Amy Currioman

Sue decided to spend a week in Chicago, visiting with Aunt June.  Aunt June hasn’t been feeling well lately, and wasn’t able to come visit with us like she usually does.  We’ve been quite unhappy with air travel of late, so Sue decided to drive up instead of flying. So Sue borrowed my EZ Pass and drove  to Chicago.  We figured that was the best idea because that would make her departure and arrival days and times flexible.

While Sue was in Chicago, she was driving Aunt June around town to run some errands and her car overheated.  She took it to a Chicago auto repair shop and they told her that she needed a new water pump.  I had to give Sue my credit card information so she could get the car fixed.  That’s one of the drawbacks to taking your own car on a trip!  Maybe next time she’ll rent a car for the trip.  Getting a rental with unlimited mileage just might be the best way to go; if it breaks down you don’t have to pay to get it fixed, you just trade it in for a different rental car and you’re on your way!

My horoscope said nothing about how great today was going to be. First, I went to Starbucks and they gave me a free chocolate cherry mocha coffee. They had made one for someone else who decided they didn’t want it and the barrista didn’t want to throw it away, so she asked me if i would like it. Heck, yes!

Then I went to Home Depot to get a couple of rakes for my overdue yard work and went to the self checkout. The rakes both had the bar codes on them, but the second one would not scan. the checkout display said to wait for assistance. I waited and waited and even with 4 idle workers milling about, no one came to help me. So I got a little ticked off and loudly asked “Where’s my assistance?” the clerk came and tried to scan the rake, but it didn’t work. So he went somewhere else and left me standing there along with a growing line of other impatient customers. When he came back he tried to scan it one more time. It still didn’t work. He leaned toward me and said softly, “I’m not going to charge you for this rake. It’s not your fault the scan won’t work and I’m sorry you’ve had to wait so long.” He smiled and handed me the rake – another freebie!

In today’s technological world Online Trading seems to be a very popular way for the investor to be involved in Stock Trading.  I think that having an Online Broker would be a very convenient way to deal with investing!  There have been many times when I wanted to talk to my own stock broker and had to leave messages on his voice mail and wait for a return call – sometimes several days!

With doing stock trading online, you don’t have to wait for a return call – you place your order and “poof” it is done the same day!  And the fees for trading with an online trading firm are often much lower than the fees for a “regular” stock broker!  And nowadays you can get just as good advice about stocks online as you can with a “real” person.  In fact, sometimes the advice is even better because it is impartial and just relays the facts and figures.

Last night at 8pm I went to brush my teeth. I turned on the water faucet, but no water came out! I was NOT HAPPY! I called out to my hubby “there’s no water!” He replied “the washing machine is running, of course there’s no water!” I said, “no, I mean there really is NO WATER! Not even a trickle!”

Long story short, we had to call the well guys and they came out today and put in a new pump. That was an unexpected $800 tab! And here my hubby was just telling me yesterday afternoon that he wanted to go fly up to Maine and visit his mother next week. Now I don’t think that is very likely to happen unless she pays for the ticket!

When a young adult gets their first car, they often look for cheap auto insurance.  Let’s face it, they’ve just invested a huge chunk of their budget for the first time in their wheels, and it is no easy task fitting in all of the expenses of a car!  The maintenance and gasoline is enough to scare anyone!  So buying cheap auto insurance is a top priority for them!  Many older consumers find that bundling auto insurance with their home-owner’s insurance is a good way to save money on both types of insurance, but the younger adults often don’t have the need for home-owner’s insurance yet! 

One of the scary things about getting auto insurance is not really knowing how much insurance you need to get.  You don’t want to pay for more coverage than you need, but then again you don’t want to be under-insured either.  If you are involved in a car accident you really do need to be able to get your car fixed or replaced without it causing an undue hardship.  And with medical costs as high as they are, you need to get plenty of liability and under-insured motorist coverage as well!  You don’t want to end up on the injured list and have no way to pay for the medical bills that will wrack up quicker than you can say “lickity split!”

I was using a website search engine today to help my nephew find auto insurance for his new car, and found an easy one to use at the cheap-autoinsurance.com website.  That site was easy to use; we started out typing in the zip code of the town where my nephew lives and it took us to a page that showed several insurance providers that are known to give good prices for that town.  Then it gave us the option to apply on line for free and instant insurance quotes.  I like sites like that!