4 weeks down, 18 billion left.
Hard to believe I've already finished my first 4 weeks of work. I feel like my training goes so slow and that we don't do anything, but really, the time is flying by, and looking back, I've really learned a ton.
I love fridays. I get every other friday off because of my schedule, and the fridays I do work it's casual dress and I get out at 4:00 instead of 5:00. That extra house is a great help. Eventually, once we gain our indepenence, we will have a choice of when we work, as long as we're there between 5:30-10:30 and work our whole 9 hours. That'll be cool. Since I've already been getting up early for a while now, I imagine i'll try to start getting to work around 7:00 or before, so I can leave and miss rush hour on the way home (for the most part.) Driving home today was great. I drove Jon's car all this week, and starting monday, when he starts work, we'll be riding together. It's real nice, we can drive right to the metro and park their the whole day for only $3.75. The metro trip is about $4.40 a day as well. However, we get $105/month in metro checks for use with the metro and even parking at the metro. That'll work out where each of us will only need to pay maybe $10/month on top of those, to take turns driving and riding the metro. Great news. I'm excited about that, plus we don't have to drive too long to work or back, just to the metro. It's not too far and it's a nice drive in both directions.
I'll be buying a car in the next month. I haven't decided if I want to finance a car or lease one. It all depends on the price and the deal they'll give me. As a federal employee I think I could get a discount, plus as a new college graduate most dealerships have deals. I'll take whatever is best. I'm going to go look tomorrow at the Toyota dealership, and maybe the VW. Gabe doesn't seem to think I should get a Jetta, but I love the new ones look, and they drive pretty nice. My buddy at MSU had one and it was always fun to drive. The Toyota Yaris is also small, and great on gas. That's a big plus out here...I'm still unsure, but I do know it must have an air conditioner. That's important to me, especially in this heat.
Last night it stormed...it was HUGE. I've never experienced a thunder storm like that in MI. People at work said that it isn't usually like that, but last night was big. I woke up probably 6 times from it. The thunder and lightning was so frequent. It was amazing. It rained sooo hard. I installed a window AC in my room, and the window isn't really made for it. I kinda just jammed it in and secured it. Anyway, it's supposed to be inclined at about 5 degrees, so as to not leak water into the house. My install didn't do that very well.. It was raining so hard, it started to come into the house! Glad I woke up when I did. I jumped out, pulled it from the window and then closed the window tight. Back into bed right after that, it was already 1:45am. I still woke up on time and everything though, I set my cell phone's alarm to be sure I woke up. I wasn't even that tired at work today, when normally I'd be super tired. Sleep is better in VA I guess.
I'm having a slow night tonight, not doing much. Working for the rest of my life is going to get old quick. Oh well.
That's about it. I'll try to write more frequently, like I used to :) Until then.
John
I love fridays. I get every other friday off because of my schedule, and the fridays I do work it's casual dress and I get out at 4:00 instead of 5:00. That extra house is a great help. Eventually, once we gain our indepenence, we will have a choice of when we work, as long as we're there between 5:30-10:30 and work our whole 9 hours. That'll be cool. Since I've already been getting up early for a while now, I imagine i'll try to start getting to work around 7:00 or before, so I can leave and miss rush hour on the way home (for the most part.) Driving home today was great. I drove Jon's car all this week, and starting monday, when he starts work, we'll be riding together. It's real nice, we can drive right to the metro and park their the whole day for only $3.75. The metro trip is about $4.40 a day as well. However, we get $105/month in metro checks for use with the metro and even parking at the metro. That'll work out where each of us will only need to pay maybe $10/month on top of those, to take turns driving and riding the metro. Great news. I'm excited about that, plus we don't have to drive too long to work or back, just to the metro. It's not too far and it's a nice drive in both directions.
I'll be buying a car in the next month. I haven't decided if I want to finance a car or lease one. It all depends on the price and the deal they'll give me. As a federal employee I think I could get a discount, plus as a new college graduate most dealerships have deals. I'll take whatever is best. I'm going to go look tomorrow at the Toyota dealership, and maybe the VW. Gabe doesn't seem to think I should get a Jetta, but I love the new ones look, and they drive pretty nice. My buddy at MSU had one and it was always fun to drive. The Toyota Yaris is also small, and great on gas. That's a big plus out here...I'm still unsure, but I do know it must have an air conditioner. That's important to me, especially in this heat.
Last night it stormed...it was HUGE. I've never experienced a thunder storm like that in MI. People at work said that it isn't usually like that, but last night was big. I woke up probably 6 times from it. The thunder and lightning was so frequent. It was amazing. It rained sooo hard. I installed a window AC in my room, and the window isn't really made for it. I kinda just jammed it in and secured it. Anyway, it's supposed to be inclined at about 5 degrees, so as to not leak water into the house. My install didn't do that very well.. It was raining so hard, it started to come into the house! Glad I woke up when I did. I jumped out, pulled it from the window and then closed the window tight. Back into bed right after that, it was already 1:45am. I still woke up on time and everything though, I set my cell phone's alarm to be sure I woke up. I wasn't even that tired at work today, when normally I'd be super tired. Sleep is better in VA I guess.
I'm having a slow night tonight, not doing much. Working for the rest of my life is going to get old quick. Oh well.
That's about it. I'll try to write more frequently, like I used to :) Until then.
John
posted by John at 7:59 PM
1 Comments:
Do not get a Jetta, their target demographic is women between 25-35. Take some time and notice who is driving them.
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Whichever car you get:
Financing at least gives you a car when you're done with payments, whereas a lease ends and you either buy the car, or buy/lease another. If you always want a new car (and can afford the $3200 in taxes, etc. each time you lease), then lease -- like if you're in sales and image helps close the deal.
Plus there are milage limits for leases and heavy costs if you go over. And if you decide to buy it, after the lease, I think you'd have less bargaining power. But I've never leased, so...
Whatever you do, be a real bastard and don't take any shit from them. They're such sleazy shits. Do not think of Grandpa selling you the car, think of some slick rat-faced fink who wants to sucker you into paying thousands too much for it. And watch the interest rates they offer -- they can make your monthly payments _really_ low if you accept their 15% or more APR.
Negotiate the hell out of _everything_ from the sticker price, to the interest rate, to the monthly payment, to the downpayment, to the floor mats, to a lapdance from the hot secretary. Seriously. Even if they say they can't negotiate, they can. Only once the third or fourth guy comes in to talk to you, are you getting somewhere. The first guy is a tool and can't make any decisions. Do not sign anything, and do not be overly nice -- nice = sucker, and they count on people being nice and avoiding conflict.
Do your reasearch on the car you want before you go to the dealership. Whip out the printouts an hour or two _into_ negotiations and never trust the numbers they show you -- they make shit up like "Blue Book" values that are thousands too high, etc. Take a book w/you so their waiting games don't work, and pack a lunch if you think you'll need it. And just get up and walk out if you aren't getting anywhere -- that really pisses them off and makes them negotiate. They want nothing more to get your signature on the dotted line before you can think about it -- even just saying you'll be back in the morning after you've thought about it and done some research. That makes them scared they'll miss the sale.
Do not test-drive the car until you are sure you want to buy it. Otherwise, you're committing yourself (emotionally) to the car, and odds are (and THEY KNOW THIS) that you'll buy the first car you test-drive. Notice the pressure to "just take it for a drive and see how it feels" or "imagine yourself driving this car."
And do not give them your credit card or drivers license. Ever. They use the license to run a quick credit check, and the CCard to keep you there (it's amazing how long it takes them to find it when you ask for it -- all the while they're trying to get you to sign some BS piece of paper, which is not a legally binding contract anyway).
And sometimes they even put microphones or one-way mirrors in the rooms so when they leave, they can watch you and negotiate based on what they learn.
Even if you buy it below sticker, they make money, so go for the jugular. They get rebates you don't know about, and make most of their money from "extended warranties" and "fabric protection" and alarm systems, and regularly scheduled maintenance.
I got them down from $18k+ to $12.5 -- and still didn't get the best deal I could have...
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