Yep, Still Raiding.

Dear World of Warcraft Players:

I’m still raiding twice a week. How about you?

I had to find a new team when Warlords ended. Luckily a past raider who knew some other raiders were doing M+ and talked about how the Rogue and I were looking for a new home. /deep breath. 

NETWORKING PEOPLES.

 It is not always about the parses. We needed a fit. Sleepless on Farstriders was only the third raiding guild I had been in. When we were done there and even with the server merges we knew we needed to move.

We felt lucky. We could test this new guild out and see if it was a good fit. We realID raided with them. But here was the catch. They didn’t want us to move servers for them yet. And they were planning on making a change. For Battle for Azeroth they were going Horde.

HORDE peoples!

WHY?

 Do they NOT know GO GNOME OR GO HOME.

…took us two weeks to decide.

For raiding. For raiders we liked. We would move. Sever. Name. Unloading stuff on the Auction House. Piling it on Hydra. Buying tokens for money to do the transfer. Couple of good bye notes.

If I was going HORDE for a new expansion I was NOT paying for it. I unloaded gold and bought the expansion and the faction change. I started in a new raiding group and server with only Hydrargyrum.

I started thinking about this use of in-game to buy other stuff on the blizzard store. Right now they have a sale on these services, 30% off until March 31, 2019. I think I will unload some more gold and buy some more transfer service.

We are a Heroic raiding guild looking for Plate DPS and Mages on Area 52. "No Offence" raids 2 times a week, Wednesday and Thursday 8:30 pm to 11:30 pm PST. I ate all the other Mages and found the plate wearers just the right level of crunchy for my demons. Lots of iron. If you join, I think I can hold out … well until I get hungry, but I have cookies, it should be a while. 

So that raiding thing. I am still doing it. How about you?

Sincerely,
Hydra of Sen’jin
(Formerly known as Hydra of Gnomeregan.)

YOUR FACE!

The Spawn (Now 6 years old): "YOU SHUT YOUR FACE!!!"
Narrow Eyed Mother: "WHAT was that you just said?"
The Spawn {meek}: I love you?
...
Proceeds to bolt to her dad's closet.
She shall live to be 7 years old.  

This little drama brought to you by the letter "F". 

I did a good job not laughing when she did this very dangerous task. Before this happened I was going through a list of what need to be done to get us out the door to school and work. 

You know ....
Shoes
Jacket
Lunch
Homework. 

After each item she was saying "I KNOW. You don't have to tell me." Then her brain must have broke, because she thought her next sentence was an okay thing to say out loud. 

Waiting Kitty

Here Kitty Waits.
...
And waits...
...
waits some more...
...
...
...

The Spawn, aka My daughter, was waiting for the boat to come. After 15 minutes it never showed. She finally asked Husband on just why the ship to go to Kitty's home was not here. She wanted to take a ship across the ocean.

At some point after Legion was launched To Be Prepared quest was accepted. Come to find out it phased her Stormwind Harbor, so no ships sailed.

I had about 45 minutes to start the quests into the Broken Isle for her Druid today. As I ported to Stormwind and flew to the harbor I watched as a ship was just sailing away. Sure enough, as I was closer the ship vanished and I was phased into the Harbor quests. I finished some quests, to the point we talked to the new King. I hope it fixed her phased Harbor.

Let us hope there is no more sad waiting Kitty.

AWESOME Car

My daughter told me immediately “New car is AWESOME!”

She has more room to stretch out. She doesn't have to roll down her window with her feet. We did have to have a discussion about rolling the window up and down. And how mommy has a MASTER BUTTON to stop all movement of the window.

She rearranged her booster seats in her dad’s car and mine. Apparently the RAV4 was to have the green one and the Prius v needed the hot pink one.

We do have some issues about her clicking her seat belt in herself. The clicker vanishes between the seats. I found a forum post that recommended putting a pool noodle in as a wedge. It helps.

After one week My 4 year old did ask a very insightful question.

4YO: Mom, do you miss your Old car?
Me: Do you?
4YO: I asked you first.

I told her I did.

But not the Corolla necessarily.

It is all the memories... I graduated college, lived in Northern California, moved back to Southern California, got jobs, lost jobs, got married, bought a place, was pregnant, had a baby, had a toddler, cried, laughed … LIFE… all in my first car.

Having anything for 17 years is a long time.

So yes, we miss the Corolla, but new Prius v is awesome and we will get to make new life memories in it now.

Anything Different?

I don't think I could have done anything different in this process. I needed to see it through as is.

Now that I have completed it once, will I do it again? Most likely, but limit the dealers to Mr. Bragg's 5-6 that he recommends.

The hardest part is calling and dealing with people that it is THEIR DAILY JOB to hard sell. Preparing yourself and knowing your mind is your best defense. I suggest everyone to write it down.

Your past self is smarter than you think.

Your past self was making decisions with no stress, no lights, no staring, no excitement to sway a decision… trust your past self.

When a dealer asked:
Want a different Car? … no. Past self wrote down Prius v.
What about a different Trim? … no. Past self wrote down Three.
How about Blizzard Pearl? … no. Past self wrote no white.
Do you know what Manufacturer rebates there are? … yes! Past self did the research, but tell me anyway so I can see if your answers are good.

My new car sticker price was $29,179.00, which excludes taxes, GAP Insurance, etc.

When I talked to Costco Auto Program dealer in March, they offered me $28,679 out-the-door. I know this depended on the Manufacturer offers and add ons at the time.

In July, my FINAL out the door price with everything included was $27,322.20 .

Was the $1,357 worth the calling and all that came with it?

Me? YES! To me, this was an adventure.

I would have done all the research and spreadsheets if I called or not. The only additional process I did was calling more dealers than what a sane person should.

At the Dealer

In ALL if this planning I forgot to ask the Dealer what information I needed to bring with me. So I actually needed to send Husband back home to get our current insurance card that was sitting on the desk.

Needed:

• Drivers License
• Proof of Insurance.
• All the information to fill out Credit Application.

… That is it.

I also recommend bring something to do. Something that you can start and stop.

I saw a lot of people playing with their phones. I would not recommend Hearthstone since at any moment you would have to deal with questions and paperwork. I chose to bring my daughter’s school calendar to update my paper calendar and our family Google calendar. All done through December!

All the prep work was worth it. Here is where it came in handy.

First, after finishing the Financial paperwork, they didn't want to approve me for my income since it was low. That is ok. I had the CU check.

I told them I should get $500 off since I would get $1500 rebate instead of the $1000. Salesman went back to talk to the GM.

Surprise! They can qualify me for the 0% if I use Household income. Sure.

Next off to the Financial office.

I sat down and pulled out a much loved and used blank Yellow Pad. Then placed my phone with my open spreadsheet next to the pad.

FO: Which finance deal were we doing?
Me: I don't car care there was only a $39 dollar difference.
FO: How you get that?

On my Yellow pad, I wrote out my 2 offers I currently had. Repeating exactly what was on my Sheet 1: Interest Calc.

	1.24% + $1,500	0%  + $1,000
Car OTD Price	$26,500	$27,000
Interest Paid	$1,015.82	0
GAP	$345	$900
Total Price	$27,861	$27,900

I circled the GAP insurance in the 0% column and told him that is where I can see the only difference.

I was smiling and laughing this whole time. Giddy is a good descriptive word. This was the fun part for me. With all the leg work done I would go in knowing I was good even with the CU deal.

He gave me his lowest price for GAP, $349, taking the number sold in his numbers and not necessarily the value.

Me: You meant $345. right?
FO: No, $349. That is the lowest.
Me: Works for me.

He went over all the up sales. Which I had looked into and said decided were not for me. When we were walking out...

Me: How many people come in with spreadsheets?
FO: No one.

In total 2 ½ hours I drove home in my new car.

WAY TO LONG DEALERS. It was only not a waste of my time, because I brought SOMETHING ELSE TO DO.

The Hardest Part

On every sheet of my spreadsheet I put a statement...

Every call I make saves another dollar.

I needed it.

I have never been one to naturally talk on the phone. Though I have had jobs that it was something I did regularly. The actual process of dialing inhibits me. Once on the phone I am great! But dialing?

My arms start to ache and everything is more important than calling… even sorting through receipts, scrubbing the toilet, and cleaning my closet.

Knowing myself I did a few things.
First, I started calling at the bottom. The last, and farthest away dealer from me.
Second, I called the first dealer on my list. This was the closest dealer to me.
Third, I called the second to last dealer.
… I worked my way to the middle.

This helped a lot.

When calling the 13 Dealers on my list I started to get exhausted after 8. But seeing those 5 dealers, with the beginning and end done, I couldn’t not call the middle!

I started calling at 10 AM and finished all my calling at 11:30 AM. It took me 90 minutes to call the 13 Dealers. It worked out to about 7 minutes each. This included the messages left, received, and the call backs.

By the third person I talked to I realized “Internet Sales Manager” was a useless request. I felt whichever Salesperson was available I was given to. I still asked because it was something to say.

Things Dealers did:

• Tried to talk me out of buying from them because they were “too far”.
• Wouldn’t give me a price quote unless I was physically at the dealer.
• Convince me to look at another car.
• Gave price quote over the phone when I asked for email.
• Said “okey dokey”.
• Never returned message after 3 calls.
• Willing to pay gas for me to come get it.

Things I said:

• “You have the same exact amount of Prius V Threes in stock for the last 2 weeks.”
• “If I wanted an experience I would go to Disneyland”