Cooking the Books podcast: The smartest ways to buy a car

Just a bit of homework can stop a slick salesman pulling one over you. Photo / File

Each week the NZ Herald and Newstalk ZB's Cooking The Books podcast tackles a different money problem. Today, it's both the financial and practical aspects to buying the best car for you. Hosted by Frances Cook.

Listen to "Cooking the Books: The smartest ways to buy a car" on Spreaker.

Buying a car has so many different parts to it, you can easily forgive people getting confused.

First you need to decide what kind of car you want. Little for commuting around a big city, bigger for ferrying kids around, maybe even bigger again so that you can fit tools in the back for your work.

Then you need to make sure you're not buying a lemon. Most of us aren't mechanics, but we still have to figure out a way to check a slick salesman isn't pulling one over us.

All of this before you even get to ways to pay for it.

Let's be realistic, sometimes you genuinely need a car, and you don't have the cash to hand yet.

Some of the options to fund it can leave you in a hole for years to come, so you have to proceed with care.

The topic is so broad I couldn't even find one expert to cover all the different angles; so for the first time ever, we have two.

On this week's Cooking the Books I first talked to AA motoring adviser Cade Wilson about rules of thumb for finding a good car, how to check safety ratings, and spotting a lying salesman.

I then spoke to Tom Hartmann from the Commission for Financial Capability, about how much you should spend on a car, whether you should use debt, and the best and worst finance options.

For the interviews, listen to the podcast.

If you have a question about this podcast, or an idea for the next one, come and talk to me about it. I'm on Facebook here, Instagram here and Twitter here.

Don't forget to subscribe on the Apple podcasts app or I Heart radio, to make sure you never miss an episode.