Katie Butcher

I highly recommend www.carbuyingguide.org.uk to anyone who’s planning on buying a car. We travelled a long way yesterday to buy a car and found that guide absolutely invaluable.

Nigel had seen a car that was exactly what he wanted but unfortunately it was £1000 over our budget and 170 miles away in Hitchin. After doing a fair bit of research we decided that it was probably worth the risk of the trip in that if we handled things correctly we would be able to get the dealer to sell us that car for a price within our budget. We were reasonably sure before we got to the dealership that we would buy the car if we could get the deal but equally, accepted we would cut our losses and definitely not buy the car if we couldn’t.

So we made the trip. We spent a long time at the dealership; we took the car for a long test drive, listened to the sales patter, stood around drinking coffee and pontificating (like you do), and after about two hours we finally managed to get the conversation around to money. We got the salesman down a little bit on the screen price but he said there was absolutely no way he could sell the car for as low a price as we were asking. We said ‘okay, well thanks very much, we’ll have to keep looking then’ and after being there a good few hours we walked out in a disappointed mannner and got in our car ready to leave. After reading the car buying guide we were fairly certain that wouldn’t be the end of it, so our plan was to go find a pub down the road and sit and wait for a phone call. However, we didn’t actually make it that far as just as when we were about to drive off, low and behold, the sales guy came running out and says ‘come back in as, actually, he might be able to do something’. So in the end, we did get the car within our budget with the proviso we settle the invoice before this month ends, which was fine for us.

Whether or not we could have got more discount if we’d have pushed harder or played things a bit differently I guess we’ll never know. Unfortunately we don’t buy cars as often as these salesmen sell them, and the guy that dealt with us was very experienced. So it was a pretty exhausting day; a long drive, high pressure sales, and large amounts of money, but I think the outcome was fairly good all round since Nigel got the car he wanted, I was happy as we didn’t go over budget, and the salesman sold a car and obviously made some money in doing so.

The moral of the story is had we started off looking at a car that was already within our budget we never have pushed so hard for a discount and therefore, in theory, not got as good a car for our money. It was only because of reading the car buying guide that we knew we could consider pushing it that far.

So next weekend we can go collect our handsome Audi A4 2.0 TDI (140 PS) S-line Avant. It’s just a bit of a shame that it’s quite a long way to go again.

So after a few weeks of shopping at Aldi, I would definitely say I’m a convert. Every week I get to Aldi just after 8:30am (when it it opens) and get as much off my shopping list as I can – that’s usually most of the basics – toilet roll, bottled water, onions, apples, clementine oranges, crisps and so on. It’s always been pretty quiet at that time so I whizz round and am usually loading the car up within about 20-25 minutes. Then it’s off up to Morrisons to get the rest of my list. I actually find the Morrisons shop the worst part of my shopping outing. Morrisons is always so busy even shortly after 9am. What really mystifies me (and winds me up) is that at least 50% of the customers in Morrisons on Saturday morning are senior citizens with at least half of whom seem to have mobility difficulties. Without wishing to be unkind, when I find myself unable to move and squashed against the potatoes due to being surrounded by mobility scooters and people with sticks I have to really fight the urge to ask one of them ‘just why are you here?’ Surely most of these people could go to Morrisons any day of the week, so why do they insist of going on a Saturday? If I could pick any day to go shopping, the day I would definitely *not* choose is a Saturday (or Sunday). I simply wouldn’t go to Morrisons at all on a weekend if I didn’t have to. The reason why I go early is that it’s about the only time of the day that I can (just about) tolerate it. I would much rather go on a weekday morning, but when you work full time that just isn’t possible.

A few weeks ago I tried Tesco, which is only across the road from Aldi. Although it was quieter that Morrisons, the Bradford Tesco it too big, and I hate the layout. I ended up forgetting things (including milk!) because I wasn’t used to where things were. I’m sure I’d get used to it if I went more often, but I’m also more inclined to shop at Morrisons out of principle (even though I think it’s more expensive) as it’s a Bradford company.

My Aldi recommendations are:

• Most of their fruit and veg, notably mushrooms, sweet potatoes, onions, tomatoes, clementines (although they’re out of season now so it’s mineolas instead). A few weeks ago they had strawberries which I think tasted better than Tesco’s Finest strawberries but were half the price. Grapes are 69p for 1/2 a kilo at the mo and they’re delicious
• I also recommend their cheese (particularly mature cheddar and white Cheshire), Scottish smoked salmon, smoked streaky bacon, premium gammon steaks, German ham
• Also their Italian Stoned Baked Romagna frozen pizza and tubs of steam fresh frozen veg (they’re 69p and as good as Birdseye steam fresh veg)
• Premium French lager

I spent all of last week on a ‘Introductory Bookkeeping and Basic Accounting’ course at Kaplan Financial’s training centre in Leeds. I quite enjoyed it, but it felt strange being back in a college type learning environment after 5 years. It was just like being back at school, especially since I was one of the oldest people on the course – most of the attendees appeared to be school leavers who were commencing finance apprenticeships. It was a good course and I learnt a lot, but my main criticism was that there were too many on it – the first two days there were over 40 people. I thinks that’s too much for one tutor, especially when there are exercises to do as the trainer can’t really get round everyone. It’s a bit more difficult to ask questions or request help when there are 39 other people in the room. However, a lot of people were only attending the first 2 days, so from Wednesday the numbers shrunk down to about 25 which was better.

So… now I know all about double-entry bookkeeping, extracting trial balances and profit-and-loss accounts, VAT, amongst many other exciting things. And I now also know what loads of financey words mean that, to be honest, I’d heard about but couldn’t have clearly defined before – things like ‘fixed assets’, ‘liabilities’, and ‘nominal ledgers’.

We had a different tutor almost every day. They all seemed very nice. The lady on Thursday was lovely but had the oddest Yorkshire accent (I think she was from Hull) and pronounced ‘o’ like ‘ur’ (so nur rather than no, murst rather than most). On Thursday morning I spent about the first 5-10 minutes wondering why she kept talking about turtles. I couldn’t understand why it’d got to Thursday and this was the first time I’d heard about turtles in a financial situation – ‘Gather together your turtles?’ What on earth does that mean? It was only when she wrote on the board that I realised the ‘turtles’ were actually ‘totals’.