Leah’s Cafe

Do you know of anyone who is affected directly or indirectly with the current subprime crisis in America? Many people are worried about the economy downturn and the rising price of goods as the price of oil continue to skyrocket. Many people worry they may lose their jobs as recession sets in.

If you do not have emergency fund to cover living expenses during the transition period when you try to get a new job, it’s highly possible that you may face foreclosure or bankruptcy. When that happens, you want to equip yourself with the bankruptcy law and real estate process.The judiciary process for bankruptcy may differ from state to state i.e if you live in New York, you may need to know about the New York bankruptcy process and even seek the assistance of lawyers who practice in this state.

I was watching the news the other night, Prince Charles was picking up his son Prince Harry at the airport. Prince Harry has returned to Britain from Afghanistan after a 10-week tour fighting the Taliban. I couldn’t help but notice that Prince Charles was wearing a green onion on his lapel. I wondered what is the significance of that and why.

Ha, looks like I am not the only one who asked that question and thanks goodness for Internet. Here is the answer. :-)

How many times have you moved so far in your life? Our society is getting more mobile and people move so often for jobs and family commitments. As a student and later single working woman renting a place in the city, I moved seven times in the fifteen years before I bought my own place.

Moving house especially moving overseas can be very mind boggling, we aren’t snails who just move with the shells. We accumulated stuffs as we go through life and we don’t want to part with many things that have sentimental values. The moving preparation, packing and deciding what to let go is best done by ourselves.

Thank goodness for internet, you can get packing and moving guides on www.internationalmovers.com to help you to do the job more efficiently. It might not be possible for you to bring everything in two luggage that you are allowed, you can get FREE quotes for international moving on the same site as well.

The new buyer of our business had hired an architect to submit the plan of the premises to the city council. It will take about a month to know whether the modified plan is approved. The city council changed the rules on building control every now and then, hopefully it gets approved in time.

The process and transfer of  licensing can only be carried out once the building plan is approved. The buyer will only pay us the last part of the payment upon completion of the transfer of licensing. We hope that can be done before the move.

Does it matter to you what kind of car are you driving? I think we Asians do judge people by the kind of car they drive. We have been driving a junk for the past three years. My good friend K said it doesn’t reflect well of our business, she has been pestering us to get a new car by taking an Auto Loan. She told us that if we don’t have perfect credit history and can’t get auto loan, we can try Loans for Bad Credit. She even offer to lend us a personal loan!! Don’t you notice how persistent she was?

Since we are going to move and need to sell off our car, we are pretty glad that we didn’t take her advice to get a new car. We might, after the move, but it’s unlikely to be a brand new car!

Came back to my parents’ house over the weekend and is staying until Sunday afternoon. I am home alone because dad has gone to work and mom is busy helping her friend.

Her friend runs a small food stall, and is supplying food for the functions during the election campaign. The smart auntie said she doesn’t care whether they are from BN or opposition, she will do their business. I tell you, election is an expensive business, she gets paid 1000 bucks to prepare food for one function. You know lah, folks will show up only if food is provided. :-)

We grew up on the farm. As a result of spending many hours playing under the hot tropical sun without any sun protection gears, all my siblings have freckles. It’s just a matter of time we are going to see age spots on our faces. :-)

During the past decades people are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of protecting themselves from ultraviolet radiation (UV). The harm caused by UV includes skin cancer and premature aging i.e wrinkles, freckles and age spots.

Most people may put sun block on their face and skin that exposure to the sun. Do you know you can also wear UV protective swimwear to protect the body? Especially if you love the outdoor, you need to learn about sun protection and the types of damage that can result from too much UV exposure, and the combination of tactics that provide maximum sun protection.

I shouldn’t have done this, but bad habit died hard. I often read till I fell asleep and leave the glasses beside me. I did that when I was taking a nap on the carpet yesterday.

About 10-15 minutes after I fell asleep, the phone rang and I got up to get the phone in a daze. Guess what? I stepped right into the glasses !!

The frame is a bit bend and the string that held the lower part of the frame is broken now. I hope it can be easily fixed and the string is replacable. This glasses cost me an arm, man. It’s expensive affair to be short sighted, all this money spent on contact lenses and glasses is easily more than what a lasik procedure cost. :-)

Do you need health insurance? In America, it’s a must to have if you are breathing and alive! If you don’t have health insurance and something happens, you could easily accumulate several hundred thousand dollars in medical debt, and medical bills are the number one cause of bankruptcy!

The big boy is trying to find out whether his employer-provided health insurance will cover me once we reunite in IL. If it does not, we would have to look for an affordable short term health insurance till I find a job that provides health insurance.

Insurance is an absolutely vital part of any sound financial plan. If your illness or injury is serious enough, you’ll be out of work, which means you will have a huge debt to pay and no money coming in!

Brought the two portable sewing machines to my previous sewing teacher’s workshop today, she said her students may be interested to buy them. In fact, I have another over-lock machine and a secondhand manual sewing machine that has been motorized (Jenome brand) to dispose too. Anyone interested?

Anyway, I am keeping the sewing patterns, sewing books and fashion magazines as I am hoping to pick up sewing again after we settle down in IL. Only need to dispose all the sewing machines as it’s impossible to lug them all the way there.

Your identity can be stolen by obtaining bank statements, credit card applications, checks from your trash or mail, purse or wallet, or getting your debit card number from a corporate database. Once a person has this information, he can wreck your good name.

If you think you are a victim, you need to file a report with the local police department, report the suspicious charges to the credit issuers and contact the three main reporting companies to put a fraud alert on your credit report. The three main credit reporting bureaus are Experian, Equifax and Trans Union. You can report fraud or get a copy of your credit report by reaching one of these companies. Once you report to one bureau, the other two agencies will be sent the report. A fraud alert will be put on your account by each company and you will be sent a copy of your credit report.

The laws requires the credit bureaus and creditors to take extra steps to verify your identify once a fraud alert has been placed. However, since the crime may take days or even weeks before you noticed what happened, it’s easy for the criminal to commit several crimes before you’ve realized what occurred.

Thus, a company called lifelock has started a identity theft protection services, they will automatically generate a fraud alert request on behalf on you. When fraud alerts are established with major credit bureaus, creditors are required to take extra steps to verify your identity.

But the company is currently in a legal dispute with one of the major credit reporting agencies Experian. Experian is suing Lifelock for generates huge numbers of alerts which cost them millions of dollars every year in processing large numbers of extra initial fraud alerts, mailing mandatory notices to consumers, and providing free credit reports to consumers who are not eligible for such reports.

It has been a hectic week since the sale of the business, running around settling all the transfer documents and legal paperwork from Monday to Friday. All the driving around had me filled up gas twice  in the week, which usually can last for more than a week for each filling.

The part time cleaner finally got in touch, she had gone back to her hometown for a few weeks! She is coming this Monday. So, my plan to clean the bathrooms, fans and windows this weekend can wait.

I am looking forward to weekend, time to slow down and laze around !