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The Best Used Car Dealerships Toronto Has Are All Right by My Apartment

written by Mandi

I have realized that the best used car dealerships Toronto has to offer are all within a reasonable walking distance from my apartment. It’s possible that all the used cars in Toronto has are being sold by the kind of people I ran into. I mean, what are the chances that all of the good ones are near me, right? Maybe most of them are great.

What got me started on this is that I recently had an amazing experience with 2 of the used car dealerships by my home. I almost can’t believe this but one of the first places I went didn’t have the car I was looking for so they referred me to another dealership who did. They referred me to their competitor. Now, maybe they have some sort of finder’s fee deal worked out or something, I don’t know what they do to make their businesses work. But, as a customer, I was impressed.

I walked to the second dealership and they had the car pulled right up front for me when I got there. “We knew you were on your way!” the salesman said. The car was clean, it was fairly priced. What was the catch?

I asked if there was any way I could have my mechanic look at it and they were more than willing to help me set something up. I called my guy who said he could fit me in the next day around 10 am. Immediately, the salesman was like, “Great, be here at 9:30 for a test drive and you can take it to your guy’s garage.”

I was like, whoa. They’re okay with me doing this, this car must be legit. Next morning, I showed up and they let me drive the car over to my mechanic’s place. Get this: they let me go alone. I left a credit card for collateral and that was it.

I was not surprised to find out that the car needed minimal work. The brake pads were going to need changed soon and it needed 2 new tires. But all in all, it was a great experience. They knocked a little off the price, too, when I told them that I was going to need to put some money in it soon after buying it.

All in all, I was really impressed. It ended up being a lot less stressful than I imagined. I’m thankful I live in Toronto, my friend in Nova scotia had trouble finding a good car dealership, until he did.

November 24, 2017 0 comment

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Who has the cheapest auto insurance? Deciding On Car Insurance

written by Mandi

Finding who has the cheapest auto insurance

When I was younger, I thought car insurance would be as easy as going ‘who has the cheapest auto insurance’ and then going with them. No one ever explained all the differences – deposits, deductibles, monthly premiums, third party or comprehensive coverage! To be honest, I’m still not entirely sure I understand it fully. But I’ve been looking for the cheapest deals for a while now, and there’s some questions I’m weighing up.

Firstly, do I want third party or comprehensive? Or an in between? My wife keeps pushing for comprehensive since even if I’m a decent driver, other people on the road aren’t. And third party only wouldn’t include damage done to me by others. She’s basically vetoed third party since it doesn’t cover theft, but we’re still trying to decide between a third party plus fire and theft policy and comprehensive cover. Depending on which we choose, who has the cheapest auto insurance will change and we’ll have to get a whole new range of quotes.

That’s not just it though. We’ve then got to decide if we want to pay an upfront deposit. It’ll make the monthly payments cheaper, but requires the initial lump sum to be available. I’m in favour of it, since it’ll be out of the way, but my wife’s not as she’d rather keep a healthy savings fund – and I can see where she’s coming from. But then weighing up the monthly costs and the deductibles, I keep thinking it’s easier to have lower future payments if we know we have the money now. It’s a tricky one.

Then of course there’s the deductible – do I want to be paying more per month to avoid paying out of pocket if something happens? How likely is something to happen? My wife is more cautious than me and is happy to pay more if it means we don’t get stuck in a crisis, but even she isn’t sure exactly how much is worth looking at.

Basically, finding who has the cheapest auto insurance is a lot more work than I thought it would be! But we’re getting there – we’ve got a shortlist, and with another couple of conversations I think we’ll have reached a decision. Thankfully there’s lots of quote sites like www.autoinsurancemonkey.com, they’ve been a big help. I just didn’t realise there was so much to think about!

July 25, 2017 0 comment

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Very cheap car insurance no deposit – Auto insurance on budget

written by Mandi

Budget Blog: Car Insurance Time

//Below is a personal blog post by me Mandi, Sorry guy’s I just had to vent.

I’ve been working on making a budget for the upcoming year recently, and one of the things I’ve been looking into is changing my car insurance. I’ve been with the same company for about six years and annoyingly, customer loyalty doesn’t really get rewards like it used to. I rang them first to see what I might be able to get and it was quite limited.

I’ve spent the past few weeks exploring alternatives, because there’s quite a lot of good first time customer offers that simply wouldn’t be available to me if I stayed. My ultimate goal is to get very cheap car insurance no deposit and a decent deductible.

I’ve already managed to reduce a lot of my car/travel costs – I downsized my car, which has cut down on fuel costs, and I’ve also bought a bike. It might have been an initial expense, but I’m trying to use it for shorter distances. It’s cheaper, and has the bonus effect of helping me lose weight.

One of the big things I’m weighing up is whether it’s worth insuring mine and my wife on the same policy, or as two separate ones. There are offers for going on as a couple, but she rarely drives so I’m wondering if she needs the same amount of coverage as I do. I’m going to chat to her about what she thinks, and might even see if we can negotiate a discount based on her habits. Luckily, our daughter isn’t quite old enough to drive yet, so we have a couple of years before we have to factor that into the cost!

Surprisingly, it’s actually not too tricky to find policies that don’t require a deposit, it just increases the costs elsewhere. Having looked over the plan I’ve drawn for the year, I think taking the deposit money I would spend and putting it into my savings is the more financially sound option, even if it does mean paying slightly more per month. One of the ongoing worries I have is not having a decent amount of savings in case of emergencies, so doing it this way round allows me to start building that account up.

Overall, I’m pretty pleased with myself – I’ve managed to plan out what I want, get a decent amount of quotes, and now it’s just a matter of narrowing down. Sticking to this budgeting thing has been a challenge, but it’s one that I’m enjoying watching pay off. I found my quotes here if you’re it interested by the way: http://www.verycheapcarinsurancenodeposit.com/

July 25, 2017 0 comment