I wanted to know a little more about my medical insurance.  The few times we have had to use it, it has been great, but we are leaving the country to work for a number of months, and we wanted to be sure we were covered in case of a medical emergency.

We made a quick call to our insurance broker and setup an appointment.  We asked if our regular medical insurance covered us if we took a trip out of the country.  The answer was no.

Our broker then walked us through the available options for travel medical insurance.  In our case, the long term travel insurance was a better choice as we are going to be out of the country for about eight months.  The type we will be getting is supplemental coverage, which just ensures that our health insurance covers all procedures abroad.

Thankfully we took this step to visit our insurance broker.  Be sure to check into whether or not your health insurance covers you when you are out of the country – if it doesn’t, you may be in for a nasty surprise.

Have you ever spelled something wrong?  Anything good ever come out of your mistake?  

I know through most of my life, I have been penalized for making spelling mistakes.  Whether you are in school, work, or even at home, a spelling mistake can be disastrous.  Well, let me tell you of this one time a mistake was a blessing.

I was looking for some articles for a new website I was developing.  They had to be specific and I didn’t really have time to write them, so I considered using articles from a free article directory instead.  Being lazy like I can be sometimes, I decided to just type article in the address bar and add .com to it – with the purpose of arriving at an article site.  

I made a little typing error…

Oops!  I mistakenly typed Articlr instead of Article.  Funny, I came out to a website anyways.  What I had not expected was to open a useful website, full of free content and articles that could benefit my site.

Now, I recommend Articlr.com to all my friends and they love it.  You should try them out too.

My best friend sold his house quickly – less than a week, but I haven’t had as good of luck.  It was my goal to get a fast home sale, but that did not happen.  In fact, the month or so that our house has been on the market has only done one thing for me:

It causes me stress.

What if I can’t sell it?  How can we buy another house if we cannot sell the first one?

I know I am not alone in my thoughts. 

In a quest to find some way to sell our house, I have tried calling some of those “cash for houses” ads you see in the paper. 

I was not impressed. 

Not one of the people I talked to were helpful at all.  All they wanted to do was rip me off and buy my house for pennies on the dollar.  That is just not fair. 

I expanded my search to include the internet, again looking for a site along the lines of an “I buy homes quickly” ad. 

Lucky for me, I did find a website that was fair: CashHomeBuyers.com.  I filled out their contact form and someone pleasant contacted me within a few days.  The best part is that they offered a reasonable amount of money for my house. 

Thank goodness.

I find service nowadays to be mediocre at best.  Whether it be going to a restaurant, getting your car repaired, or even your insurance company, service is just not the same as it used to be.

I can remember when I first signed up for car insurance the salesperson was quick to point out discounts you could take advantage of, called you periodically to check on how your insurance policy was doing for you and sent you a Christmas card each year.  It seems these little touches have long gone.  Now, you are no longer considered as an important customer but rather a number.  In fact, many people switch car insurance companies just because of poor customer service.  I know I have.

What I would suggest is to look at other car insurance providers if you are not satisfied with the customer service you are receiving.  It is your money, so you should be treated well.  Should you be treated badly, remind them if you were not paying the insurance company, they would not have jobs.

I have been considering buying my son a cell phone.  He just turned eighteen and will be heading overseas to Europe in August.  I am worried that he may get lost over there and I would like to be able to keep in touch with him.  This will be his first trip on his own away from us and I would like it to go smoothly.

Looking at one of our favorite website dedicated to phones, I managed to find one promising option: the Nokia N95.  It comes with all the features we feel he needs to have a safe journey, as well as some features that everyone expects now days from their mobile devices.  It can play music, show pictures and even has a built-in GPS.  We will have to look into how much the maps for Europe cost.  He can even send us email from the mobile browser each day.

I think the features have pretty much sold me.  We will order a N95 online later today.  I’ll let you know how our experiences went.

My son picked up his first car last week.  He is now the proud owners of a Ford Mustang.  I figured this was the end of my relaxing, calm life and the beginning of sleepless hours wondering when he would be home and if he would come home.  I figured now that he had his car, he would work less and party more.

Boy, was I wrong.

He is working more hours than ever now and I finally sat him down long enough to try and understand what goes through his brain.  He looked at me like I was from another planet and just said: “I want to soup-up my Mustang mom.”

I thought I must be an idiot, because as he rambled on in another language, I only understand a few words here and there.  He started talking about engines  Well, I know it’s that big thing under the hood, but I didn’t understand all this mumbo-jumbo about modifying it.  I am proud to know where to put the oil.

When he started talking dampers, springs and struts, and other Ford Mustang parts, I just nodded my head and thought about how nice the front flower bed would look in the fall when the asters would bloom.  When he finished telling me all his plans for the car, I was exhausted.  But I was also very thankful.  For now I realize, as long as there are modifications to be made, and he has to pay for them, I can continue to sleep at night.  For my independent boy with his new car, is not out killing himself on the highway, but tucked safely at work earning the cash to better his car.

If you live in Phonenix or you are thinking about moving to Arizona and you need to secure a great deal on a mortgage loan, then your best opportunity to get a low rate is to compare 3 or 4 lenders quotes. Shopping for a mortgage loan can be very complex.  We found that there are a number of sites that offer comparison shopping and used a service offered by LoanNetwork.com where they actually had lenders contact us with there mortgage quotes. It was super easy to shop for a mortgage and helped us save a ton of time in trying to compare offers. Comparing refinance and purchase home loans for closing costs, interest rates and programs has never been easier. The site offers free mortgage calculators, a forum to ask their expert response team and offers mortgage loan quotes for all 50 states including: Arizona Mortgage loans, second mortgages, equity loans, interest only and deferred interest mortgage programs.

I would consider myself to be an avid real estate investor.  I am always looking at investment properties and new areas to invest some of my money.  This week while on my search, I did manage to come across a promissing area I had never considered before: the Cayman Islands.

Now, you might ask me why I would want to invest my money there.  It is simple really: I can get a very good cash-on-cash return on my investment.  It is not uncommon for someone owning Cayman condo rental properties to earn in excess of 30% return on their investment annually.  If you really want to increase your return dramatically, you can rent out the condos on a weekly basis as opposed to a monthly basis and get more than a 50% return on your investment each year.  Now, tell me if your mutual fund or stock you are invested in can do that?  

The Cayman Island real estate market is very hot right now.  But the prices are not too high for a new investor to get into the market.  I looked up a realtor in the Cayman Island Business Directory and learned that you can get into the market for less than $200,000 US.  A condo at this price can rent for as little as $2500 per month or $1200 per week depending on how you rent the condo.  That is definitely higher than I can rent out a condo out in my home country.

Next time you are considering purchasing some investment properties, set your sites on the Cayman Islands.  Low investment, no tax, and excellent return on your investment.