July 2025 - Newsletter
- Stacy Fernandez
- Jul 31
- 7 min read
Welcome back! Hope you are enjoying your summer - check out what we have on the agenda for today:
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📸 Lincoln NE Area Market Snapshot
👫 Realtor Matchmaking
Success Story!
Meet Ryan - This is Eliezer's best friend!
A few years ago we were looking for houses for him in Lincoln. Well life changes and decided he needed to be farther away from us
He decided to move into an apartment in Omaha and keep saving to buy a house there.
So we match made him with an agent out in Omaha.
This is Ryan today - A proud homeowner of a beautiful home in Omaha!
Do you want to be like Ryan?!
📝 A Note from Your Favorite Realtor
As you get older I really feel like time moves faster! I was reflecting with a friend and we just can't believe how big our little babies have gotten in such a short time. Someone once told Eliezer the days go slow but the years go fast and boy is that ringing true!
Anyway hope your July treated you well! I've got a plan for August and i'm hoping I can get my butt in gear and make this happen. I am planning to do a Gratitude Challenge for the month of August. What that means is everyday a new gratitude practice to execute.
The goal is to keep them very simple, 10 mins or less and hit on a variety of topics that we should all be grateful for. This will likely be through my www.GratitudeForce.com site/socials. So if you want to join in the fun please give me a follow at https://www.instagram.com/gratitudeforce/
Don't worry I have terribly neglected the page and website but it still does exist and there are quite a few blog posts to browse on there if you are interested.
The reason I want to do August is because that is the month we gave birth to our daughter, Evelia Jean Fernandez. I want to do something to recognize the beauty she brought to our lives and live more in the moment and be grateful for all things we do have in this life.
See this blog for more details on the Gratitude Challenge! Would love to have you join in!
Other than that fun update check out what we have been up to this month in July!
See you next month hopefully feeling like our cups our full and overflowing with gratitude and love!
🏘️ House Tip
Natural Weed Killers
If you have a yard you probably have some weeds! This year I feel like it is unmanageable the amount of weeds we are seeing.
In our household we have a dilemma though we don't like all the chemicals and pesticides on our lawn. We have little feet playing in it, four legged and two legged one little creatures.
I mean look how cute they are - we don't want to poison them!
So I want to share a few solutions we have found and like so far.
General Lawn - Weed Treatment
Sunday brand lawn care products are our go to. There ingredients are much safer than other brands on the market. I feel better about my child and dog playing on grass treated with it. It does a good job for the task at hand.
We had actually bought a Sunday subscription in the past at a different property. We did the one where you send in a soil test and they send you what you need based on that. It was great when we remembered to use it...
We were moving from our duplex to our current home when we bought it so we weren't real consistent. We did end up using some of the product on our new home and I thought it did pretty well! Strongly considering doing it again for next year since we have let our lawn go a bit since having a kid.
Homemade Weed Killer
Now this is a recipe I had seen floating around Facebook and I liked the ingredients. I finally got around to making some and trying it out on our driveway weeds.
I swear I have pulled our driveway weeds at least 3 times this summer. They just keep coming back! I'm on day 3 of this as a test run and am pretty impressed so far. It has killed the crabgrass growing in the cracks and a good amount of the succulent looking weeds - though I think I needed to douse those a little more all over not just the crack portion.
You can watch the video for the before, recipe, and results and let me know what you think.
Otherwise here is the recipe:
Natural Weed Killer
Ingredients:
24oz Bottle or sprayer (I used an old honey bottle because it was what I had on hand - worked pretty well but would have loved one of those fancy sprayers)
2 cups Vinegar
2 Tablespoons Salt
1/2 Teaspoon Dawn Dish Soap
Pour ingredients into bottle (recommend a funnel if you want to be cleaner than me). Put on lid. Mix together. Put solution on weeds. DONE
One thing to note this will kill regular grass as well. This is a spot treatment not a spray over your entire yard solution.
*If you have a different sized bottle you can type into google the size and ask for recipe measurements so you don't have to calculate it yourself. I believe I searched "24oz natural weed killer recipe". Most of them I found online were for a gallon which was way more than my bottle could hold.
Another solution I have heard but haven't executed yet is that you can pour boiling water down the cracks. It is supposed to kill the roots. I just don't have the patience to wait for that much water to boil and don't trust myself not to spill it all down the front of me on the way to the driveway.
It has crossed my mind of using a coffee pot and just making a bunch of hot water and pouring it that way (much safer in my opinion). I just don't know if that will be hot enough since it's not technically boiling.
My mom also suggested trying a steamer. Which I think would probably work too but I would need one of those scooter things from elementary school to really inspire me to want to be crawling around my driveway like that.
What are your favorite natural weed removal remedies?
💰 Money Saving Tip
ChatGPT can be extremely helpful in finding ways to help save you money!
I know AI is taking over the world but dammit we might as well use it to our benefit.
Here are some ChatGPT suggested prompts that can help save you money in a variety of areas:
Money Saving and Budgeting
"Create a realistic monthly budget for a household of [number] people with an income of $[amount] and expenses including rent, groceries, debt, and entertainment."
"Break down the 50/30/20 rule for me and help me apply it to my actual income of $[amount] per month."
"Compare different budgeting methods (envelope method, zero-based, 50/30/20) and recommend the best one for a single parent."
"Give me a monthly savings challenge that gradually increases my savings by $500 in 3 months."
Meal Prepping on a Budget
"Give me a weekly meal plan for a family of [number] that costs less than $[amount] and includes breakfast, lunch, and dinner."
"Create a grocery list for 7 days of budget-friendly meals under $75, focused on whole foods."
"List 10 budget-friendly freezer meals I can prep on a Sunday to save time and money."
"Give me healthy, cheap snacks and lunchbox ideas for kids that cost less than $2 per serving."
Saving on Travel & Vacations
"Plan a 5-day family vacation for 4 people under $1,000, including travel, lodging, and activities."
"What are the cheapest vacation destinations in the U.S. for families in [season]?"
"List websites and apps that consistently offer the best travel deals and explain how to use them."
"Plan a romantic 3-day couples getaway under $500 within driving distance from [your city]."
Saving Money on Insurance
"Compare term life vs whole life insurance and which is better for someone in their [20s/30s/40s]."
"How can I bundle insurance policies (home, auto, life) to save the most money?"
"Explain common insurance discounts people forget to ask about."
"Review my current home and auto coverage (I’ll provide details) and tell me where I might be overpaying."
"Give me a checklist to compare multiple insurance quotes effectively."
General ChatGPT Tricks
I love using ChatGPT as a little assistant that can look up and make outlines for me. It can be really overwhelming though knowing what to put or how to ask for certain things. These are little tricks I've picked up along the way that might be helpful for you.
When asking a prompt tell ChatGPT to ask you X# of questions to help clarify your goals.
Use this to help write your prompts, "Act as (role) create a (task) show as (format). Example: "Act as a Marketing Expert create a 1 month social media plan show as an excel table"
Define the tone. Do you need this to be a professional email or simple enough for a 10 year old to understand?
If i'm stuck I normally just pinterest ChatGPT and there is a lot of quick and easy charts to read to help me come up with what I need to say.
How do you use AI to help in your everyday life?
💸 Free Resources
All of these Free Resources can also be found on our Realtor Matchmaking Site:
You can also find Lincoln Nebraska Local Resources here:
Wanting something else specific? Let me know, i'd love to offer more value!
🎯 Goal Tracking
Accountability 101 - Goal tracking update.
Well we increased at least this month... Not as much as planned due to some tough financing situations. Public accountability kind of sucks! Can't expect to have record breaking years every year.
I have had an increase in meetings though this month and in real estate, closings take time. So I'm hoping we can color this in more yet this year!
If you want to help us achieve our goals please refer yourself, friends and family!
🥂 Cheers
Enjoy the last days of summer, school is getting here very soon!
-The Fernandez Family
