The Radio Girl

Get Your Mexico Insurance Here

The date is Sunday, December 27th, 2009.

The plan is to cross the Arizona/Mexico border, but every single Tucson and Nogales insurance office we try contact is closed.

I finally stumble across an after hours phone number for San Xavier Mexico Insurance and give them a shout.  I realize it's barely 8am on the Sunday morning after Christmas - what I don't realize is that I'm phoning their home number.

My call is answered by Bob Acosta, who is not only gracious about the early morning phone call at his home, but he offers to drive 45 minutes into Tucson to hook us up with Mexican insurance - on a Sunday, when every single insurance office in town is closed.

I give him the necessary details and within the hour we meet Bob and his wife Hazel at their office.  Twenty minutes later we have auto insurance for Mexico ($180 USD for 6 months).  And My Fellas parents got their motorhome insured as well.  Not sure how much it cost - I think about $260 USD. 

Bob and Hazel Acosta (pictured above) have been in the insurance business for years, and are actually semi-retired.  They sold the biz to their daughter Susan, but they still went out of their way to help us on an early Sunday morning on Christmas weekend.  This kind of customer service guarantees my loyalty for life.

But wait - the story gets better...

After we crossed the Mexican border, a member of our party discovered that their credit card was missing.  This person (who will remain anonymous to protect the innocent :) doesn't know if they dropped the card in the insurance office parking lot or just left it behind at the office after paying.  Needless to say, they were in a bit of a panic.

After emailing Bob and Hazel we got a response from Susan (the daughter) who quickly searched the office and found the credit card.  As you can imagine, our anonymous card loser was very relieved.

Susan says her parents went on and on about what a nice family we were and how important it was to get in touch with us asap, to get the credit card back in our hands.  Susan's email was very personable and reassuring.  And the lady has a great sense of humour.

Without a doubt, we have a new fave Mexican auto insurance company and we'll be contacting Susan next year for Mex Road Trip 2010/11.  Everything can be done online, and the actual contract can simply be emailed to us.

If you're driving to Mex in the future and want a free insurance quote from a really great company, here's the contact info for San Xavier Mexico Insurance:

San Xavier Mexico Insurance Offices
Tucson, Arizona	Nogales, Arizona
2900 E. Broadway Blvd, Suite #108 Tucson, Arizona 85716   Phone: (520) 327-1255 Fax: (520) 327-1303 Toll Free: 1-888-327-1255 From US & Canada	1777 N. Frank Reed Road, #C Nogales, Arizona 85621  Phone: (520) 377-0424 Fax: (520) 377-0418 Toll Free: 1-888-377-1570 from US & Canada
E-mail: info@mexican-autoinsurance.com

Eight More Sleeps...

We woke up to more snow on the ground this morning.

Our little Okanagan beach town has finally turned white. 

 
Snow + Cold = BAD.  

Only 8 more sleeps 'til our Mex Road Trip.  Wish we could have left earlier, like October. 

The cold weather has been a great motivator to stay inside and cross things off my "Before We Leave" list.  Important stuff like shaving My Fella's head and trying to rent out the space for advertising.

 
Just kidding.  (Unless, of course, you're interested :)

I also did some laundry and other house chores, packed a few things for the road trip, organized our clothing donations for Mexico and put a couple more items up for sale on Craigslist. 

Since our condo sold in mid-November, we've been housesitting and living out of suitcases and boxes.  This current lifestyle confirms how little we need - a fact I'm happy to discover in my 30's instead of later in life, when our amount of 'stuff' would most likely double. 

I feel so free having limited possessions.  That being said, it's also comforting having money in the bank as a safety net. 

The second phase of Project Gypsy gets under way when we hit the States on our way to Mexico.  We've found a lot of RV's for sale, privately and thru US dealers so we'll make a few stops along the way looking for a new home.

Our new fave model/floorplan is the Winnebago Sightseer 37L.  Here's one for sale in North Carolina - it's out of our price range but we love the separate living area. 

As we've discovered, the key to sharing a small space is having a place to escape  :)  

For Sale

Our cupboards are bare.

Actually, so is most of our condo.

 
First, the cupboards. 

I've had sinusitis since last week and My Fella was sick the week before that - he still has a bit of a cough.  So no big grocery purchases lately except for several boxes of chicken noodle soup, throat lozenges and fruit.  Hence the bare cupboards.

And the condo is bare because of my recent Craigslist addiction.  In the past three weeks I've sold:

• two bookcases
• a wine cooler
• our kitchen table
• a leopard bench
• my table lamp
• an IKEA chair
• the sofa bed
• four wooden chairs
• three big mirrors
• two leather stools
• and "a partridge in a peeeear treeeeee..."

Not much left to sell. 

My Fella has started moving some of our things to his parents house.  He says it's to get an early start on moving, but I think he's scared I'm gonna start selling the good stuff  :)

Speaking of the good stuff.  We did sell one really good thing. 

OUR CONDO.  Actually I signed the papers 10 days ago, but we had to wait until today for all of the conditions to be removed by the buyer.  And our realtor just called to confirm the deal is done.  We sold for less than our original list price but still made a 22.4% profit in 3 years, excluding fees. 

After the Olympic Games end in February I think BC real estate will experience another drop, so I'm happy to pull that money out now and invest it elsewhere. 

And now we're free to move forward on Project Gypsy.

(Hope I feel better soon cause I plan to make our final few weeks here complete HELL for our neighbours.  Here's the part where I wish I had eight noisy, rambunctious, screaming kids.  Who all play the drums   :)

Prime Lending Rate Remains Unchanged

 
If you have a personal line of credit or variable rate mortgage, you should be celebrating.

This morning the Bank of Canada announced they were leaving the prime lending rate unchanged at 0.25%. 

The B of C also implied once again that the overnight rate would remain the same until the second quarter of next year.  Great news for homeowners :)

Here's the full story from the Financial Post.

Canadian Taxes

 
At the start of every calendar year I crunch the numbers (employment, business, dividend and interest income) to guestimate my taxes* for the year.  By planning ahead I usually pay minimal tax.

Since my part-time radio gig has mysteriously morphed into full-time, my 2009 employment income is going to be higher than I initially thought.  Almost triple actually.

While I'm thankful for the gig it's really messed up my taxes. 

Normally I get money back, but if my new calculations are accurate I'll be owing about $3700 for taxes in 2009.  Some of that will be offset by deductions through my Voice Biz but I need to brainstorm more ideas to reduce that number. 

Maybe more contributions to this years fave charity, the local SPCA.

Look at that face :)

*Canada has one of the highest tax rates in the world. 

You name it, we're taxed on it:  income, property, gasoline, alcohol, junk food, cell phone and internet service, clothing, footwear, vehicles, RVs, furniture, appliances, electronics, sports equipment, new homes, basically all consumer goods and services.  And the new HST (harmonized sales tax) will be introduced next summer.

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs

We went to an animated movie tonight - Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. 

My Fella and I watch a lot of movies at home, but rarely go to the theatre.  After working in radio for so long and getting so many free movie passes, it's hard to actually pay to go see a movie. 

This is the first theatre movie we've been to in almost three years.  I know... my Cheap is showing :)

We both like animated flicks and this one was pretty cute.  Lots of smiles and some laugh out loud moments.  And Mr T was in it ("I pity the fool!") so it had to be worth it.  Here's the trailer from YouTube: 

*By the way, it cost us $40 for the night - $20 for admission and $20 for snacks. 

Road Trip Wrap

Here's a question...

How do folks with full time jobs and responsibilities find time to blog at all?  We've been back from Washington for a few days now and this is my first chance to post anything.  Although if I didn't spend so much time with the talking heads on BNN.ca I'd free up quite a few hours every day.

Here's a mix of pics from our trip, starting with the fishies in the pond in front of our hotel, The Medallion Spa and Resort in Arlington, Washington. 

The fishies swam right up to us when we walked over the little bridge at the hotel entrance.  They all looked up at the same time and opened there little mouths like they were waiting for food.  Or lip synching.  It was hilarious. 

Of course the second I whipped out my camera they reverted back to normal fish behavior and just swam around.  Fish divas.   

By the way, if you ever head to Snohomish County in Washington, The Medallion Hotel is a good choice.  Clean and quiet rooms, free internet and hot breakfast and it's close to everything including the Seattle Premium Outlet Mall and the Tulalip Casino.  We paid $99US/night for three nights - a good deal for a fairly luxurious room.    

My Fella went golfing one day while I took a three hour walking tour of the area.  And we both spent some quality time at the Seattle Outlet Mall - 130 discount stores including our faves, the Adidas store and The Gap. 

My Fella and I both had shopping budgets and stuck to them.  I still can't get over the great deals you can find at these outlet stores and keep in mind, I'm pretty cheap.  Shoes and clothing in Canada are both really expensive compared to US outlet malls - even items on sale in Canadian stores are almost twice the price you'd pay in the USA.

My Fella picked up summer shirts (t-shirts at $6, golf shirts for $15) summer shorts ($10/pair, same price as in the thrift stores in Canada).  And I bought a new mini backpack on sale.  I carry around small backpacks instead of a purse and I've had my current one for about six years so the leather has started to rip.  I also bought some comfy Naturalizer tennis shoes for my daily ninety minute commute to work. 

And I found a lot of cute baby clothes (for a pal - don't get any crazy ideas :) 

Look at those teeny weeny little Puma socks.

My only embarrassing purchase of the trip was 10 Gap khaki skirts. 

Yes, you read that correctly.  I bought 10 Gap miniskirts on sale for $10 each (regular price $35 CAD).  They are my fave skirt ever and I already own a couple that I wear all the time, usually three or four times a week. 

For the past year I've been looking for them online and it seems regular Gap stores don't carry them anymore.  You can imagine my complete and utter joy when I spotted a bunch of the skirts at the Gap Outlet.  My Fella says I actually squealed.

Which explains why I bought every single one in my size (couldn't fit them all in the pic below :) 

I now have twelve Gap khaki miniskirts.

I'm set for life.

Shop Against the Grain

In other words, do the opposite of what others are doing.

This is the best way to buy stocks.  There are value investors and growth investors - I'm an opportunistic investor, impatiently waiting for the best opportunity to buy.  For example when a strong company dips because the sector is weak.  Or during the low part of the cycle for a resource stock.  That's usually when everyone else is panic selling.  It can be risky but also very rewarding.

I'm convinced that you get the best deals when you go against the grain and that includes shopping for regular consumer purchases.  For most of the 2000's, when Canadian consumers were wracking up credit card bills and personal lines of credit, I was keeping a zero balance and only buying what I could afford with cash.   

Now that the bottom has fallen out of the economy and prices are so low, I've started spending money.  A few days ago I got the ball rolling with new pink socks on sale, 3 pairs for $6.  It always starts with socks. 

Then yesterday I walked to the mall after work and bought a couple of short casual skirts and an Adidas tennis shirt (all on sale, $19 for the shirt and $40 for the skirts).

While there I remembered how much I hate malls.  And shopping in general.

But there may be more shopping to come in the near future.  The tv in my office is on the fritz.  It's one of those archaic heavy monsters with a huge back end that weighs 70 squillion pounds.  I know this because I've had it for at least ten years and every time we moved to a new house someone would have to lug it around. 

By someone I mean someone else, because it's waaay too heavy for me   :)    

Anyway, we had a power surge during a thunderstorm several months ago and the screen started going wanky.  The picture is pinkish green and usually fuzzy unless you put your hand on the left side of the screen.  It's much more clear if someone lays across the top of the tv, but as you can imagine, that makes it hard to watch.

Flat screen tvs are so cheap right now and we've looked at a few of them, including a 26" SONY with a built in DVD player.  I watch a lot of movies in my office so that one would be perfect.  And it's on sale at a local mom and pop appliance shop for $450 bucks. 

They said it would be on sale until fall so there's no hurry to buy.  I'm gonna wait til this one explodes or the picture goes completely green.  Then I'll know what it's like to watch Alien TV :)

By the way, did you notice the long, skinny blue thing lying across the tv? 

That's a huge golf pencil I bought for My Fella, the Golf Pro.  Sometimes when he's out on the course, he'll whip it out of his golf bag to mark down his score.  It always gets a laugh.

Here's how big the pencil is, compared to a regular size coffee cup.

Tennis and a Haircut

Happy Independance Day to our American buddies. 

At the very least, I bet you're glad to be free of The Dubya.

My Fella and have a busy day planned in our little Okanagan beach town.  A couple hours of tennis, then a trip to the garden center for fresh fruits and veggies.  And we started the day with some head shaving in the backyard. 

His head, not mine.

He saves a couple hundred bucks a year when I shave his head at home.  And I read somewhere that teeny little hair clippings in the grass will keep smaller wildlife off your deck.

I haven't seen any critters running around so it must be working, right?

UNIONS SUCK

I am so SICK OF UNIONS.

Go back to work you UNGRATEFUL YAHOOS.

There are thousands of qualified and unemployed folks across Canada who would gladly snag your job, your salary, your holiday time AND your 18 days off per year of PAID SICK LEAVE!

There was a time and a place for unions in Canada, way back in the 50's and 60's.  As a taxpayer, I am SICK SICK SICK SICK SICK of the constant whining/demands/strikes from unionized employees. 

In a perfect world, the government of Canada would have the cojones to reform our stupid union structure instead of being blackmailed every time a union contract is up for renewal.