If you don’t control your money, your money will control you. Today let’s focus on getting control over the cost of auto repair and maintenance.
The cost of owning a car
Here’s a look at all the budget categories you may want consider when attempting to nail down your auto expenses:
Purchase price – payment (cash and/or financing [...]
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Consumer Reports recently released their 2009 listing of the most and least reliable cars. Whenever these rankings come out, I look at them with a bit of morbid curiosity. I’m mostly interested in seeing how far down the list the domestic carmakers
Looking at overall brand reliability, Japanese imports clearly rule the roost, whereas domestic [...]
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Have you been thinking about taking advantage of the Cash for Clunkers program? If so, you’d better hurry… Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has announced that the program will end at 8PM on Monday due to dwindling funds.
This program has been a mixed blessing for the auto industry. The cash incentives have resulted in increased sales, [...]
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Big news out of Washington today… Apparently the Cash for Clunkers program has been a bit too popular, and is reportedly being suspended out of fear of running out of money. This program was set to run through November 1st, or until the $1B allotment was used up, and it appears that the money might [...]
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Up until a few months ago, if someone would have asked my wife or me to get rid of one of our cars, we would’ve just snickered and responded, “Impossible!” But then it happened… I wrecked my car.
A bit of background
From the time we met in 2003 up until seven months ago, my wife and [...]
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In case you haven’t heard, I just wanted to point out that President Obama recently signed the so-called “Cash for Clunkers” program into law. Starting July 1st, would-be car buyers can get a $3500-$4500 credit for trading in their “clunker” and purchasing a more fuel efficient vehicle.
Officially known as the Car Allowance Rebate System (CARS) [...]
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As a followup to my earlier articles on how to save money on health insurance and life insurance, I thought I’d tackle car insurance. What follows is a list of six tips for reducing your premiums and saving a ton of money.
Keep your driving record clean
In other words, don’t get nailed for speeding like I [...]
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A reader name Patrick just wrote in to point out a recent IRS press release about a special tax break for new car purchases in 2009. From the release:
“The Internal Revenue Service announced today that taxpayers who buy a new passenger vehicle this year may be entitled to deduct state and local sales and excise [...]
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Consumer Reports just published their Annual Auto Issue, and guess what?
“The best vehicles are built by Honda, Subaru, and Toyota. They make well-rounded cars that excel across the board…”
That’s not to say that every model made by these companies is highly recommended. In fact, the Honda Element, Toyota Yaris, and Toyota FJ Cruiser scored low [...]
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True story: My brother’s car broke down and we couldn’t get it to move. My husband, my brother, and I pushed it off the main road and called around to see what it could be done. We got the car towed to a local shop (our previous mechanic retired, so we just found someone nearby).
We [...]
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