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A rare super blue moon will shine in the sky as August wraps up.

The month already featured a supermoon as it began, but the second full supermoon of the month — which will appear on Aug. 30 — will also be a blue moon. A blue moon is not actually blue in color; the term signifies a second full moon within a single month.

August’s first full moon rose on Aug. 1 and was the second of four consecutive supermoons. On average, supermoons are about 16% brighter than an average moon. They also appear bigger than the average full moon. According to NASA, it’s similar to the size difference between a quarter and a nickel. The phenomenon occurs when the moon’s orbit is closest to Earth at the same time the moon is full.

The Aug. 30 supermoon will appear to be even closer than the full moon at the beginning of the month. The last of the four consecutive supermoons this year will be the Sept. 28 “Harvest Moon.”

Those who miss out on the blue moon will have quite a wait before the next one. While around 25% of full moons are supermoons, just 3% of full moons are blue moons, according to NASA. The next blue moon after the one on Aug. 30 will be in May 2026. Astronomy fans will be in for a special treat come 2037, which will feature super blue moons in January and March.

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The silhouette of treetops on a hill seen in front of the moon

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When you first bought your first house, it probably seemed enormous, especially if you were moving from a tiny apartment. But inevitably, the longer you own it (and start filling it with stuff, pets, and children), the smaller it seems.

What’s to be done? Buy a larger home? Sure, but that’s going to be expensive, especially right now. Get a storage unit? Now your stuff is 20 minutes away, and you have a new monthly bill to pay. Add an addition to your existing house? Also, expensive—but it doesn’t have to be. While adding a whole new room or wing to your house might be the ideal solution to your space needs, if you don’t have the cash for such a project, there are lower-cost options you could consider.

Finishing an existing unfinished space

The first option to consider is finishing the spaces that already exist. Unfinished areas like basements don’t count as livable space in your house, so finishing them adds value and space to your home.

If you have a garage, that’s going to be the cheapest space to finish. Garages are often already attached to the main level of the house, have a door connection to the rest of the space, and are probably wired up with electricity at the least. The average cost of converting a garage is around $15,000, though it can go a lot higher if you need to add plumbing for a bathroom or if your garage is very large (or if you’re trying to convert one portion of a 3-car garage and keeping the rest for a car). The main downside is the loss of covered parking, but this is a cheap way to gain square footage.

Unfinished attics and basements are also obvious targets for finishing, with the cost to finish a basement averaging about $23,000 and the cost of finishing an attic averaging $25,000.

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Photo: Sue Smith (Shutterstock)

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We’re supposed to do things routinely for our health, like brushing our teeth, showering, and exercising.

And there are basic hygiene tasks to maintain or boost your financial health, too — actions you can take annually to make sure you’re on track to meet your goals.

Think of this routine as a quick checkup for your finances. Life Kit has more suggestions for handling your finances, but here are five good habits to get into every year –– no appointment necessary.

Look to the future

Ask yourself where you want to be three, five, or ten years from now. Brent Weiss, a certified financial planner at Facet, asks his clients this question when helping them devise their financial goals. And then he asks: “What has to happen in your life for you to look back and say, ‘That was a wildly successful period of my life?’ But here’s the trick. You can’t mention money.”

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While the impulse may be rooted in shyness or social anxiety, people who fail to read the room rarely suffer from passivity. They don’t enter as much as barge in. Subtle and restrained are not calling cards.

“They gotta make a splash,” says Laura Dudley, associate clinical professor of applied psychology at Northeastern University.

Confidence isn’t the problem. The issue is the inability to adjust. Think about if you’re home alone. You know that you can act a certain way, i.e., wear no pants. If company is there, you know enough to put on clothes. It’s about understanding context, and with a party, event, meeting or playground conversation, it means seeing and hearing what’s spoken and unspoken.

Properly reading a room requires a willingness to watch and bend to the situation, all of which can feel initially foreign. But it all falls into the possible-to-do category.

Reading a room begins with raising your awareness. If you were recently at a barbecue and reviewing the events, and think, That conversation went sideways fast. Was it me? — that’s enough self-reflection to lead to change. But if you cling to the attitude of, I am how I am: Deal — you’ll never be able to read the room because every interaction is about you, when it’s pretty much the opposite.

“Every relationship is a negotiation,” says Darrin J. Griffin, associate professor, chair of the communication studies department at University of Alabama, and co-author of Lying and Deception. “It needs concession. To win, it’s gotta be a win-win.”

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