Frugal Framnett

The title of this post is not about schooling or instructor led education, but making sure you are educated about the purchases you plan to make and are making.

Whenever you are making a purchase you know you will have to live with for a long time, you had better educate yourself!

Fortunately, in our day this education is fairly straightforward, your reading this site is due to the most valuable research tool of all time — The Internet. I spend most of my purchasing research time on the internet. I just search for what I am planning to purchase and read away. For real big purchases I often print my research findings and carry them with me when shopping.

Of course, much of what we read on the Internet is unreliable, but after some research you should be able to determine what is reliable and what is unreliable. In addition, visit the various brick and mortar dealerships to ask questions and listen. If a dealer in your estimation is trying to put one over on you, you may want to think about not returning rather than calling the dealer on it. A good idea is to never ask a question you do not know the answer too!

While you are visiting dealers and internet sites you can also start getting a feel for the prices. Don’t start bargaining until your decisions as to make & model are finalized.

Being educated on the product you are shopping for makes it much harder for dealers & marketing campaigns to jargonize you into making a more expensive purchase than you really need. Knowing what you want in relation to what is available gives one more power than what many people think is possible.

One last thing. I have noticed is dealers/salesmen can often sense an educated consumer (at least an experienced ones) and be more willing to deal with you.