Buying my first car, help needed

[themoneycollector]

There's tons of variables, it can help to say what car you are trying to buy.

Don't talk payments. Always talk in this order and don't talk the next without settling the one before clearly and in writing.
1. purchase price
2. trade-in, if needed
3. financing
If you are trying to budget yourself and need to stay within a payment, use an online calculator to know what your max is before you go in there.

My advice is to play the fax/email game. Get an online price through various dealerships and always try to get with the online or fleet managers. Get quote from X dealer, send it to Y & Z dealer and say can you beat this? Keep going back & forth.

Another small tidbit of advice is to test drive the car on one day and pick out the options you want then immediately go home. Come back at the last day of the month (quotas) and now you can just say I want that blue one right there and I'll offer you $100 under invoice. They'll counter and hopefully you can settle for something very fair. Anytime you can get a car for $100-200 over invoice would be considered a great deal. It will still likely be $1,000's under MSRP. Don't let them tire you by making you wait out or get you emotionally involved (that's why you test drive it one day and come back at the end of the month). If the salesman takes longer than 15 minutes to present the offer to the finance manager (they purposely take their time to drain you down), just leave your name and number on a piece of paper and walk away. If you did the fax/email game, once you settle on a price, tell them to have the paperwork ready to sign before you get there and you should be in & out of a dealership in less than 30 minutes.

And last piece of advice, call your insurance and ask them for a quote beforehand so you know what your insurance rates are going to be without getting blind-sided. Some cars will surprise you.