🐾 Check The Chip Day: One Tiny Chip, One Big JobAn Important Pet Safety Reminder From Nina Hollander, Charlotte’s Pet-Friendly Real Estate Agent August 15 is Check the Chip Day—a reminder that a microchip can be one of the smallest things you do for your pet and one of the most important.Collars can and do slip off. Tags can break or become unreadable. And even the most devoted homebody can make an unexpected dash through an open door or gate. (And don't I know it! My Bingo is a great escape artist!) A microchip gives lost pets another way to be identified and reunited with their families.But here’s the catch: a microchip only works if the information connected to it is current. The statistics about lost pets and recovery of lost pets that are not chipped are truly scary. 🐶 Already chip... 08/15/2026

Buying a Home? Why “Buy Now, Pay Later” Purchases Can Hurt Your Mortgage Approval“Four easy payments.” “Pay over time.” “Only $75 a month.” Buy Now, Pay Later plans from companies such as Affirm, Klarna and Zip have made it incredibly easy to finance everything from clothes and electronics to furniture, vacations and home improvements and even Door Dash delivers. Instead of paying $600 today, you click a button and spread the purchase over a series of smaller payments. You can hardly buy on-line these days without seeing this buy now, pay later, pay over time offer.It may feel more like a payment option than taking out a loan.But if you're shopping for a home or preparing to apply for a mortgage, that's exactly where you can get into trouble.Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) financing is an ins... 08/16/2026

Charlotte's 11th Annual Burger Week🍔 Kicks Off On Friday, August 14th20+ Restaurants. $8 Burgers. Where Do You Start? Charlotte Burger Week 2026 arrives this week! It may be called Charlotte Burger Week, but apparently seven days simply aren’t enough—the Queen City is serving up $8 burgers for a full 10 days.  Starting, Friday, August 14th, you'll have 10 full days to savor the best of the Queen City's burger scene! More than 20 local restaurants will be dishing up creative, limited‑edition burgers for just $8 each (excluding sides, tax, and gratuity).  Find out where to get your perfect burger. Vote for your perfect burger. Charlotte Burger Week "Passport" will be available starting August 12th. As Wolfgang Puck said: "Burgers: the perfect balance of simplicity and satisfaction."    Th... 08/12/2026

Black Cats Deserve Better Than Centuries of Bad PRBlack cats have a PR problem—and they’ve had it for centuries.Somewhere along the way, these sleek, gorgeous felines became tangled up with witches, bad luck, spooky legends, and all sorts of nonsense they had absolutely nothing to do with.And while most of us aren't seriously worried that a black cat crossing our path is going to ruin our day, those old superstitions have proved surprisingly hard to shake.  I believe that Groucho Marx had it right...  That’s where Black Cat Appreciation Day comes in, which is today, August 17th!Because black cats don’t need better personalities. They need better publicity.Ask anyone who has shared a home with one and you’re likely to hear about an affectionate shadow who follows them from room to room, ... 08/17/2026