bonus feature: the site can withstand and survive any nuclear blast!

Not much curb appeal, but this beauty was built to last.

zillow.com

Yale University recently did a survey in marketing and advertisements as well as communication to come up with the 12 most persuasive words in communication. By combining these words, communication gets much higher results in getting people to do what you want:

1. you
2. money
3. save
4. new
5. results
6. easy
7. health
8. safety
9. love
10. discovery
11. proven
12. guaranteed
13. free
14. sex

Now that summer is beginning to wind down and cooler weather is on its way, it’s time to get some of the routine home maintenance out of the way before it gets too cold. If you don’t prepare your home in the fall season, and clean up the yard, when spring comes along, you could be left with an unsightly mess.

Clean out the rain gutters – If you have rain gutters on your home, fall is the best time to get them cleaned. Cleaning rain gutters isn’t that difficult of a task, it’s just a tedious one. The easiest way to get rid of the junk is to use a high pressure hose, and then use a small trowel to get rid of the rest of the debris. Once you have gotten rid of all the debris, give your gutters a final spray.

Take care of your pots and planters – If you’re like most homeowners, you have some planters or potted plants sitting around the yard. Before it gets too cold, be sure to empty the dirt out of any pots or planters and put them in a place where they won’t freeze. If you don’t empty or store your planters, there’s a good chance they will either crack or fall apart.

Rake the leaves – Keeping your yard free of leaves is an important task for homeowners. If you have numerous trees in your yard and piles of leaves that you don’t take care of, you might find that your grass is dead once spring arrives. Leaves can smother your lawn and replacing a lawn can cost a lot of money, so it’s a good rule of thumb to get rid of the leaves in the fall.

Weed and feed the lawn – The best time to weed and feed the lawn is in the fall. If you add weed killer in the fall, the weeds will store the poison in their roots during the winter season, and will prevent a breakout in the spring. By feeding your lawn with fertilizer in the fall, you are promoting healthy root growth, and this will help your lawn grow greener and faster in the spring.

Give your tools a tune-up – Once you have finished your fall maintenance chores, make sure you clean your tools and store them in a dry place so they will be in working order once spring arrives. Be sure to store metal shovels with the head upwards, as this will help detour rusting when it dries. Sheers need to be oiled up, wheel barrels should be left upside down and don’t forget to spray off the underside of the lawnmower.

rismedia

Soon, summer will be on its way out and the rains may even slow. Still, it’s more important than ever to conserve water. From checking the kitchen faucet to watching your laundry loads, there’s plenty we can all do to save water.

Here are some tips from Pennsylvania American Water on how you can conserve water and reduce the environmental impact of water consumption both indoors and outside the home:

1. Water your lawn only when it needs it. An easy test to tell if your lawn needs water is to simply walk across the grass. If you leave footprints, it’s time to water. (An added benefit of watering less often is that fewer, deep-soaking waterings encourage deep root growth and stronger turf.)

2. Water in the early morning. As much as 30 percent of water can be lost to evaporation by watering during midday.

3. Set your lawn mower one notch higher to make your lawn more drought-tolerant.

4. Use drip irrigation hoses to water plants, and water in the early morning or evening.

5. Use a broom instead of a hose to clean your sidewalk, driveway, or patio.

6. Forego the hose and wash your car with a bucket and sponge instead. According to EPA WaterSense, a hose left running can waste as much as six gallons per minute while a bucket and sponge uses only a few gallons to do the job.

7. Keep a bottle of cold tap water in the refrigerator. You’ll avoid the cost and environmental impact of bottled water and you’ll have cold water available in the summer without running the faucet.

8. Run dishwashers and clothes washers only when they are full. If you have a water-saver cycle, use it.

9. Adjust the water level of your clothes washer, so that it matches your load size.

10. Regularly check your toilet, faucets and pipes for leaks and have them fixed promptly. An easy test for toilet leaks from EPA WaterSense: Place a drop of food coloring in the tank. If the color tints the water in the bowl without flushing, there’s a leak. Check your water meter before and after a two-hour period when no water is being used. If the meter changes at all, you probably have a leak.

Rismedia

The Seattle area is home to a number of businesses that salvage building materials, one of them being the RE Store. This non-profit store runs a salvage service that gets much of the retail store’s stock from remodels and tear-downs in the Puget Sound area, harvesting stuff that would otherwise end up as garbage.

Second Use and Earthwise Architectural Salvage are also in the coalition to prevent usable materials from going into landfills.

It’s sign-up time for that great garden booster, Zoo Doo. Send in a postcard request by Sept. 19 to get some of Woodland Park Zoo’s Bedspread or Zoo Doo.

Submit one postcard per household to request a quantity of either spread. Amounts can be anything from a garbage bagful to a full-size pickup load.

Prices range from $4 to $6 per bag, depending on size; $8 to $10 for garbage can loads; and $35 to $60 for pickup loads.

Include your name, day and evening phone numbers, “Zoo Doo” or “Bedspread” type and quantity wanted on the postcard. Also supply a weekday or weekend time for picking it up.

Mail postcards to Dr. Doo, Woodland Park Zoo, 601 N. 59th St., Seattle, WA 98103.

For more information, call 206-625-7667 or go to www.zoo.org.

After years of growth, the Census Bureau recently reported that median new home size fell to 2,135 square feet in 2009 after peaking at more than 2,300 earlier in the decade.

Home buyers are asking for less, cutting back on options and reducing square footage,” said Steven Pace of the North Carolina-based Pace Development Group, which builds both custom and tract houses ranging in price from below $250,000 to more than $2 million.

“They’re saying, ‘Maybe we don’t need that 5,000 square footage;” he said. “‘Maybe our bath doesn’t need to be big enough for our whole family and all our neighbors to take a shower at the same time.’”

Kermit Baker, chief economist for the American Institute of Architects, pointed out that consumers don’t ask for as much for spaces devoted to single purposes, such as media rooms for watching videos and game rooms for shooting pool. Instead, the requests are for rooms with shared uses.

“We continue to move away from the ‘McMansion’ chapter of residential design,” he said.

cnnmoney.com

Those in the know say these simpes moves matter most for boosting your score:

1. Stay on top of your credit reports. You’re entitled to one free copy per year from each bureau. Get them at annualcreditreport.com, and look for misreported delinquencies, over-reported loan amounts, and underreported credit limits. Request corrections from the bureau in writing.

2. Pay bills within the grace period. Lenders report tardiness to the bureaus once you’re 30 days past due; if your score started at 780, it can go down to 680 after just one delinquency. So set up payment reminders or have payments automatically deducted by a certain date.

3. Focus on paying off credit cards vs. other debt. Whittling down revolving debt will do a lot more for your score than erasing installment loans. Paying off a $250,000 mortgage when your score is already high will boost it by only five or 10 points. But wiping away a few thousand bucks on plastic can add 100 points.

4. Stay under the magic 10%. Just paying credit card balances off every cycle doesn’t mean you have a 0% utilization; issuers report the total amount you charge each month to the bureaus. That suggests you should use credit cards sparingly. Aim to spend no more than $2,000 on a $20,000 line; and put cards on ice a few months before applying for a loan

cnnmoney.com