When my friend told me about the cheap car insurance rate that he was getting, I was completely shocked. His car was a lot newer than my own and he had been in three accidents. I had a clean driving record and I was paying more than double to what he was paying.

I decided that I was going to ask my insurance provider about this and demand that I get cheap auto insurance as well. They basically told me that I was paying the lowest rate that they could charge and if I didn’t like it than I could go somewhere else.

That is exactly what I did. I went to my friend’s insurance company and got a great rate. I now also buy my classic car insurance through them and I am paying less to insure both of my cars than I previously had for one. I could not believe that they pushed my business out the door.

When my husband was transferred from his job in Saskatoon to Toronto, we decided to buy a house. Up to that point, we had always been renting, but we figured it was time to own something ourselves. It was a big step and we had a lot to learn.

One of the things we really needed to do was to find home insurance. We had previously only had tenant insurance and we did not know that there was such a difference between that and home insurance. For one thing, the home insurance quote was substantially more expensive.

I do not know if it was just the home insurance Toronto that was so costly or if it was home insurance period. As I said, we had never owned before. But, we eventually got everything worked out and are all settled in our new home. Besides the occasional bouts of homesickness, everything is going great.

When I first moved away from my parents, I was stunned at how much it was going to cost me to live. I had never had to worry about things like medical insurance and dental coverage and I don’t think that I really understood how much my parents had given up so that we did not have to worry about it.

I have been wearing braces for several years and I knew that visiting a dentist on a regular basis was absolutely necessary. We had always had Ameriplan coverage and I had never thought anything of it before. But, now that I had to pay for it myself, it was a whole other story.

I ended up getting myself onto a discount dental benefit and was able to afford to keep taking care of my teeth. I feel like this is only one hurdle and I know if I knew then what I know now, I never would have moved out.

How is it that my grandma is still driving? She’s in her eighties and can’t see over the steering wheel, yet she still drives herself to the grocery store at least once a week. She doesn’t do too badly but there are days where she rides the middle line and scares the heck out of me and the on coming traffic.

It seems like they should make it mandatory to get a driving test every year after the age of 65 in order to get their auto insurance renewed or even to just get an auto insurance quote!

I mean, how much does our car insurance go up because of drivers who are too old to see or even walk and so cause accidents? I remember a few years ago the man who was elderly and drove into a crowded farmer’s market by accident because his eye sight was too bad.

Pretty scary stuff, if you ask me.

As a young adult, I never really thought of anyone but myself.  Let’s face it - you really don’t have to.

But as you get older and start to have a family of your own, things change.  Instead of talking about the latest and greatest party you just attended, you start talking about that health insurance quote you just got over the phone.

This change of thinking of leaving something for my loved ones in case I passed away.  I would hate to leave them with any sort of financial burden when I am gone since they would not have the benefit of the income I generated in life.  So I decided to call around for a number of different life insurance quotes so that I would have some options to choose from.

After I tried to compare insurance quotes, I was confused.  I didn’t really understand what I was comparing.  But I do know one thing - I need to look out for my loved ones now, while I am still alive.