If You're Going To Buy A New Car

10 Things Every Car Buyer Must Know

Buying a car is not just investment, some amount of thought should go into the purchase. The market is overflowing with choices and temptations. Buyers need to think, what kind of car and can I afford it?

Think, what do I need transportation for right now and what will I need two years from now? Do I want a car as a status symbol or as something that makes my life easier? Will the car be a commuter vehicle, or to transport children? Would a van with cargo space and high clearance be more suitable for a growing family? Should the car be a two-wheel or four-wheel drive? What kind of terrain will I be driving in most of the time? Go through auto magazines as well as consumer reports to get a clear picture of the world of cars.

1.    Work on your finances and determine what you need to spend each month on transportation. A car should not cost more than 10% of your net pay per month. If it is more, then consider leasing a car instead of buying one.

2.    Before you finalize anything, find out what the target price is. Four figure discounts are available with almost every make.

3.    Never sign an arbitration clause or blank financial forms. Try and get the financing from a separate source, a bank or financial institution.

4.    Haggling will get you a good deal apart from shopping around for finance. The market is competitive so be sure to check dealer financing, high street, internet lenders, as well as other options.

5.    Try to make a larger down payment thereby reducing the loan to be paid and the monthly payment amount. Work out your finances and choice of car such that the term of loan is for the shortest period.

6.    Find out what buying incentives are offered. These vary from audio systems to cash back offers, and 0% financing. Ask what extras and add-ons will cost in addition to the price of the car. 

7.    Be sure to evaluate your old car independently if you are considering a trade in. Pay attention to the "cost to change", the difference between what the new car costs and what the old one is worth.

8.    Find out about warranties, taxes, and insurance. These can eat into your budget.

9.    Vet the contract well. Read the fine print. Make sure that paying off the loan before time will not carry any penalty. 

10.  Check out at least 3-4 dealers to gauge what the best offer is.

Test drive the vehicle before you finalize the deal and go through the car booklet page by page to understand all that the manufacturer needs to tell you. Be clear what is under warranty and what is not.

Never choose vehicle based on a picture or dream.  It is not how you look in the car that’s important but how well the car will fulfill your needs. Be practical and sensible; do not buy a model because the dealership is offering a holiday for two or a low interest scheme. Identify a vehicle that suits your needs before subjecting yourself to an onslaught of marketing.

Amazingly Simple Audio Editor

EXP STUDIO

I have been using this software for quite some time to construct my spoken word audio files. I've downloaded music loops and instrument solos adding vocals to create an entire music composition. It is not so intuitive but once you become familiar, its use is not much more difficult than using a full featured word processor like MS Word. Most of it's functions are simple cut, copy and paste. I've included a sample of my work for you to listen to. I created the music and all with this simple program.

Above is the dashboard of the program. Included in the program are a host of sound effects like: echo, male/female voice alterations, tempo adjustments and much much more. You can layer audio tracks/clips indefinitely. This makes a 16 or 32 track recorder somewhat obsolete. I highly recommend this for those interested in making custom mixes and recordings. It doesn't have as much flexibility and recording studio likeness as FL Studio (formally Fruity Loops), but it no where near as complicated. I became proficient in it's use within a couple of hours. If you are not computer savvy it shouldn't take too much longer. As promised here is a spoken word piece I created with the program. I used an audio loop with sound effects downloaded from freesound.org. The female voice is a friend. It is called "If I Had Your Love." One drawback, once a file is created using many different pieces it cannot be separated. The individual pieces cannot be removed. A very small drawback in my opinion.

If I Had Your Love ~~> https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/9399584/If%20I%20Had%20Your%20Love.wav

The Weasel

The Weasel

 

Corporate America has weaseled it's way into every aspect of our lives. Almost everything we do directly or indirectly profits corporate America. Here are a few examples: To get "both" good programming and a good high definition image on your television, you have to pay a Fortune 500 company be it cable, DSL, satellite or the dish. Look in your refrigerator, there are at least 20 - 30 corporations that supply those items (milk, bread, butter, eggs, etc...) and they all have their logos. To go from point A to point B, you're paying some billion dollar oil company if you're not walking. If you are a smoker, chances are you use a BIC lighter (the same corporation that makes the ink pens to write articles with, "TOOT TOOT") to light your cigarettes. We talk on cellular phones more than we talk face to face, some high end cellular phones cost $500 and up, not to mention the monthly bill. When you go to the bathroom, the soap and toilet paper are both made by corporations. When you think about it, there's hundreds of billions of dollars being spent on a lot of things and conveniences that should or could cost next to nothing or be absolutely free. To complete the picture, most of these products and services are used or needed continuously. That makes for recurring payments, month after month after month. Those payments are steadily increasing, and the paychecks from work aren't keeping up. If this continues, the average American family will have to put in 24 work hours a day just to do ordinary things like eat, go to the bathroom and watch TV. Everybody in the household would need the equivalent income of 2 full time jobs in order for the family to get by.

Compare and contrast the life of the original (Native) American to the modern day (so called) American. When the Indian needed travel he'd go catch a Mustang horse. A little hay and grass and you were good to go. Today it's the horse power in a "Ford" Mustang, and it drinks gasoline. A lot of corporations under one name there. To eat they grew their own vegetables and hunted for their meats and fish. Today it's a big icebox made by the Kenmore corporation filled with dozens of corporate logos and labels. For entertainment they told amazing stories. Today we have flat screen entertainment systems by Sony along with cable or Dish subscriptions. To clothe themselves they used skins and pelts of animals. Nike, Levi, Arrow and Haines are but a few of the corporations that clothe us today. There were no big corporations adding pressure for the common working man to compete with the common working man. Truth is that today's technology is advanced enough to eliminate at least 60% - 80% of the jobs we have today. However, if that technology is used, there would be no need to pay so many  people, and therefore not many to make those recurring payments to the corporations. There was no huge elaborate government. The government is/acts just like a corporation in disguise. Today's government does nothing more than play ball with the corporations to maintain the status quo. If a community leader convinced 40 or 50 people to skip a payment on their cell phone bills and buy seed to plant gardens on their properties, it wouldn't be long before the government steps in to end it. Supermarkets (corporations) would lose money and would go to their their political cronies to enact new laws or use current laws to make it illegal to plant those gardens if they became too widespread. The government is building new prisons to help enforce these laws and many others that seem to give corporate profits value above citizens rights. We already imprison more of our citizens than any other industrialized country on the planet.

America ... The land of the free. Seems to be a bit lofty when we are all slaves to corporate debt and we can barely speak without it costing something ... one way or another. If I had written this document as a scathing expose of a corporate CEO or government official/department and unknowing to me some of the things written were not true ... I would not be free for long.

I Have Returned

Greetings all, I have returned. I've had plenty of rest and am ready to forge ahead. My mom is as well as to be expected and I've structured a regiment where I can keep tabs and provide the assistance she needs on a regular basis. The first order of business is to clean up the worthless time consuming projects and focus more on the projects that are earning for me. This includes Fiverr and ASN. Obviously I've spread myself too thin. Additionally, there are a couple of projects that have completed that have to be addressed. Thought these projects earned little if anything at all, they were valuable teaching tools and experiences that revealed the work involved and the difficulties that have to be addressed for an ongoing campaign. When you think things are going smoothly, the bumps in the road are just ahead. There is always the possibility that some of the projects may be revisited with new marketing strategies.