About a month ago, I sold my 2001 Civic Coupe on Craigslist.  Reason being…. Can’t have two kids with a two door car!  I’m actually emotionally attached to that car because it was my first car that I bought with my own money.  The car needs a little bit of work just like any other ten year old car.  But other than that, it’s actually still in a good condition.  Had I not have another kid, I’d probably keep it and get it fixed.  Throughout this whole buying and selling process, I learned a few things:

1.  Never trade your car in with a dealer
You should always try to sell your car to a private party first before deciding to trade it in with a dealer.   I always buy my car new because I’m a Honda person, and the price doesn’t depreciate a lot.  It was very tempting to just get rid of my old car and be done with it.   Had I follow that path, I ended up selling my car to a dealer 1/3 of what it’s actually worth.  According to Kelley Blue Book, my car was worth $4500.00 and the dealer offered $1300.00.  What a rip off!!  My husband ended up selling it just a few hundreds dollars below the asking price.

2. Buy a Reliable Car
Reliable car means easy to sell car! Honda and Toyota have a pretty high demand because they are very reliable and don’t cost an arm and leg to maintain it.  Within minutes of posting it in Craigslist, my husband got so many calls from prospect buyers.

3. Go with a salesman you can trust
Stay away from pushy salesman or someone who tries to intimidate you.  I feel like these days, most dealerships try to gain trust from buyers.  Thus they don’t play that much of trick cards anymore, or at least the ones I went to.  In our case, the salesman we talked to actually revealed how much the dealer actually makes from the price he gave us.   We walked away with a brand new car feeling confident that the price was actually as low as it can get.

4.  Act like the car is not exactly what you want
Play a little buyer trick by not overly excited about getting a new car.  In my case, I wasn’t actually playing a trick as I didn’t get the color I wanted.  I wanted it in grey but they didn’t have it in stock.  When you act like “you don’t have to get the car today”, the dealer is more incline in reducing the price.

I wasn’t planning on buying a car that day, but I walked away with a brand new Honda Fit in white.  I was extremely happy as that exactly the kind of car I had dreamed of.  I’m not a car person.  I just wanted a small four door car that’s extremely reliable.  And I got exactly what I wanted!

Good bye car!

Today I had the privilege to be invited to the grand re-opening of The Limited store at Easton.  The new store features a more modern boutique style with more fitting rooms, lighting features that shows how the outfit looks like in daytime and night time, as well as seating area with books and magazines for shopping companions (a.k.a our hubbies) and an e-bar to shop online at TheLimited.com.

It’s so exciting for me to watch how The Limited store evolved over the past few years since the company was bought out by an investment firm.  Years ago when I used to work for Victoria’s Secret, a former sister company under The Limited Brand umbrella, I watched how The Limited store struggled in finding its identity.  I felt the company was slowly becoming a step child of The Limited Brand, which is so ironic considering The Limited Store was the original store.  Today when I stepped in to the new store, I feel like The Limited store understands who their customers are.  It understands women.  The clothing lines are all fashioned forward.  The merchandise items such as suits, sweaters, dresses, pants, outerwear and accessories cater to any lifestyle demand from workday to weekend.  The style is totally me; classy but modern without going over the top.

As a part of the celebration The Limited enters a partnership with The Women’s Fund, a public foundation leading social change in the Columbus community, empowering women and girls to reach their full potential.  The organization strives to support programs that empower women and girls in Central Ohio to overcome obstacles in order to fulfill their dreams.  Throughout the entire weekend, The Limited will also offer a 40% discount on their entire purchase at Easton location only.  Portion of its weekend sales will be donated to The Women’s Fund.

For more information about new store locations, sales events, employment opportunities and online ordering visit www.TheLimited.com.  To find out more about The Women’s Fund, go to www.WomensFundCentralOhio.org.

Ever since my baby was born four months ago, I have been having trouble keeping up with this blog.  Between working full time and taking care of two kids, there isn’t much time left for me to do anything else.  As a result, my blog’s performance has been sliding down tremendously.  Having said that, I decided to purchase an e-book from a famous problogger Darren Rowse, 31 days to Build a Better Blog.

I have been a loyal reader of his blog.  His website problogger.net offers all the valuable tips about being a blogger.  Today would be the official day for me to start rebuilding my blog and gain my readers back again and more.  Below is my stat from October 1 - 31:

740 Visits

687 Absolute Unique Visitors

1,172 Pageviews

1.58 Average Pageviews

00:00:54 Time on Site

73.11% Bounce Rate

90.54% New Visits

In November, I would like to see a much better performance than this.  My goal is to write 3 posts at the very minimum.  I will certainly give you an update once this project is complete.  We’ll see if Darren Rowe’s e-book is worth the money.

Back in July I finally finished our Disney trip scrapbook.  The trip was in December 2010 and I didn’t start the project until April.  So it took a good 3 month to finish the entire 20 pages.  One thing that surprised me was how much I used the adhesive.  I used 3 adhesive refills just to finish this project.

Total spent:

12×12 card stock:  $2.07

12×12 Disney Page Kit:  $10.49

8×8 card stock:  $9.99

Adhesive & refills (buy 1 adhesive get 1 refills):  $7.99

I didn’t count the album as a part of the cost since I’ve had it for a long time and don’t remember how much it costs.  Total cost is about $30.54.  I had to use some supplies that I already own from years ago when I first started scrapbooking.  For example, the page kit only has 12 sheets, so I used some paper stock I already owned.

Final result:

I’m very happy with the result and actually enjoy doing it.  I just don’t have the time.  Maybe someday when my kids are older or we win a lottery that I don’t have to work anymore….  :)

For now, I’ll just paint the memory in my heart…

Guest post written by Theresa Gordon

Back when i was much, much younger, I would always make a big deal out of making sure that I saw all of the new Saved by the Bell episodes. I used to love watching the gang go through the motions of getting through fights and making up. I’m not going to lie. I used to wish that I too went to Bayside High School. So i thought that to be ironic this year I would carve a Save By the Bell themed jack o lantern!

When I told my husband about my idea, he thought it was funny. So I looked online with my clear internet service for some good ideas about what exactly I could carve on it. I thought about the high school symbol, the show’s title or even one of the characters.

Out of all the things that I thought about using for my Saved By The Bell pumpkin, I decided to go with AC Slater. He was always my favorite character, despite that bad mullet. To me, that really captures that show.