Midsize Musings

@austinkleon > Never go to payment or trade-in first. Make sure to know what you’re buying before you go and by the details (sticker, cost etc.) online. Negotiate cost first, get firm on the price then negotiate trade-in, finally down-payment and monthly fees last. Always last… never, ever, ever give them a target monthly payment - the moment you do you’re done.

Oh, and watch for rounding when it comes to the payment & double check the math on the final invoice. I had a guy try to round a bi-weekly payment to the nearest $5 once… a couple of bucks doesn’t sound like a lot but on a 5 year finance it adds up to a lot more $.

austinkleon:

Dealerships Rip You Off With The “Four-Square,” Here’s How To Beat It - The Consumerist

My wife and I are shopping for a new car, and I’ve recently become fascinated with the “Four-Square,” a bullshit, quasi-invoice document that car salesmen use to manipulate you. From “Confessions of a Car Salesman”:

As the name implies, the sheet is divided into four sections. When you have a prospect “in the box” (in the sales cubicle) you pull out a 4-square and go to work.

The information about the customer is written along the top together with the make, model and serial number of the car they want to buy. Then the salesman writes the sticker price of the car in large numbers in the upper right square on the worksheet. Michael stressed that the price of the car should be written in large clear numbers to give it a feeling of authority. He added that we should always write “+ fees” next to the price of the car (This includes license fees and sales tax.).

“Good penmanship is essential,” he said. “This makes it harder for them to negotiate. “You’re saying, ‘Mr. Customer, if you want our beautiful new car, this is the price you’re going to have to pay.’”

The other boxes on the 4-square are for the price of the trade-in, the amount of the customer’s down payment, and the amount of the customer’s monthly payment.

“When you negotiate, this sheet should be covered with numbers,” Michael said. “It should be like a battleground. And I don’t want to see the price dropping five hundred dollars at a pop. Come down slowly, slowly. Here I’ll show you how.”

In honour of Jeff’s win @ the Oscar’s last night… one of my favorite pics I got at the TIFF Red Carpets this past year

jkrmr:

Why Americans don’t need the government telling them what to eat. This graph shows the US federal subsidies for food production over a decade ending in 2005. As we can see, there is a HUGE contrast between what the US federal government recommends and what they subsidise. According to the Federal Nutrition Recommendations, meat and dairy should comprise approximately 25% of our intake. So why do these industries receive a full 75% of subsidies? In stark contrast, we see that fruit and veg only get 0.37% of subsidies!

The lower the subsidies, the higher the pricing as it costs more for the industry to produce. So is it any wonder the US have an obesity problem? The solution is not to tax junk food, it is to ELIMINATE SUBSIDIES and accordingly eliminate price controls. Incentives do a lot more good than penalties.

image seen in Good Medicine

via roomthily

LOL - Photo Caption & Picture combo #ftw (found on @trevorcoleman’s facebook feed)

Some hated it… but I love just over the top this image from the closing ceremonies is #gocanada

“They got healthcare and a gold medal,we a bomb and silver” - LOL

(via caseydonahue: Hockey talk with my dad)