Last night Hu$tler wrote about how he has been hustled in the past in his article, How I Got Hustled. Instead of posting a comment, I decided that I’d share my experiences in being hustled.

Both of my experiences pertain to a single event, the purchase of my current car. I went to a local used car dealership, voted the best in the area, to check out their selection and ended up with an overpriced car with an extended warranty that turned out to be worth less than the paper it was printed on. I will refrain from using the name of the dealership, but here are my stories.

In September 2005, I was looking to replace my 1986 Plymouth Reliant Wagon, since it needed a new exhaust, tires and a few other high cost repairs. The dealership offered me a Taurus sedan with lots of bells and whistles, which tempted me enough that I made $100 deposit to reserve it over the weekend, so I could think about it. I didn’t go unprepared, since I had the foresight to purchase the latest print edition of Kelly Blue Book (KBB). I found the car in the book, looked up it’s retail value and made an offer slightly above the book value, to which the management effectively laughed in my face and offered a higher price, but still lower than sticker. At this point I made the deposit and left. By Monday morning, I had decided that I didn’t want the car, so I went back to tell them in person. While I was there, they took me to the financing department where I was convinced to buy my current car, a 2002 Dodge Intrepid, for a whopping $12,885.35, including rolling a couple debts that ultimately came back, the warranty and various taxes into it. This car is has a value of about $4,275 for private party in current condition, according to KBB. I’ll admit that part of it is my fault for not taking the time to KBB the car.

Now, roll forward to 2006. In the spring of 2006, I discovered that the A/C had failed during the winter (I checked it immediately upon purchase). When I went to have it fixed, I found out that the warranty company wouldn’t cover it, since it was caused by a leak. Ok, not a huge deal, but definitely annoying. What makes things worse is the stupidity of the company in August of 2006, when I had to have the transmission replaced… They wanted to pay $1,000 for a USED transmission that might have a 30 day warranty, instead of forking over an additional $825, which ended up on a credit card, for a REBUILT transmission that had a 12 month/12,000 mile warranty, meaning they were guaranteed not to have to pay for another transmission for a year.

Yesterday I posted a comment to Help a Reader: Calculating Loan Options over at Free Money Finance. In this comment, I mentioned a spreadsheet I have and that I was going to share it. First, though I have to defend the rate choice I made.

I don’t have a home and have yet to go through the whole loan process for one, so I don’t KNOW what goes into the closing costs. I chose a no closing cost mortgage rate because of my lack of detailed knowledge on the subject. Every portion of a percentage point costs more for the loan, so it’s always best to go for as low a rate as you can get (without risking a rate hike, such as with an ARM).

Now for the spreadsheet. I’ve uploaded it as both Excel and NeoOffice/Open Office spreadsheets, the Excel version should work, but the spreadsheet was created with NeoOffice.

Amortization Spreadsheet in NeoOffice/OpenOffice

Amortization Spreadsheet in Excel

I’ve actually modified these to a slightly easier to use format.  All you really have to do is enter your information in the top left corner and it will do the rest.  You can override the payment by just entering the actual payment in place of the calculated payment or, if a single payment is different, you can just enter it into the payment column for the correct payment.

This morning, one of my co-workers mentioned that our local CompUSA store is closing its doors in 4 days, with 70% off now.  I proceeded to tell him that I didn’t have the money, to which he responded that I should use my credit card.

The best part is my response to the credit card suggestion: “I am trying to get out of debt!  I will only use rewards cards for budgeted purchases, which will be paid off immediately.”

Thus I have this weird feeling of PROGRESS.