How to Save Money

How to Buy a New Car for Less Than Invoice?

Haggling… I always say the best way to haggle is not to haggle at all. Haggling is a form of an argument and the stronger willed person should not have to argue. How to buy a car for less than invoice? Well in the information age its quite simple. Here is a simple minimalist-style way to get the car for less than invoice, without haggling or wasting time trying to get dealers to compete with each other. Obviously this system is meant for new cars only, but I suppose a modified method would work with certified pre-owned cars as well.

First, go to kbb.com, click on the “new cars” tab at the top of the page. Then select the make, model and trim level you’re interested in. Once this is completed you will be shown a picture of the car you want along with three prices. The MSRP, fair price and invoice price which already has delivery included will all be listed on this page.

Next you need to scrape a list of fax numbers or email addresses of local dealers that sell this car. For this example we will use a 2011 Honda Civic 4-door EX Sedan. I just googled “honda dealers chicago AND fax” and came up with a listing of Honda dealers in Chicagoland. For you to do this in your area simply type the same thing into Google, but obviously replace with the make and city of your choice. The list I scraped had roughly 10 fax numbers on it. This took me one minute to acquire this information! Make note of the numbers and compose a simple fax message.

The letter should read something like this:

I am looking to purchase a (make, model, trim level) immediately. I have already done my due diligence on this and would be willing to purchase this car for (invoice price – 1%). If you would like to sell me the car, please send me an email immediately at (whatever email address) confirming you agree to this price.

 Thanks,
Get it? Don’t haggle, don’t argue, don’t be the whiny tire kicker who spends two days trying to get car dealers to “compete” for your business. It’s all a pointless game that in the information age can be eliminated. Once you get a confirmation via email, make sure there aren’t any strings attached to them agreeing to the price.

Some would argue that this method wouldn’t work. Thing again. With factory incentives and other built in profits the manufacturer gives dealers they’ll still make a little bit of money. There is no shortage of cars to sell, and getting a few hundred dollars profit off of you is probably worth the minimal effort involved.

“I use to make a lot of money back then.” I can not tell you how many times I’ve heard a sad statement similar to this from a 40 or 50-something who has had little success, income or net worth to show for his years in the labor force. (Note: saying “his” in this case isn’t remotely sexist. It’s always been men I’ve heard talk like this.) One time when listening to an especially pitiful man who was in his mid-40′s complain about how he didn’t achieve the success he thought he would I said, in a very non-sarcastic tone, “you should’ve become a welder.” He then looked puzzled for a moment and said that his friend in high school went to welding school right after graduating and he ridiculed him for the decision. The downtrodden man I was speaking to went on to say, he now makes over $100,000 a year working on high end technical welding projects, lives in a great home, has over half a million dollars in liquid and has never been unemployed in the last twenty years.

What is the moral of this anecdote? Compound interest, a lack of unemployment, not changing careers and always getting your income from the same place are under-rated benefits that many in the white-collar or self-employed world don’t notice the value of. The transactional cost of switching careers, constantly sending your resume to everyone under the sun you might possibly want to work for and always looking for just a little bit more money isn’t the mentality that makes someone financially stable.

No, not everyone in the blue-collar world fits into this mold, but those who do are a valuable lesson to the stereotypical professional types who are just looking for the next best job and opportunities in life.

It can be proven mathematically that you are better off making an average of $50,000 a year for twenty years and it’s more profitable than making $100,000 for two years, then trying to run your own business and losing money for the next year, then getting a job just to pay the bills for two years, then getting back into something fairly lucrative, and so on until you retire.

When I started my website and began promoting it, and believe me I had very little accurate vision for how I would make it succeed, I found it refreshing that for ounce in my life I wasn’t trying to just make money until I moved on to what I really want to do. This means instead of fighting for two years to make something work and then maybe moving on to something else, I could finally focus on building my web presence for the long haul.

To put this argument in a more mathematically friendly way, try using a compound interest calculator or IRA calculator online and see what the difference between saving just a little bit each year is. Think about how much better and well known someone becomes at what they do when do it consistently for twenty years instead of changing professions ten or more times.

What is the best alternative to cable tv and satellite television?  Cable television is a county sponsored monopoly almost everywhere you go.  Here is in Cook County, Illinois it is typical for customers to pay well over $100 sometimes close to $150 for cable and internet service bundled together.  The price would probably be forgivable if the service wasn’t so terrible as well.  If you Google “Comcast boycott” or “Comcast complaints” you will find numerous stories of Comcast stepping on the throats of their customers.  For instance, I had Comcast internet service and the line was cut by a Comcast contractor in order to install service for a neighbor.  The contractor blatantly knew he was taking one persons internet connection to install another.  When Comcast came to look at the  problem they were shocked and in their defense did want to fix it immediately.  They however still charged me a “trouble call” of $30 to show up for a problem they caused!  Once I got customer service to credit me for a month of free service and to credit the trouble call, I cancelled immediately, and made it clear I would never patronize them again.

What is the best alternative to Cable TV?  Simply get the best internet connection you can without patronizing your local cable company.  Then get a subscription to Hulu for $8 per month to have HD internet television.  After this is done you can buy adaptors that are similar to cable receivers for about $60 that allow Hulu to be watched on your TV without the use of a computer. The device I use is called a Roku box, but there are others.  It’s a small adjustment at first, but the commercials are short and you have absolute control of when a show starts and ends.  At $8 per month it an excellent way to boycott your cable company.  Then get a Netflix account as well for a mere $8 more.  Now you have a massive movie collection and most every show you would ever want to watch on cable.  You’ll have the satisfaction of finding a viable alternative to cable tv, and you’ll be able to boycott Comcast or whoever your local carrier is.  It’s also a cheaper option than satellite tv, which I have some grudges with as well.

The reason that Americans are Broke makes decent SEO candy, and also brings up an important question. Why are Americans broke? Well for starters that question is an over-generalization, obviously not all Americans are broke but it can clearly be said that many are. In fact in comparison to quite a few other developed countries Americans are financially unstable. The average working American maintains roughly five weeks worth of income in cash. Hopefully if you read that last statement you find that atleast a little repulsive. Five weeks worth of income saved being the average amount of money an American has saved is a joke. Up until a few years ago the average American spendt 101% of their income. Sub prime credit card issuer, Providian managed to rake in approximately $1,000,000,000, yes one BILLION, in profit not that many years ago. Consumer lending is so incredibly profitable because Americans have become somewhat complacent with the idea they are supposed to broke. It as if crippling debt and living paycheck-to-paycheck have become acceptable. Below are clear reasons why Americans are broke.

Americans are Materialistic

Once again I feel the need to clarify that I’m not referring to all Americans when I say this but the majority.  Materialism is as I see the desire to make others envious more so than to make your self satisfied.  You’re going to make everyone so jealous when they see the car your in?  In reality, while many may envy the car, it is a twisted and illogical reason to want to own something.  I just ate a great meal, but I don’t need to make other people feel bad about it to enjoy it.  Listening to people ‘complain’ or rather brag about how much they spent on their Ed Hardy clothes (Ed Hardy is garbage), or laughing that they are broke and buy $4 cups of coffee with money they don’t actually have.  American’s not only make themselves the victim, but also laugh about it at the same time. 

The Reason Americans are Broke does Involve Politics

We’re at war…so we should be spending more money on ourselves?  Remember GW did in fact suggest just after the invasion of Afghanistan that it was time people got out there and took their kids to Disney World and starting financing more lovely cars and homes.  During other wars Americans were asked to conserve and scale back their consumption and do things like start victory gardens and buy war bonds.  It’s as if now sacrificing certain luxuries for pragmatic reasons would be unpatriotic.  The government basically encourages you to waste money and energy.  Sure ethanol doesn’t actually save oil, but we will subsidize and possibly give you tax breaks for using it.  Yes, it is illogical to build your home on a beach, but that’s ok because the federal government will create their own subsidized home insurance plan to save you money.

It’s Easy

Or at least it was.  At one point, the concept of just leveraging yourself into deeper and deeper debt and just waiting for the day you could sell your home for a nice gain is over.  We are out of leverage and the wealth of this generation will produced moreso by enginuity and less by simply borrowing against the future.  We have roughly 18 million uninhabited homes in this country and the population of America will be falling through the floor starting in 10 years.  Economically this will probably be fantastic, but not in regards to the housing market nor the credit markets.  The reason Americans are broke is because they can’t see this reality right in front of them. 

PS. Get a life insurance quote from this site, YourLifeSolution.com, it’s one step towards financial stability and not being a broke American

Are you one of the many people for numerous reasons who wants to join the boycott of GoDaddy?  I have a few reasons why I’ve chosen not to do further business with GoDaddy.  YourLifeSolution.com was originally registered with GoDaddy.com.  I moved the domain after hearing terrible things from numerous sources including NoDaddy.com that Godaddy was simply not a safe place to have any content that could possibly critical of anyone.  GoDaddy has a history of taking away customer’s domains in a very crass and unreasonable fashion.  I’m not here to reiterate long anecdotes about how many have been made disgusted by GoDaddy’s draconian ways, but I would like to name some simple alternatives to GoDaddy.

Alternatives to GoDaddy

• NameCheap.com
• Register.com
• SharkSpace.com (who currently hosts YourLifeSolution.com)
• JustHost.com

These services typically cost less and have the simple advantage of not benefiting Bob Parsons. It is my opinion that Bob Parsons is a narcissist and all-around bad person. I would recommend boycotting GoDaddy moreso do to other’s complaints about them than my own. How does this relate to being frugal? GoDaddy, while seamingly cheap, is actually over-priced. Take your business elsewhere.

Go broke making Donald Trump rich

Donald Trump claims he is a billionaire and he wants you to be one too. I disagree with both of these statements. The first and least important part to note is that when assets are weighed against liabilities on many years you could make the argument that the Donald isn’t a billionaire. In fact as he so often likes to point out, at one point he owed creditors $9 billion. He also tries to play the victim by comparing his net worth to the homeless, saying they were worth $9 billion more than him. As a hardcore minimalist I really don’t think its so terrible that he isn’t a billionaire, but I do think its important to point out that he claims to be, and apparently also claims to be an expert on how to use money that isn’t his. The second part is where I really begin to hate Donald Trump or at least what he stands for. His empire seems to all be built on bad decisions or scams, whether it’s overpaying for his real estate, going to his bogus “university”, buying into his pyramid scheme “The Trump Network” or gambling at his casinos, accept it or not, Trump is a bottom-feeder. Don’t get me wrong I believe in people’s freedom to gamble, or pay too much for over-rated property, but Donald’s lack of objectivity in the ideas he endorses are just sick. He represents debt, materialism and poor financial decisions both in his own life and the ideas he pushes. This hypocrisy and lack of any integrity beyond what benefits him immediately makes him unbearable.

Donald Trump and Robert Kiyosaki, whom I’m also not fond of, wrote a book called, “Why We want You to Be Rich”. In it amongst a lot of questionable advice was the blatant endorsement of multi-level marketing also known as a pyramid scheme. In my more gullible days I read several of Donald’s books. In retrospect his advice is incredibly weak and was more about encouraging you to do things that benefit Donald and not what actually made him rich. Remember, Donald Trump doesn’t make his money off of you funding and IRA or owning a home free and clear. He profits when you gamble, quit your day job to torture your family pitching his nonsense “business opportunity” selling diet pills (ironic) and other heavily marked-up products, and hopefully someday purchase a condo in a Trump building that is massively over-priced even for its zip code. In a Machiavellian way this is truly brilliant. Flaunt wealth to the general public then tell them the way to obtain it is through means that allow you to become wealthier and more known despite the fact you never hawked diet pills or overpaid for your home.

For a man who claims in books and numerous public appearances that his name represents quality, he certainly owns an incredibly shoddy school that supposedly teaches “real estate secrets”. The Better Business Bureau of New York gave his school, Trump University, a D- rating. Most students complain that the seminars merely squeeze more money out of you each time claiming they will bring up some amazing secret at the next one. Many have stated that the one-year apprenticeship his school claims to offer is nothing more than a 3-day seminar to push even more money out of you. The internet is littered with complaints claiming people have lost $35,000 to $60,000 each on this con. It’s actually hard to find anyone who is defending this institution anywhere on the internet.

I won’t burn many calories throwing “The Trump Network” under the bus. As Gordon Gecko would say, it’s the same dog with different fleas. The Trump Network scam hasn’t proliferated anywhere near as much as the Amway, Herbalife, Pre-Paid Legal’s and other pyramids before it, but it is just as bad if not worse. As usual with a Trump product it’s even more of a rip-off because Donald is just that classy. According to The Trump Network website, it cost $497 just to start schilling his garbage. Yes, not only does Donald have his own pyramid scam, but he’s going to charge you join, because afterall, “It’s nothing personal, it’s business.” Of course when you’re trying to recruit your cousins into this great opportunity that your hero Donald told you would make you rich, it will certainly feel personal.

If it weren’t for the Donald Trump scams I could imagine admiring someone who has built so much. I certainly think highly of Richard Branson and have mostly positive feelings for Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. Although, with Donald I just don’t see the benefit in his existence. If Donald were nothing more than a transparent narcissist who sold real estate at inflated prices and owned casino’s, he really wouldn’t be so bad. The problem is he presents himself as someone trying to help the common man get rich and who respects the hard work of the middle class. The people who have been thrown from their homes because Donnie’s political friends believe eminent domain applies to casino owners not willing to pay a dime more than property is worth, or those who have lost tens-of-thousands of dollars on real estate seminars, or even those who have put their faith into his MLM (pyramid scam) opportunity and found themselves more clueless about money might disagree. There are simple reasons other billionaires tend to hate Donald Trump, such as Richard Branson, and for those same reasons America should hate Donald Trump. He is an imperialist, an exploiter and all-around hack. How’s that for a roast?

The best way to haggle, negotiate, or drill down the price of something isn’t to be the blowhard who complains and keeps saying something cost too much. The more of some one’s time you eat up cutting into their margins, the more they have invested in getting your business. The easiest way to haggle is not to haggle at all. If you are more educated that the vast majority of consumers you will already know what something is worth. Once that is known, the opponent to your haggling will have lost their upper hand and will likely just give you the insider deal. This is how corporations and intelligent business owners haggle. The way your typical cheapskate haggles is to just assume that everything is overpriced. To a degree this is true, but the vendors of the world already understand this and knowing that something can be had for a better price is not the key piece of knowledge, it is knowing how overpriced a service or product is.  

I typically “haggle” by just finding out exactly what something is worth, then writing a clear letter or email saying what I’m willing to pay.  I don’t phrase the information in a interrogative way, I simply declare what I’m willing to do, what I know, and what I will do in lieu of using them.  This last point is extremely important because behind your back the person you are haggling with thinks you are bluffing.  “This person just wants a deal and hasn’t even thought of leaving”, is what they are thinking.   Now and then they throw back an offer not as good to test me, and I reject it and lead back to the original proposal.  I’ve done it with the commissions I am paid by life insurance carrier’s, I’ve done it with rent, a gym membership, the cable company and numerous other bills.  So the mechanics of haggling this way is to simply be much more knowledgable than you’re expected to be.  The psychology is to not care.  You don’t want to meet that number?  That’s fine, it’s your right not to, but I can not patronize you.  The walk-out is usually just a farce.  The guy trying to squeeze a few dollars of the sticker price of a car he plans on buying that day is in most cases, not willing to walk-out.  I on the other hand most definitely will.

Steven Colbert drinking the swill

At $2.99 for a six-pack, Walgreens store brand beer makes Pabst Blue Ribbon look like a delicacy.  Big Flats Beer has gotten a lot of attention and it doesn’t seem to be highly promoted by Walgreens.  I go to Walgreens daily and I never see an ad or real display for it.  I’m betting this beer was created largely as a publicity stunt since the profitability of selling a beer to compete with better brands you already sell at far higher prices doesn’t seem to be a decision based on economics.  I’m not much of a beer drinker (rum is my poison) myself and still have not brought myself to buy any as I’ve heard it’s one of the worst beers imaginable.  Steven Colbert reviewed Big Flats as having a questionable smell and most online beer reviews reflect his view.  

The slogan of Big Flats beer is what makes me believe it is merely a publicity stunt.  “It’s the water that makes it” is the slogan.  That slogan practically ridicules the product, and unlike the artwork, ingredients and other aspects of a product, the low price really should not affect the quality of the slogan.  In less than two minutes I will now on the fly come up with a new slogan for Big Flats Beer.  It is 5:38pm in a moment here, I will begin thinking then.

“The simple flavor.” 

BAM!  “The simple flavor” It took me one minute to come up with a cheesy and vague slogan that is better than the one Walgreens chose.  I truly do believe this beer isn’t meant to be profitable on it’s own.  I think Walgreens is using it as a way to align their image with low prices.  They don’t want to be seen as anything remotely like a convenient store which is obviously the reason they have chosen to create and carry a product that is so humorously low-class.  Here are a collection of beer slogans that could also be used.  These have been taken from a thread involving myself and a facebook ally.  No one else seemed to join in on the brainstorming of better beer slogans.