Car Buying Mistakes

A friend of mine recently bought a new car, and my husband had been helping her out by keeping an eye out for a good deal. This reminded me of my last car purchase. I bought my Mustang in 2001 and, while the car has been a real gem, I made quite a few mistakes when I bought it.

1. I took the salesman at his word. When he first showed me the Mustang, the salesman said that he thought the previous owner had added an after market upgrade. Even though my dad and brother are both grease monkeys, I didn't have them verify the upgrade until after I had bought my car. What do you know? NO after market upgrade.

2. I let the salesman talk me into a different car than what I had gone there for. I went to the dealership looking for a 1995-1997 Mustang. They didn't have any, but the salesman showed me a shiny black 2000 Mustang and let me take it home for the weekend! Smart guy, huh? Of course, I fell in love with the car. :)

3. I didn't do my research. Even though I had an entire weekend to look into how much the car was worth, I didn't do it. After buying the car, I eventually did the research and realized that I had overpaid for it by at least $1,000.

Overall, this wasn't the worst purchase I've ever made. My Mustang has been really good to me, and I've had very few mechanical problems with it. I still love driving it around, even after 7 years. And then there's the fact that I learned a few valuable lessons during it's purchase, which will come in very handy the next time I need to buy a car!

I'd love to hear about your car buying lessons learned!

Let the Torture Begin

I mentioned in a post last month that I was going to be getting braces and eventually having oral surgery. Well, today was the day that I considered "passing the point of no return". I had a short appointment with the orthodontist this morning to have spacers put in between a bunch of my teeth. Right now, I feel like I have a ton of popcorn kernels stuck between my teeth. It's pretty annoying.
I will have the spacers for a week and then bands get put around my molars. A couple of weeks after that is when the real torture begins. At that point, I get an appliance put in that will try to gradually widen my upper jaw. The appliance is meant to be used on kids (who are still growing), so it may or may not work on me. If it doesn't, I have to have even more oral surgery, so I'm really hoping it will work!
On the positive side, I received confirmation from my dental insurance company that they will be paying for almost half of the cost of the braces. The remainder of the cost will come out of my HSA, so it will be federal tax free. Yes!
Wish me luck :)

Saving Money on Your Wedding: Bridal Gowns

I am doing a series of posts on saving money while planning a wedding. Today I will talk about the bridal gown. My total amount spent in this area was $824.86, including alterations.

Bridal Gown

My biggest tip in regards to buying a wedding gown is to not let the dress shop salespeople scare you into rushing into your gown purchase. I have a friend who is currently planning a November 2008 wedding. She was in the dress shop and had found a gown she felt "so-so" about. The salespeople tried to get her to order the gown that day, saying that dresses can become discontinued at any time. She had eleven months before her wedding, and she wasn't even in love with this dress! Why on earth would she rush into ordering "just in case" the gown became discontinued?
I planned my entire wedding in 2 months. Yes, you read that right! I can tell you for a fact that you don't need to order your wedding gown eleven months before the wedding. Six months is plenty of time to get a wedding gown and have it altered and pressed. Take your time and find the right dress.

Some other money-saving tips:
-Ask to have your shoes (or veil, headpiece, etc.) thrown in for free with the purchase of your dress. These items have a really high mark-up, so the dress shop can afford to part with them if you're making a big purchase (like a wedding gown!). I got my shoes for free!
-Look at the sales and discontinued racks. I tried on two $100 clearance dresses at David's Bridal. Either would have worked well if I hadn't come across my "dream dress".
-Call around. Once you find the perfect dress, go on the dress company's website and find out all the bridal shops in the area that carry that brand. Make a few phone calls; one of them might offer you a better deal to get your business (that's how I got my free shoes).

Feel free to add additional ideas or stories in the comments!

I'm Back and Carnivals

Jamaica was awesome! We had a great time and I wasn't quite ready to come home yet. Luckily, we completely missed a really cold spell here in Wisconsin. I was really glad to be in my swimsuit by a pool in the tropics while my friends and family back home were suffering through temperatures below zero ;)

It's just about bedtime, so I'll keep it at that for now and hopefully do a little longer post on Jamaica later this week. I was included in two carnivals while I was gone:

Carnival of Personal Finance
Carnival of Twenty-Something Finances

I'll post again soon!

I'm Off to Jamaica!!!

...that is, unless the snow doesn't stop and our flight gets canceled. Pray that doesn't happen!

I will not have any internet access while on my honeymoon, and I have yet to figure out a way to have my articles automatically post on a future date (if anyone knows how, please share!). I will be back on the night of Friday, January 25th and will post again by the following Monday. Don't forget about me!

I wasn't going to do a favorite blog post this week, but I found a really neat one. It's a cool story from ChristianPF that highlights the need to balance planning for the future with living life today.
Don't Save It All Up for Retirement

Walk good, mon!

A Good Example

I recently wrote an article detailing some reasons to not hold stocks in certificate form. I came across the perfect example last week.

Some clients came in for their annual review with my boss, a financial adviser. They brought along a letter they had received regarding a stock they owned. They bought the stock a number of years ago and didn't remember how many shares they owned. Also, they had lost the stock certificate. My boss made a copy of the letter and had me call the stock company's shareholder services department.

I spoke to a really nice gentleman who told me that our clients owned over 10,000 shares of the stock and it was worth almost $160,000! He then proceeded to tell me that the clients can't do anything with the shares (sell them, move them to our firm, etc.) until they either found their certificate or paid for a new certificate to be issued. The cost to replace the certificate? About $1,800. Yikes! Needless to say, they clients are searching their house for the lost certificate. Can you imagine losing a piece of paper worth $160,000?

Free Peanut Butter!

I love getting good deals. I was at the grocery store the other day to stock up on some things. I had a $1.00 off coupon for peanut butter, and when I got to the peanut butter aisle, that brand of peanut butter was on sale for $.99. My grocery store has a tendancy to manually enter in coupons without asking any questions or looking at prices, so they paid me a penny to take the peanut butter! That rocks :)