I have learned a lot about negotiating and due diligence on a car when buying privately. This is from my own experiences and talking to other people that have purchased used vehicles and what they feel is important. If you don't think you need to do any of these items, then feel free not to.

I just whipped this article up from my recent experiences and I will continue to add to it over the next few weeks.

Due Diligence - Inspection Reports and VIN Checks

This involves checking out the vehicle for history or information that the owner either does not want to disclose or just plain does not know.

The VIN Report is a history of whether there are liens against the vehicle, it has been written off in an accident, where it has been registered, or other information. You can pay for it at your local registry ($22 in Alberta, Canada) or there are a lot of websites that offer a flat rate fee to check a number of vehicles over a certain time period. You should always, always, always do this check. It is cheap, quick, and can show you a lot. You can even ask for the number over the phone before you go see and a lot of owners list it in their ads.

The Inspection Report is an inspection by an actual mechanic shop to see the status of the car. They will identify items needing repair or that will need to be replaced soon. If the tires, brakes, and shocks are all on their death bed, then you might want to drop the price a bit to factor in this upcoming expense.

Deposit and a Contract

If you think you have a good deal, but you need time to do some further checking (VIN and Inspection) and get the financing arranged, then you will probably want to put a deposit down and do up a little contract.

The deposit will give the owner some security that you aren't just going to walk away, so he gets some compensation if he turned away other legitimate buyers and you end up not buying the vehicle.

The contract part is a good way to make sure there is an understanding between you and the owner as what the expectations are. What the final price is, what conditions need to be cleared before the deal can proceed, and a deposit so he will not sell to someone else until the conditions are cleared. If you don't live up to your end of the contract then he can keep the deposit and if his vehicle doesn't live up to his, then you should get your deposit back.

Some conditions might be that the owner can keep the deposit if:

• You do not finalize your conditions by a certain date.
• You do not bring him the final payment by a certain time.

Some conditions for you, the buyer, to get your deposit back and back out of the deal:

• The VIN number check for liens and accidents shows something he did not disclose to you when you asked.
• The Vehicle Inspection comes back with an estimate on repairs needed higher than a certain amount of money.
• The owner did not complete something he promised to do before a certain date (new tires, brakes, repairs, locating missing items, etc).

Bill of Sale

When you actually pay for the vehicle, you should get a bill of sale from the owner and make sure you get all the keys and everything at that point. You now own the car, but you can't just drive away in it until it is insured and registered.

UPDATE: Here is a free bill of sale that I created from other ones I found on-line.

Insurance

You have to have purchased the car and have the bill of sale to insure it. Talk to you insurance broker about this. If you are needing to pick up the car sooner than later, then you can get them to usually fax a copy of the insurance pink slip to you.

Registering

You have to have the bill of sale and insurance papers to register your car. This is where you get the plates and register yourself as the owner of this vehicle at your local government registry.

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I analyze credit card periodically to find which ones have the best features. So many of them have reward points, cash back, and other money saving features. Sometimes it is hard to see what is better, so I do a bit of analysis. If you think I'm off base, post a comment.

Today we will look at the TD Rebate Rewards Visa Card. This is a Visa that will put a credit on your account based on a percentage of how much money you spend during the year. The credit happens in January.

What Rebate Cards Are There with TD Bank?

There are two main cards. The TD Rebate Rewards Visa Card and the TD Elite Gold Visa Card.

The TD Rebate Rewards is nice as it has no annual fee. Right off the start you are not out any money for having this card (unless you have a balance as its rate is over 19%). The earning rate is 0.5% on the first $3,000 you spend annually and then 1% on the amount above that up to a maximum of $25,000. Basically, this means the most you can ever get back from this card is $235/year.

The TD Elite Gold is 1% for all your purchases annually and there is no limit. It also includes other features like travel insurance coverage so you don't have to pay for it yourself. You do have to pay an annual fee of $99 however.

Which Card Is Better?

I have a couple points here. First of all, the ScotiaBank No Fee Money Back Visa Card gives you 1% back on net purchases which has no maximum and has no yearly fee. This is far better than the TD Rebate Rewards Visa Card as it has a lower return rate and a maximum limit on it.

If you really want to stick with the TD Bank's cards though, I did an analysis on when upgrading would cover the annual fee and earn you more money back. The magic point is at $33,400/year. When you put this much through your Visa each year, it will start to earn more money on the Elite Gold than on the Rebate Rewards card. The other argument is that if you take at least one trip a year where you would purchase baggage or other travel insurance, then the $99 fee would easily be covered.

Summary of the TD Visa Cards

Don't bother with the TD Rebate Rewards Visa as the ScotiaBank Money Back Visa gives you a lot more for the same "no annual fee". In fact, the ScotiaBank card earns the same as the Elite Gold, but without he fee. There is no point in upgrading to the TD Elite Gold Visa unless you are going to save more than the $99 annual fee you pay in travel insurance costs throughout the year. Think of it as a $99 flat rate for travel insurance for the year.

If you really want to stick with the TD brand of money back visas, then the upgrade point should be if you spend more than $33,400/year on your Visa or take enough annual trips where your insurance costs savings are over $99 for the year.

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Time to look at another bank's credit card options. I am looking at two of the Aeroplan point gathering credit cards from CIBC. Personally, as you will read later on, I don't think these cards are really worth it for most people. The advantage they have are that they are Aeroplan miles and Visa, but the overall return is substandard compared to other cards.

If you are not familiar with my site, I have written a number of articles that analyze Aeroplan, Air miles, and the cards that you can collect them with. Check out these articles for more information:

• Collecting Air Miles and their Value
• Air Miles Versus Aeroplan Points
• Collecting Aeroplan Points and Their Value
• TD Travel Visas

What Aeroplan Cards Are There with CIBC?

There are two main cards. The CIBC Aero Classic Visa and the CIBC Aerogold Visa.

The CIBC Aero Classic is the entry level card and has an annual fee of $29/year. It has an interest rate of 19.5% and you earn 1 Aeroplan mile for every $2 you spend through the card.

The CIBC Aerogold is the next step up. It has an annual fee of $120/year and an interest rate of 19.5%. You earn 1 Aeroplan mile for every $1 you spend through the card and some stores actually give you 1.5 miles per dollar. You have to look up the list of participating stores to see if they qualify.

Which Card Is Better?

The reasoning behind which card you should get is pretty easy. You want the one that returns the most money to you. This depends on how much money you spend per year. You want to earn back enough Aeroplan miles on these CIBC Visas to cover your annual fee and then some. If you don't even spend that much, you might as well go with a no fees card like what is offered by a number of the other banks such as the American Express Air Miles credit card.

If you really want to stick with the CIBC brand of money back visas, then here are the numbers. The formula for the break even point on the CIBC Aero Classic is 58 / AeroplanPointValue. I value it at $0.016 so that means you need to spend $3,625 to get enough Aeroplan miles to cover your annual fee.

The formula for the CIBC Aerogold Visa is 120 / AeroplanPointValue. Its break even point is $7,500. You might think this is fairly low so you will cover your cost, but remember that if you went with the CIBC Aero Classic you would have already covered your fee plus earned extra miles.

The formula for how much you should spend to make upgrading to the Aerogold from the Aero Classic is 182 / AeroplanPointValue. At $0.016/point this comes out to $11,375. That isn't that much more really. So if you are spending $1,000 a month on your card, this is an easy target to hit.

Summary of the CIBC Visa Cards

I personally think the Aero Classic is a waste of time unless you really want to collect Aeroplan points, stick with CIBC, and you want a Visa. The better option would be the no fee American Express Air Miles card. You earn at a better rate in my opinion than the Aero Classic. American Express Air Miles earns at 1 Air Mile per $20 spent, which I estimate to be worth around 1.25% back on your money spent (I value an Air Mile at around $0.25 a piece). The Aero Classic returns around 0.8% (I value an Aeroplan mile at around $0.016 a mile). Plus, you have to earn enough to cover off you $29 annual fee.

That being said, with my same valuation of an Aeroplan point, the Aerogold returns around 1.6% back of the money you spend on the card ($0.016 divided by the $1 to earn that much is 1.6%). This is a better earning rate than the American Express, but you still need to at least pay off the annual fee.

That leads into a new formula. At what point is it worth upgrading from the American Express to the CIBC Aerogold. This formula is 2400 / (20 x AeroplanpointValue - AirMileValue). Using the same values as before, this comes out to over $34,000 you need to put through on the card. Now that is significant. So unless you are spending more than this or have a specific reason for needing a Visa, I would recommend getting the American Express card.

If you want to see any of the formulas I use, just post a comment. I will add them to this article or in the comments section below.

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This post is late again and I totally missed September's results. I'm debating posting these now as I don't know how much value they are adding.

Thoughts From My Life Traffic Stats for September 2008

September's numbers and July's numbers are in brackets.

New records in every metric and by quite a large margin. I think this goes to prove that it isn't how much new content is put up, but how much good content has already been put up.

Thoughts From My Life Revenue

Overall, my earnings for September 2008 were $178.28. Here is the breakdown with last month's numbers in brackets.

• PayU2Blog: $17.50 ($0.00)
• Adsense: $137.87 ($141.22)
• Kontera: $22.91 ($25.55)

Not a huge change, but it was alright. I have added advertising to my RSS feed, so it will be interesting to see how that performs as well.

It has been an excellent month for traffic.

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I don't know what is going on my. My RSS readers counter at on the right side of the page has dropped to 44 today. Feedburner occasionally fluctuates up and down, but this is a big jump.

They were recently acquired by Google and they have been changing a few things. Most importantly, they have added advertising to the RSS feeds if you want them to. I recently made this switch, so I am hoping this isn't the reason why.

The RSS feed still works for me in my reader, so everything should be okay.

I'll keep an eye out on how much revenue the RSS feed is actually generating as well.

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The election is over and it is another minority government. I'm sure you all know the results already.

Anyhow, I was impressed with the map on CBC's website that shows the distribution. Click the map to go to their site and see all the detail.

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I attended the Henry Rollins - Recountdown Tour at the Jack Singer Concert Hall in Calgary last night. My first time to hear him speak. If you don't know anything about Henry Rollins, you can read up about him on the Henry Rollins Wikipedia page.

I don't really know him at all, but a friend recommended to go see him. He basically talks about a variety of things going on in the world, politics, places he has been, or experiences he has had. It is quite interesting and rather funny. More than a few rants and he talked for close to 3 hours without a single break. Not even a drink of water and I don't remember seeing him take the microphone away from his mouth.

I recommend checking him out. He'll make you laugh. Keep in mind that he is a little bit profane, so it isn't really an all ages crowd.

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I recently purchased a Mazda 3 for my wife. It was a good exercise in the process of buying a used car through a private sale. There a a number of issue to take care of and I developed my own little process. You can read about it in my article Negotiating a Private Sale on a Car.

This article provides an example of a Bill of Sale or what I call a Purchase Agreement. You should always, always, always have one of these. It defines the actual agreement that you have come to with the seller. You will need it to insure and register your vehicle.

Feel free to use this template. I am sick of not being able to find a decent one for free. I have underlined and italicized the sections you will want to fill in yourself. You can copy and paste it into a text editor or try downloading a template:

• Bill of Sale Template (Microsoft Word)
• Bill of Sale Template (PDF)

I would keep the overall sections there, but you can add criteria to each one as you see fit. There might be more or less conditions as well.

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