I needed to have a vacation.  I mean, I have a real job during the day, and I have a home business at night.  I have been looking into going to Europe, but there are some things I had to take care of first.

Before I go, I need to get travel medical insurance.  Why?  Well, when I consulted my insurance broker, he informed me that my regular health insurance didn’t cover me when I left the country.  You can get either full travel medical insurance or you can get supplemental insurance (which upgrades your current insurance policy to cover you abroad).  The coverage provided by the insurance policy covers everything from a simple visit to a doctor, to a long hospital stay.

Be sure on your next trip to get travel medical insurance to ensure that you are not caught unprepared if you should have a medical emergency.

I have been looking for good real estate investing websites that have access to unlisted properties for sale.  I have been using a few good realtors for the last few years, but I know there are a lot of deals they don’t know about.  So I have decided to look online for a website that caters to my investment style. 

What is my investment style? 

Well, I buy houses.  It really doesn’t matter so much on the condition of the house as I will do one of two things – rent it out or flip it.  On one hand it is nice to have the constant cash flow of rental properties, but sometimes it may be smarter to flip the house and take a quick profit. 

In order to find these type of deals, I needed to find motivated sellers looking for one thing: fast cash for houses. 

I did manage to find one site that seems to be promising – CashHomeBuyers.com.  They connect motivated sellers to real estate investors in order to get them both what they want. 

Update: 

So far, so good – from my talks with the staff of the website, it looks like it will be a good fit with my organization.  I would suggest that if you are a real estate investor you should be checking out the site right now.

Many different auto insurance companies offer a discount for different situations such as age, using the public transit system, and efforts you make to deter thieves.  Some details on some of the insurance discounts available are below:

Senior Discount

A large number of  auto insurance providers provide discounts for drivers over the age of 55.  Most of the discounts range between five and ten percent per year.  Sometimes there are some conditions such as needing to take a defensive driver course.

Using the Public Transit System

There has been some talk online about a discount offered by Massachusetts auto insurance companies.  If you use the transit system as your primary means of transportation and meet certain criteria, you get a discount on your car insurance.  I can see this discount appearing in different states as well.

Deterring Thieves

There are a lot of insurance claims due to thieves.  Whether they steal your vehicle or cause damage, they cost insurance companies millions of dollars per year.  Some companies now offer reduced insurance rates if you take steps to make your vehicle less attractive to thieves.  Such things as etching your VIN number into your widows or installing an anti-theft system will reduce your insurance premiums.

As with any other service, don’ be afraid to ask.  Your insurance broker will be happy to find the discounts you need to make your car insurance package cheaper.

I was out today looking at mobile phones at a local retailer.  One phone in particular caught my eye: the Samsung u600.

One word came to mind: thin.

I mean really thin.  The phone is only 10.9 mm thick.  Don’t let the size fool you though.  This phone is jam-packed with features that you would expect from a bigger phone.  You can find a 3 megapixel camera, MP3 player, and Bluetooth come standard.  In terms of battery life, the Samsung u600 boasts up to five hours talk time with just over ten days in standby mode.

There are only a couple of problems (or possible problems) with this phone.  The biggest problem for me is the lack of voice dial - it seems strange that my older Samsung phone has it but this one doesn’t.  I also found the cap for the USB charger and micro SD slot to be a little more fragile than expected.

The thing I love most in this world is fast cars.  When the 2007 Mustang Shelby was coming out, I had to have one.  To me, nothing compares to a Ford Mustang.  Since they have been on the market for over four decades, how can you go wrong.

I worked my hands to the bones.  But I finally did it.  I got my first Mustang.  I know with the right Shelby performance parts, I would have a killer powerful car.

There is so much you can do to modify a beauty like my Shelby and yet she is so beautiful all on her own.  I started by upgrading her engine to a a 5.4 L V-8.  You can just feel the power.

The modifications had to stop there for awhile as I had to put my nose back to the grindstone to be able to afford more upgrades to my car.  Gradually I was able to mod other parts of her.  She now boasts adjustable dampers, lowering springs, stabilizer bars and a front strut-tower brace.  Next, we had to dress her up a bit.  With some personally designed logos and racing stripes, she came to life.

She is a dream come true and I am not finished with her yet.  I am after all a diva, and I love fast cars.

If you live in San Diego or you are thinking about moving to California 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: California Mortgage loans, second mortgages, equity loans, interest only and deferred interest mortgage programs.

Later on this fall I will be taking a trip to the Cayman Islands. This will be more of a business trip than for pleasure - I am an avid real estate investor and am going to look at the Cayman condo rental market.

According to many Cayman news websites I have been reading, you can rent out a single bedroom apartment for as much as $1500 per month and a two bedroom apartment for as much as $2500 per month.

I needed to find out how much a two bedroom condo was selling for. Checking out Cayman Island real estate sites, I found that you can get a condo for as little as $200,000 US and up.

If you rent the condo out per week, you can expect between $1200 US or more per week rental. On a $200,000 condo, your cash on cash return would be about 40% if you rented it out weekly. Most of you would be ecstatic to get that kind of return.

Looks like I may have to pick up some real estate when I am on my trip there.