Triple A is aaamazing!

A lot of people have asked us questions about the cost of living in California, and of course before we moved out here we heard a lot of, "Ohhh it's so expensive!" and "Oh, how are you going to handle the cost of living?" Even though comments like that got under our skin, we took them all in stride and knew that if we wanted to live here, we were going to have to deal with the costs.

Recently Karl and I were talking about the "cost of living" now that we've become somewhat acclimated to our new surroundings, and honestly the biggest difference is rent. That was a given coming into this though...no big surprise. As for groceries, we haven't noticed a bit of difference in our weekly grocery bills. Gas? Just about the exact same price per gallon as it was in Bloomington. Clothing, household products, etc.? Same (yes, Target even has the $1 bins in California). Insurance? Well there's a rude awakening. Last week we called State Farm to get a quote on our auto and renter's insurance for our new address. When the State Farm agent called back and left Karl a message, she said, "Sit down. Welcome to California...your auto insurance quote has doubled." Being the bargain shopper that I am, I knew there was no way we were going to settle for paying twice what we paid in Indiana. So...I got online and checked out all of the usual "lower-cost" auto insurances...Progressive, Geico, etc. Most of those only came in at $10 cheaper per month than the State Farm Insurance. Then it was like a lightbulb went off in my head. Do you remember the list of things I said we were going to miss about Indiana (I posted it shortly after we started our journey across the country)? Well one of those things was the Sarah Fisher ad for "Triple A Hoosier Insurance...insure with someone you trust!" So I got on the Triple A website and lo and behold, the rate was much more affordable than the rest. I just got off the phone with my local AAA office and am proud to say we will only be paying about $19 more here than we did back in Indiana! Whew... The best part is, we have the exact same coverage we had with State Farm, so it's not like we had to downgrade our coverage to get such a great rate. Oh, and we also got renter's insurance from Triple A as well.

I know it's something very little and kind of silly, but things really do come full circle in life. If Karl and I hadn't made so much fun of those Sarah Fisher commercials I probably never would have remembered that Triple A has auto insurance...and we would be paying an extra $85 each month rather than $19.

So that is my feel-good story of the day. I hope you are all having a fabulous week!