How to Save $932 in 180 Days

This is an actual photo taken inside of my new car insurance company's office.

Fred Loya Insurance. It says it right there on the wall above the printer. And on the sign in redish letters.

My ex-company is Nationwide. My relationship with them started in 2005 when I broke up with State Farm.


It was an arranged situation..I was born into it. The divorce almost killed my mama.

ADVERTISING SUCKED ME IN

This is one of those rare instances when tv commercials really work on me. I kept seeing the ads where "real customers" were talking about how much they'd saved by switching to Fred Loya. Big bucks. No whammies.

I'm not filling out a bunch of paperwork and answering a bunch of questions to save $4.16 per month. The financial gurus will try to make it look more appealing by putting a larger number in front of you. Multiply $4.16 by 6 and let me know what you come up with.

THAT VOICE AGAIN

On my way home one morning from doing errands, it spoke to me and said, "Stop and go inside...in Fred Loya...you've been saying you were...you're almost right by it...TURN LEFT NOW!" That's not verbatim, but the conversations between us are always pretty much the same.

It starts off quiet and subtle. I try to ignore it. And then it gets all loud and aggressive.

LESS THAN 15 MINUTES BUT THEY AREN'T GEICO

Never quite understood why Geico tried to sell you on their process taking less than 15 minutes. Maybe because of the reasons I stated above regarding paperwork and interrogation. If Fred had tried to lure me in with real customers attesting to how quick the process was vs. putting at least a thousand dollars in savings in my face, I would've hit mute on the voice and went on about my business. The business of being policy raped by Nationwide.

Getting a printed quote - explained and highlighted in detail - was fast and painless. For once, I actually understood what I was getting.

DIFFERENCES AND LOSSES

I compromised on three things in order to get the savings:

• higher deductible (went from $500 to $1000) 
• no personal injury protection (PIP)
• no roadside assistance (cost me $3.33/month with Nationwide - this I'm gonna miss)

I have less bodily injury and uninsured motorist body injury protection. The property damage and uninsured motorist property damage coverage are the same.

Total savings: $155.33 per month

DATING UNTIL 2012

My policy expires in February 2012. Fred and I are going steady until then. When our six months are up, I'll weigh my options and decide on marriage. Until then - I belong to him. I have the papers to prove it.

How to Fix RSS Feed in Triberr

1. If you haven't heard of it, please google. Thank you kindly.

2. If you have heard of it and can't get your posts to appear in your tribal stream, keep reading. 

Blogging is the shiznit. Seriously. And this new crack a.k.a. triberr that @coffeeluvinmom turned me on to, is changing the game. 

Clueless? Read #1 and repeat.

Registering is super easy, but getting your feed imported proved to be a challenge for some. Thanks to Dan "the Man" Cristo ("the Man" is nowhere in his bio...just here in this post), me and others are in business and our posts are flowing the way they were intended. 

Dan was putting out Bonfires (again...see #1) and gave me these instructions:

• go to Tribes and click on your tribe (my tribe is Coffee Chronicles. go figure)
• click on Settings (right under the description box of your tribe & above tribe member avatars)
• scroll down until you see Selected RSS Feed (it's defaulted to Unassign)
• select your RSS feed (looks like http://blogname.com/feed OR http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogname)
• click Save Changes

To confirm you're good to go:

• go to Home
• click on the My Stream tab
• when your post has been tweeted, you'll see a pie chart to the far right giving you your stats

Disclosure: I'm so non-technical it hurts sometimes. I have faith your skills are much better than mine.

Hope this helps...now go multiply your reach & get some bones!

Decide. Do.

The opportunity to auctioneer a live auction for charity was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.

My friend Monica is the one who introduced me to the group hosting the event. My relationship with the local Interior Design Society chapter started as a result of her recommending me to come in and speak.

She popped the question about two weeks before the big day and told me I could get back with her in a couple of days. If I had put too much time into thinking about the fact I'd never done anything like that, it wouldn't have happened.

In my mind, I only had one choice: DECIDE. Right there on the spot. Not a minute later.

So that's what I did. I said yes to something that initially scared the shit out of me and could potentially ruin my chances of ever working with this group again. Or any other organization attending and seeing me for the first time.

You see all of those arrows shooting out of the green guy's head up there?! Yep. That's exactly how I felt. Not this time, but damn near every time I do something that seems crazy or impossible.

Why do I DO it? I won't ever know or reach my full potential otherwise. 

And guess what? Neither will you.

People jump out of airplanes, climb deadly mountains, and swim with sharks all the time. These are things that present a real danger! Stuff that can kill your ass if you make one wrong move. 

When you're weighing your options trying to figure out if you should or shouldn't, don't look at the worse case scenario. That's where you mess up. Look at the pros - not the cons. 

• I was introduced to more like-minded people. 
• I spent time giving back. Something I can never do too much of. 
• The overwhelmingly good feedback I received raised my confidence.
• I challenged myself and moved to a whole'nother spectrum of my comfort zone. 

Not bad. Not bad at all...and I didn't even mention the free margarita and nachos.

photo: Richard Scott33

How to Raise $3,000 in a $23 Outfit

You know how people get honorary college degrees and stuff? I haven't gotten one, but I'm kind of like an honorary member of the Interior Design Society Texas Hill Country Chapter. The president appointed me on Thursday night.

I've spoken to this group twice, most recently last month. Somehow, my name came up as the person to auctioneer their charity event. I don't think this skill set is listed anywhere on my Put Me to Work page. File it under other duties as assigned.

No, I didn't do the "fast talk". Despite that, I did manage to create a couple of bidding wars!

The temperatures here in central Texas have been consistently hovering around 100-and-close-to-burning-in-hell so picking the ideal outfit was just as important as figuring out how to fulfill my job duties. I looked at it this way: if I'm a total bomb, I better at least look like a bombshell. Or the equivalent. Whatever that may be.

Choosing accessories can literally determine if I'm going to arrive somewhere 15 minutes early or 10 minutes late. I've learned now that this part of getting dressed slows me down. Partly because of my mild-to-moderate OCD which makes me try on at least three different pairs of earrings and two different bracelet combos.

My neighbor friend Jamie started tinkering and launched Jewelry by Jamille. Everything is handmade. When she had her first trunk show I was flat broke and couldn't buy anything. When she had another one, I was less broke and came home with these beauties:

JewelrybyJamille.com

This was my first time wearing them and they were perfect, very light weight and comfortable.

Definitely a statement piece.

My photogs haven't quite mastered the full-body shot, but I'm sure we'll eventually get there.

Here's the complete outfit minus me. I really wanted you to see the contrasting hem on the dress:

Maxi dress and Steve Madden sandals from Ross

 Black maxi dress, $7.99; Steve Madden sandals, $12.99

Ross Shopping Pro Tip: the price of shoes are written on the bottom, rounded to the nearest dollar.


I bought these when gladiators were all the rage. I don't like the gladiator look that comes all the way up your ankle. Ross is my go-to place for keeping up with trends without going broker.

OUTFIT GRAND TOTAL: $22.71

That's 3Xs cheaper than this dress alone:

Camille maxi at soma.com $75

Here I am with my friend and fellow speaker Evelina Solis. She's a certified life coach, radio personality, and co-hosts a tv show. She was recently a spokesperson for Macy's National Hispanic Heritage Campaign.

I can truly say losing my live-auction auctioneer virginity was a huge success. Every item donated was sold and we raised just under $3,000 (in a few short hours) to go toward the makeover project for SafePlace.

There are so many ways to get involved and make a difference in your community.

Moral of the Story: Spend Less. Give More.

Guess what?! Due to the overwhelming response to this post, I started a personal style blog. But it's not just any personal style blog. Go on..click here to check it out!

Email Confession: Gratitude and Commitment