• Do your research. Check out the Consumer Reports auto section atConsumerReports.org and research resale prices to see which vehicles hold their value longer.
• Secure a loan ahead of time. Shop around for the best rates.
• Visit more than one dealership. The sticker price will vary slightly based on demographics and location. Plus, one dealer may be more willing to haggle than another.
• Think in terms of price not payment. Don’t be lured by low monthly payments and creative financing. Look at the big picture.
• Don’t buy based on emotion. Determine what type of car fits your lifestyle. Don’t buy something impractical just because it’s cool.
• Keep to your budget. You know what you can afford. Don’t go for that fancier model or those unnecessary, costly features. Also consider that the more expensive the car is, the higher the price of insurance will be.
• Negotiate from invoice price, not sticker price. Look for the invoice price on Edmunds.com or Kelley Blue Book. This is the price the manufacturer paid the dealer. Negotiate from this price.
• Ask about hidden costs. Read the fine print and ask about that “dealer protection package”.
• Don’t trade in your old car. Consider selling it yourself. You’ll get more for it.
• Avoid “upside down” buying. Don’t trade in your old car on a new one if you owe more on it than what it’s worth.
• Buy used instead of new. Depreciation is roughly 15% a year (depending on the make and model).
• Protect yourself from buying a stolen car. Be wary when dealing with small independently owned shops or individual sellers. If the price is unbelievably low, something is wrong. Ask to see the title and registration. Inspect the VIN to see if the windshield contains scratch marks. Ask who currently insures the car (if an individual) and call to verify.
• Finally, protect your safety and do an internet check for recalls or safety issues for the particular model and year you are buying.  The last thing you want is to buy someone else’s death trap.

Buying a car can be stressful enough as it is, but more so if you don’t do it right. If you make your big purchase the right way, you should be able to avoid even the slightest tinge of regret. Prepare like crazy, make a plan, stick to it, and don’t be afraid to haggle.

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1.) Gift cards: If you want to participate in a social media site with a tangible benefit, try dailyfeats.com. For every “feat” you reach you’ll receive points toward a large list of discount gift cards. If you’re already sharing this stuff on Facebook and Twitter, why not reap some financial rewards for your actions?

2.) Samples & giveaways: Enjoy offers on everything from free photo printing to Visa gift cards? Then heyitsfree.net is the site for you. It has amassed a huge assortment of samples and giveaways. If you want it, they got it.

3.) Recycled items: As the saying goes, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” If you’re looking for used appliances, furniture or just about anything else on the planet, you’ll love freecycle.org. There’s an application process but it’s pretty seamless, and the cost savings are incredible.

4.) Phone calls: Do you have a student and/or family member in another state? Take your time on that long distance call or video chat without worrying about costs by using skype.com. There’s also a Droid and iPhone app, so you can Skype for free on your smartphone!

5.) TV shows: Have you canceled your pricey cable, dish or satellite TV service but miss some of your favorite programs? Catch up for free at hulu.com. Hulu streams a majority of cable programs through your computer for free. A paid version of Hulu is a more comprehensive-and still far less than what you were paying.

We think saving money is like getting a “raise,” so we hope you find this list of Internet money savers helpful. If we can assist you, your friends or family in any other ways, don’t hesitate to contact us. We’re here to protect your best interests.

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Consumers’ rights watchdog group Public Citizen looked into the 10 cases mentioned, and found that in fact not a single one of them was filed against a small business. Beyond that, it turns out that eight out of the ten had been dismissed or withdrawn from the courts almost immediately. And to top it all off, not a single case from the list had resulted in an award to the plaintiff. Public Citizen’s Taylor Lincoln wrote a terrific blog about this which you can link to here. The little bit of fact-checking that Public Citizen did easily put the lie to the Chamber’s ridiculous claims. Our court system recognized that these 10 cases were frivolous, and they were weeded out accordingly in short order. None of the 10 “most egregious” lawsuits had been filed against small businesses to begin with, and none of them had the “devastating impact” on society that the Chamber of Commerce claims. Taylor Lincoln rightly points out that the true intent of this list must have been to serve as “a sideshow intended to distract people from the most important abuses in the courts…for example, the unprecedented flood of fraudulent filings by mortgage servicers…..that deliberately falsified paperwork they submitted to the courts in order to unjustly kick people out of their homes”.

The Chamber’s list of “ridiculous lawsuits” is part of an ongoing campaign to make average citizens believe that our court system is overrun with frivolous lawsuits that burden our courts and harm small businesses. When citizens fall for this disingenuous argument, they vote to enact “tort reforms” designed to infringe on our basic rights as American citizens. When those citizens later find themselves the victim of physical or economic damages as a result of corporate wrongdoing, they may find that they have been duped by propaganda into voting away their own rights and have no legal recourse. To point out that ten court cases were filed in a given year which seemed absurd on their face, and were then dismissed or withdrawn from the courts, does nothing to prove the Chamber’s point about meritless litigation and its costs to society. It just goes to show how desperate the corporate entities that make up the US Chamber of Commerce are to deny Americans their right to seek justice in the courts. That the Chamber of Commerce has invested untold sums of money and years of public relations work into these deliberately misleading ”spin” campaigns speaks volumes about their true goal, and about how much they would pay to attain it. That goal is nothing less than the harsh infringement, if not complete elimination, of American consumers’ legal rights.

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Use of forced arbitration clauses has skyrocketed in the past decade, and serve to protect corporations from accountability for their wrongdoing. In this case, if you are using a Starbucks gift card and find out you were charged hidden fees or being charged for items you did not receive, you will be forced to fly to Seattle and seek a refund from an arbitrator hand-picked by Starbucks’ corporate office. Obviously not many consumers would want to incur the travel and hotel expenses of such a trip just to be refunded a few dollars. If Starbucks uses this protection and charges ten million consumers a $2 hidden fee for using the card, that would create $20 million dollars of fraudulent earnings for the company. The consumers affected would be barred from joining a class action to seek redress of these losses. Starbucks would only have to answer to those consumers who traveled to Seattle to face the arbitrator that Starbucks selected. This type of corporate behavior is anti-consumer, and the hypothetical situation above is no fantasy. Just last month, the state of Massachusetts fined Starbucks for charging customers an added fee on every bag of coffee purchased, without disclosing the fee. If you want to read more, and sign a petition asking Starbucks to stop hiding forced arbitration clauses on their pre-paid cards, you can read the Public Citizen letter to Starbucks and sign the petition here.

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Call your Senator and Congressman to urge them to support this legislation. The Senate bill is S. 987 and the House of Representatives version is H.R. 1873, The U.S. Senate bill S. 987 has 12 co-sponsors, and H.R. 1873 has 64 co-sponsors. Passage of the Arbitration Fairness Act of 2011 would be a gigantic step back toward an even playing field in disputes between big businesses and consumers.

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