vania-janet/multiturn-rag-retrieval-data huggingface dataset:
sadly, it is illegal in most states to buy a car directly from the manufacturer. as such, most manufacturers do not offer the option even where it is legal. if you really do know exactly what you want (model, color, options, etc.) i recommend you write down your requirements and send it to every dealer in town (via email or fax).  include instructions that if they want your business, they are to reply via email (or fax) with a price within 7 days.  at least one dealer will reply, and you can deal with whoever has the best price. notes:
While I accept that Graphth's concern is valid, that he may spend more with cards than cash, there is no study (that I can find) which correlates to a percentage result as all studies appear to be contrived with small amounts to spend. As far as playing the game goes - I can charge gas, my cable bill, and a few other things whose dollar amounts can't change regardless. (Unless you're convinced I'll gas up and go joy-riding) Last - I'd love to see any link in the comments to a meaningful study. Quotes where conclusions are stated but no data or methodology don't add much to the discussion. Edit - Do You Spend More with Cash or Credit? is an article by a fellow Personal Finance Blogger. His conclusion is subjective of course, but along the same path that I'm on with this analysis."
From the description, you have a post-1998 income contingent loan. The interest rate on those is currently 1.5% but it has varied quite a bit in the last few years due to the formula used to calculate it, which is either the inflation rate (RPI), or 1% + the highest base rate across a group of banks - whichever is smaller. This is indeed really cheap credit compared to any commercial loan you could get, though whether you should indeed just repay the minimum depends on making a proper comparison with the return on any spare money you could get after tax elsewhere. There is a table of previous interest rates. From your description I think you've had the loan for about 4 years - your final year of uni, one year of working without repayments and then two years of repayments. A very rough estimate is that you would have been charged about £300 of interest over that period. So there's still an apparent mismatch, though since both you and I made rough calculations it may be that a more precise check resolves it. But the other thing is that you should check what the date on the statement is. Once you start repaying, statements are sent for a period ending 5th April of each year. So you may well not be seeing the effect of several months of repayments since April on the statement. Finally, there's apparently an online facility you can use to get an up to date balance, though the administration of the loans repaid via PAYE is notoriously inefficient so there may well be a significant lag between a payment being made and it being reflected in your balance, though the effect should still be backdated to when you actually made it.
No fair and equal is paying the same price for the same service. Not some silly sliding scale based on percentage. You don't go to a service provider and demand the same service as someone who pays when you pay nothing by comparison.
Edit - Alexander Kosubek has suggested that I should compare this to matched retirement plans. The 100% gain in a matched retirement plan isn't 100% per annum; it's 100% divided across the length of time you have to wait until you can get your hands on that money. Suppose the money is accessible when you turn 60 - a matched plan is a good deal if you're in your 50's, but not so good if you're in your 20's. The 100% matching is equivalent to 6% interest per annum compounded over slightly under 12 years. So if you're less than 12 years away from retiring, go for the matched plan. Otherwise, pay off your student loan first.
Inflation is not applicable in the said example. You are better off paying 300 every month as the balance when invested will return you income.
"If I understand you situation correctly, then the accepted answer is extremely misleading and incorrect. Your arrangement with your parents is definitely unreasonable. It is definitely not ""similar to an interest-only loan"". In an interest-only loan, like you can get from a bank, you will loan a sum of money, which you are expected to pay back at a certain time in the future, or when you sell the condo. But you pay back the original sum, not the value of property at selling time. For the access to the money you pay an interest to the bank. The bank gets their profits from the interest. The property only serves as collateral in case you are not able to make your interest payments.  Another way to view it, is that your parent bought (a share of) your condo for investment reasons. In that case, they would expect to get their profits from the increase of the value of the property over time. That looks most like your situation. Granted, that is more risky for them, but that is what they choose to sign up for. But in that case it is not reasonable to charge your for interest as well, because that would mean they would get double profits. So how does the $500 monthly payment fit in? If it is interest, then it would work out to a yearly interest of about 5.2%. Where I live, that would nowadays be extremely high even for an interest-only mortgage from a bank. But I don't live in the USA, so don't know whether that is true there. I think in your situation, the $500 can only be seen as rent. Whether that is reasonable for your situation I cannot judge from here. It should be 75% of a reasonable rent for a condo like that. But in that case, your parents should also stand for 75% of the maintenance costs of the property, which you don't mention, and most of the property taxes and insurance fees. In short, no it is not a reasonable arrangement. You would be better of trying to get a morgage from the bank, and buy out your parents with it."
"Your dad may have paid an ""opportunity cost"" for that outright purchase.  If the money he saved had been invested elsewhere, he may have made more money.  If he was that well off, then his interest rate should have been the lowest possible.  My own father is a multi-millionaire (not myself) and he could afford to have paid for his house outright.  He didn't though.  To do so would have meant cashing in on several investments.  I don't know his interest rate but let's say it was 2.5%.  If he invests that million dollars into something he expects to get a 7% return on in the same period, then he would make more money by borrowing the money.  Hence, he would be paying an opportunity cost. Assuming you need to work, some jobs will also do background or credit checks.  Credit cards can be used by well off people to actually make them money by offering rewards (compared to straight cash transactions).  The better your credit history, the better the cards/rewards you can get.  You can build that credit history better by having these loans and making timely payments."
Compound interest. Next time you buy a 100$ toy realize that if you save it - in x years that 100$ you saved and invested could potentially be more than 100$ where as most likely whatever you're buying will be worth much less.
"Sister is putting down nothing, and paying sub-market rent. It looks to me like if she is assigned anything, it's a gift.  You on the other hand, have put down the full downpayment, and instead of breaking even via fair rent, are feeding the property to the tune of $645/mo.  In the old days, the days of Robert Allen's ""no money down"" it was common to see shared equity deals where the investor would put up the down payment, get 1/2 the equity build up, and never pay another dime. This deal reminds me of that, only you are getting the short end of the stick.  ""you never think something will cause discourse"" - I hope you meant this sarcastically. The deal you describe? No good can come of it."
"add the interest for the next 5 payments and divide that by how much you paid on the principal during that time Let's see - on a $200K 6% loan, the first 5 months is $4869. Principal reduction is $1127. I get 4.32 or 432%. But this is nonsense, you divide the interest over the mortgage balance, and get 6%. You only get those crazy numbers by dividing meaningless ratios. The fact that early on in a mortgage most of the payment goes to interest is a simple fact of the the 30 year nature of amortizing. You are in control, just add extra principal to the payment, if you wish. This idea sounds like the Money Merge Account peddled by UFirst. It's a scam if ever there was one. I wrote about it extensively on my site and have links to others as well. Once you get to this page, the first link is for a free spreadsheet to download, it beats MMA every time and shows how prepaying works, no smoke, no mirrors. The second link is a 65 page PDF that compiles nearly all my writing on this topic as I was one of the finance bloggers doing what I could to expose this scam. I admit it became a crusade, I went as far as buying key word ads on google to attract the search for ""money merge account"" only to help those looking to buy it find the truth. In the end, I spent a few hundred dollars but saved every visitor the $3500 loss of this program. No agent who dialoged with me in public could answer my questions in full, as they fell back on ""you need to believe in it."" I have no issue with faith-based religion, it actually stands to reason, but mortgages are numbers and there's order to them. If you want my $3500, you should know how your system works. Not one does, or they would know it was a scam. Nassim Taleb, author of ""The Black Swan"" offered up a wonderful quote, ""if you see fraud, and do not say 'fraud,' you are a fraud."
I tend to group my friends according to the closeness to them. Then when someone asks for money, Note: if you will require cash later from some one- make a note to help the prospectus money lending friends :)
I receive checks from my tenant. Also, from our medical reimbursement account. I'm sure there's an option somewhere to get that direct deposited, just haven't yet. My wife will write checks for school functions. Funny, they haven't cashed one since february, and this is the one item to look for every time I reconcile her account. A few select others don't take credit or debit cards. Our tailor (losing weight, needed pants pulled in), among others. The number of checks is surely down an order of magnitude over the years, but still not zero.
The issue yo have to consider is that under many state laws, you must give a merchant three opportunities to correct an issue before you can sue them, so check with your state before considering that option. Here's a link to the Federal Trade Commission's warranty information page, which may give you some ideas about what your options are. Keep in ind, if you let someone else work on the computer rather than the store you bought it from, you might give the guy a valid claim in court to throw out your lawsuit!  Many times, warranties will spell out the conditions under which repair work can or must be done, so make sure you follow every step to the letter in order to preserve your claim. I would strongly suggest that you start creating a paper trail for your claim.  Start by writing a very precise and detailed letter to the store owner, with copies of all relevant documents (your receipts, warranty papers, etc.) included.  Explain the entire history, including what steps you've taken to date to get him to honor the warranty.  Offer him the option to let you take the computer to another shop for repairs at his expense.  Then, send the letter by certified mail, return receipt requested, to the store owner so that he can't deny receiving your letter.  This is all in order to make the best case you can for your claim just in case you do have to sue him. Do not take the computer to anyone else until or unless he tells you in writing that he is willing to let you do that.  You don't want to risk him arguing that the other shop is responsible for the problems now. I hope this helps. Good luck!
Quotes from price comparison websites tend to limit you to the numbers of years of no-claims you've accrued as a main driver, and may not reflect your full available no-claims bonus. Extreme measures Some insurers give you the option to install a tracking device in your car that can tell them various things, e.g. Some people may be uncomfortable sharing this much information with their insurer, but for particularly risky drivers (I'm looking at you, males < 25) it can sometimes result in a substantial saving. One insurer that offers this is http://www.insurethebox.com/. Finally, if every insurer you can find is quoting in excess of £10,000 for a year's cover, you may find it cheaper instead to purchase a vintage agricultural vehicle and get it covered on a specialist farmer's policy: http://www.metro.co.uk/news/864501-teen-quoted-17k-for-car-insurance-resorts-to-driving-tractor
I came across the following post from Nov. 5, 2009 on the Mint.com blog:  10 Things That You Can Do To Lower your Car Insurance Premium.  See their post for details, but here's a summary of the tips: ¹ I'm not so sure about the suggestion to be loyal.  I'd still shop around as JCarterRN suggests, but give my current company the opportunity to do better before I'd jump ship.
As a recent college grad who switched to his own car insurance, many of the things I did myself are reflected here. The #1 thing I did was find out what coverages I had, what coverages some friends of mine had (car enthusiasts mostly - they're the most informed on this stuff), and then figured out what kind of coverages I wanted. From there, I went around getting quotes from anyone and everyone and eventually built out a sizeable spreadsheet that made it obvious which company was going to offer me the best rate at a given coverage level. Something else to remember - not all insurance companies look at past accidents and violations (speeding, etc) the same. In my search, I found some have a 3-year scope on accidents and violations, while others were as much as 5 years. So, if your driving record isn't a shining example (mine isn't perfect), you could potentially save money by considering insurance through a company that will see fewer violations/incidents than another because of the size of their scope. I ended up saving $25/mo by choosing a company that had a 3-year scope, which was on the cusp of when my last violation/incident occurred. Insurance companies will also give out discounts for younger drivers based on GPA average. If you have kids and they maintain a high GPA, you might be able to get a discount there. Not all companies offer it, so if they do it's worth finding out how much it is
It's difficult when you read every few sentences and a new phrase pops out. I'm not procrastinating here, I feel getting an overview of it here while I can ask specific questions about terms I don't understand will help me more than just reading it on my own. At least that's what I've found. I'm not smart and I learn better this way.
"Discounting premiums based on some past history is not unique to auto policies.  Other insurers will discount premiums based on past claims history they just don't shout about it as a marketing means to attract customers.  Life insurance is underwritten based on your health history; if you want to consider your ""preferred"" underwriting status based on your clear health history a ""discount based on your healthy habits"" you're free to do so.  All sorts of lines of insurance use all sorts of things to determine an underwriting classes.  The fact that auto insurers trumpet specific discounts does not mean the same net effect is not available on other lines of coverage. Most states require auto rates and discounts to be filed and approved with some state regulator, some regulatory bodies even require that certain discounts exist.  You could likely negotiate with your business insurance underwriters about a better rate and if the underwriters saw fit they could give you a discount.  Auto insurers can offer discounts but are generally beholden to whatever rate sheet is on file with the applicable regulatory body. For the person who downvoted, here's a link to a spreadsheet outlining one of the CA department of insurance allowable rating factor sheets related to auto insurance."
I'd recommend getting online quotes from several insurance companies.  During the process of getting a quote, you will be asked for the year/make/model of your car.  You can put in one of  the cars you were thinking about buying and get a quote.  Then start over and try with a different type of car.  This should show you how the insurance will compare between different cars.   I've done this in the past when I was trying to make a decision on a car purchase.  It takes a while, but seemed worth it to me.
"I would answer your question very simply: marketing works. ""If you don't have a new F-150, you are not a real man.""  for men, and ""If you don't have a new Honda Pilot your kids are in danger."" for woman.  One observation that reinforces this are the amount of new(er) Buicks on the road.  Five years ago, they were pretty rare, now there are many.  Their marketing strategy of ""We don't suck so much anymore"", seems to have worked.  I don't get it. Last year, Consumer Reports reported that 84.5% of new cars are financed with an average payment of $457 over 65 months.   I like your analysis, but lets say instead of following this path, Brad and Jenn, put $250 a month away in a cookie jar (to cover repairs and car replacement), and $664 (457*2-250) in a mutual fund.  After doing this for 30 years, they will have 1.5 million.  Driving a new car is precluding many from being wealthy. It is hard to jump aboard the ""income inequality"" bandwagon when you see with brand new iphones and cars."
From Sears, yeah. He got a new job selling cars (where I met him). I'm sure the pension alone wasn't enough to sustain his lifestyle at that point, but surely fucking sweet! I think he got to keep the health insurance too...
There are times when you need to find a particular auto part that you already know will be difficult to find. It is one of those rare parts possibly for an older model or older year car. If you call the local auto parts store you may have to wait while they research and hunt for that part.
"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/18/business/dealbook/car-loan-subprime.html) reduced by 93%. (I'm a bot) ***** &gt; These are people desperate enough to take on thousands of dollars of debt at interest rates as high as 24 percent for one simple reason: Without a car, they have no way to get to work or to doctors.  &gt; When all the interest and fees of a subprime loan are added up, even a used car with mechanical defects and many miles on the odometer can end up costing more than a new car.  &gt; Instead, Ms. Robinson, a Staten Island resident who is physically disabled and was desperate for a car to get to her doctors&amp;#039; appointments, was told to pick a different car from the lot.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6iqtv0/the_car_was_repossessed_but_the_debt_remains/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~149861 tl;drs so far."") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr ""PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome."") | *Top* *keywords*: **car**^#1 **loan**^#2 **lender**^#3 **subprime**^#4 **auto**^#5"
I quote this episode regularly.  So many businesses will gladly take reservations.  Restaurants, car dealer service centers, doctor's offices, etc and then you still end up waiting around.  I spent about eight hours over three visits to get tires put on one of my cars _with_ appointments!  Even after they put the wrong tires on after the first attempt they kept me waiting for hours the second go around.  Guess where I'm never going again.  When I started dating my now wife I took her to a place with a 7PM reservation.  We finally sat around 9PM after another couple told the owner we had been waiting longer than anyone else in the pile of people at the front of the restaurant.  I realize that appointments can run over and places don't want to have unused resources, but I can't fucking stand when places don't _hold_ the reservation.
It's definitely broken window fallacy. The entire premise is that vehicle accidents cost money and productivity. If they can be avoided, we will be more productive. If we had technology that made car insurance obsolete, everyone in that industry could do another productive activity.  Textbook broken window fallacy.
"The advantage of pictures or video is that it is fast to get your records up to date. Pan a video camera over a bookshelf or CD rack, and you can later pause it and either say ""200 paperbacks"" or ""40 PS4 games"" or you can actually list out all the titles so you can go and replace things. Take a picture of your TV/VCR/DVD player/radio receiver and later you can determine the manufacturer and model # from the picture. (Or whatever expensive electronics you have that you treat as furniture and don't remember the technical details about.) My house was broken into and robbed. The insurance people were not content with ""we had a TV."" They wanted to know the make and model. They didn't ask for proof, but they wanted to know the make and model. An inventory to this level of detail is insanely boring to create. Even if you write up a digital document and only update it with things you bought this year. Taking an hour to wander around your house recording video, which you could add narration to if you wanted, is much quicker. Should you suffer a loss you will then have to do the insanely boring work of producing the list, but you will have the video to use for that purpose. No loss, no writing up the inventory needed. And even if insurance doesn't want to know the exact titles you want to replace, or how tall the bookshelves in the living room were, you may want it, and the pictures or video will help with that."
I work for a Nissan dealership,  the lot is full of customer's Versas. Apparently they ran a risk of the passenger airbag randomly deploying. We are giving them all brand new loaners because the airbag won't be available until next year sometime. Crazy stuff...  Looks like subaru won't have nearly as many cars recalled.
Not all taxis take plastic around here. Almost none of the busses take plastic even though they are supposed to. Lost Wallet or ID theft. Lose your wallet, good luck getting into your bank accounts. It can take weeks to establish your ID after you lose it in some cases. You want your ID, but you need your birth certificate. You have to GO to the state of birth and request it. Oh but wait, to travel you need an ID. No problem send away for it, but wait, you need to send them money to mail it. To bad all your money is tied up. Running or Evacuating - So you need to evacuate for some reason. No big deal. But all your money is in a place you can't get to it. How do you put gas in your car. Lets stick with it and say you get to ""cash out"" an account of some kind. Guess what, they're not going to mail it to some random address. Now you're stuck fighting support centers to get them to understand that you need your funds delivered to New York even though you live in Florida. In short, you don't need $100,000 in liquid funds, but there are a few cases that you need something liquid. You also make a lot of assumptions. For example, not every one will have health insurance, or a heath problem that is covered by their insurance. Some serious home repairs are ""down payment"" upfront. Car problems like an accident that means you need a rental can totally be up front. Especially if credit cards can't be used."