Here are nine scenarios in which it’s easy to overpay, get scammed, or come out on the losing end of negotiations.
cars
Quick Tip: With Strategy and Good Timing, Your Car Is Almost Free
For many cars, there’s a sweet spot that occurs after a brand-new car depreciates in value and before major service expenses are likely. During this period—between roughly two and five years of age—cars don’t depreciate all that much. The result is that, with good timing, you can buy a car, drive it for a few years, and then sell it …
Bound to Buy: The 10 Types of Consumers Who Inevitably Overspend
Are you an Illogical Rationalizer? A Fine Print Ignoramus? Or perhaps a Shortsighted Sign-Me-Upper? If your behavior fits one of the ten consumer categories below, then there’s your explanation for why you don’t have more money in the bank. If you behave like all of the consumer types below, then let’s hope you make a lot of money — and …
261 Bits of Advice for Saving Money, Avoiding Financial Problems, and Picking Liquor That’s Cheap But Not Cheap-Tasting
This humungous roundup includes healthy foods that cost under $1 a pound, retirement myths, websites for free TV viewing, most annoying things about grocery stores, stuff marketed to kids that kids simply don’t need, bargain booze picks from bar experts, and wedding dresses that you’ll wear more than once—and not only if you get …
Get a $250 Debit Card from Suzuki
How? By purchasing a car not made by Suzuki. Seriously.
Cheapskate Wisdom … About Why Auto Dealers Shouldn’t Be Exempt from Financial Reform
“It’s like creating the F.D.A. and then denying it authority over pain relievers.”
Monster Money-Saving List Round-up: Freebies, Outlet Store Rip-offs, Remedies to De-Stink Your Shoes, Coupon Secrets and Coupon Sins
Also: stuff you should never pay for, including certain insurance policies, brand-new technology, checking accounts, and ridiculous plastic surgeries. Cankle liposuction anyone?
114 Money-Saving Strategies, Tips, Resources, and Unconventional Ideas
Take a look at insights that’ll help you negotiate, shop smarter, and get the most out of your local library, along with lists of stuff that’s overrated, stuff that’s cheaper than you thought, and stuff that you can always get for less than the retail price.
Men Are from Mars, Women Drive VW Beetles and Don’t Shop at Best Buy
Everybody likes getting good value for their money, but how and where you try to get bang for your buck may have a lot to do with which public restroom door you’d enter: Ladies or Gents? If men are from Mars and women are from Venus, then apparently, there’s a lot of hardcore negotiating happening on Mars, not so much on Venus. Also, it …
How to Unload Your Car Lease: Q&A with a LeaseTrader.com Executive
We’ve all heard about buyer’s remorse. But how about leaser’s remorse? Some consumers who hope to get out of their car leases—or who want to take over someone else’s lease on the cheap—are turning to lease trading websites, notably LeaseTrader.com, which handled 60,000 lease transactions in 2009 and is on pace to handle 70,000 this year.
5 Odd Ways Money Is Being Spent
Roughly $300 will get you a Star Wars poster at Pottery Barn, or a patient to actually take his or her prescription drugs. Meanwhile, some folks are spending $12,000 for ride-on lawnmowers, and $360K buys your 16-year-old—OK, not your 16-year-old, but P. Diddy’s 16-year-old—a new car.
$8,604
That’s what the average U.S. household spends annually on transportation, the bulk of it in the form of automobiles—purchase price, fuel, insurance, finance charges, repairs and maintenance, but not factoring in depreciation. For a lot of Americans, more than 20% of their take-home income heads right back out of their homes and into …
