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When you're in the market for a new home, you probably have a lot of things on your mind: square footage, school districts, mortgages rates.

In a state that's population has shot up by 1.3 million people since 2000, the hail that's been falling the last few years has been dinging more cars and battering more rooftops. The result: higher insurance premiums for everyone.

A prosperity mindset takes a look at the whole equation: your daily spending, saving for your future, and yes, even how much you make.

The National Retail Federation projects back-to-school and back-to-college spending will reach a combined $82.8 billion in the U.S. this year. It may not carry the cultural significance of the holidays, but for many businesses back-to-school shopping can have just as big an impact on their bottom lines.

The condom, the pill and now, the smartphone?

A decade ago, L&L Acoustical averaged about 60 jobs a month. Today, the drywall company completes 35 to 40 jobs, not because the work is shriveling up -- quite the opposite. There's enough work to do 60 to 70 jobs in Fort Collins' robust housing climate, co-owner Gery Lockman said. While work is plentiful, the workers are not. Lockman is wanting for laborers who don't exist. He has an opening for three laborers but hasn't gotten one application in three weeks. With an unemployment rate of 2.6 percent, lack of skilled trades is a double-edged sword: It's forcing wages up — a good thing for workers — but increasing the price of homes and apartments and delaying some projects that otherwise would bring sorely lacking housing inventory to Fort Collins. "Costs keep going up; projects take longer to complete," said Doug Dohn of Dohn Construction in Fort Collins. "Apartments that would have been built in 10 to 11 months now take 16 to 18 months," he said. "Just the availability of people really affects the project. Time is money." A July market update from the Fort Collins Board of Realtors shows the median sales price through July hit $418,175, up 4.5 percent from the first seven months of 2017 compared to the same period last year. In July alone, 224 Fort Collins homes sold for a median $430,000, up 6.6 percent from July 2017, when the median price was $403,360. Townhomes and condos appreciated faster from $280,000 to $300,000, a 7.1 percent increase for the first seven months of the year. A new statewide study by Shift Research Lab estimates rising labor costs account for about 30 percent of a project's bottom line. The city is citing the study as it looks at its own strategic plans for housing. "The cost of building these homes are through the roof," Lockman said. "Materials and labor are going up, but they can't keep going up because we won't have any work. No one's going to be able to afford the houses."

Nearly seven years after Gov. John Hickenlooper first enunciated the need for a facility in Colorado where next-generation space vehicles can routinely launch and land -- ferrying satellites and star-bound tourists into suborbital space -- federal regulators have granted Spaceport Colorado its operator license.

In an ongoing effort to foster commercial activity in space, NASA has selected 13 companies to study the future of commercial human spaceflight in low-Earth orbit, including long-range opportunities for the International Space Station.

Inc. Magazine this week put out its annual rankings of the fastest-growing private companies in America. It's called the Inc. 5000, and 136 Colorado firms made the list.

Colorado employers reported adding 2,800 nonfarm jobs between June and July, under a third of June's robust pace, and the state's unemployment rate rose from 2.7 percent to 2.8 percent, according to a monthly update Friday from the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment.