It sounds easy doesn't it? "Buy bread and milk", "wash the car" and "get car finance.
" These could all be small entries in the diary as 'things to do' and waiting to have a tick put alongside them as 'done.
' Well, not too many people need help in buying bread or washing the car but you may find that getting car finance is a little more challenging.
Actually that's not quite correct - what you may find is that you need help in finding the right car finance deal and so avoid wasting lots of your hard earned cash.
Why? If you're looking for car finance there are lots of place to look.
Your choice may be a little more restricted if you have a dodgy credit history or are looking for a loan from left-field such as trying to borrow more than your earnings and disposable income would normally suggest is sensible.
In those and other such cases you may need very specialist help to find a deal that's right for you.
The more 'routine' borrower though may find themselves slightly spoilt for choice and facing a bewildering array of loan companies, finance houses, banks, building societies and even credit card companies.
Many will offer different interest rates, terms, loan durations, conditions, charges and ancillary features (e.
g.
some may include payment protection insurance).
You could just pick one at random or the one that has the best glossy pamphlets and start the application process but you may find that you're throwing money away.
In practice, the true cost of car finance can vary hugely and it's not always easy to work out which is the cheapest and which is the best - the two things may not always be the same thing.
Not only that, but the best deals are not always the ones that keep dropping through your letterbox as junk mail advertising each day.
Sometimes you need to be able to understand carefully the nature of what you need by way of a loan and then where to find the best matching offer in the marketplace.
To find the best offers and really put that tick alongside 'get car finance' you probably have two options apart from using wild guesswork.

• Shop around extensively yourself - often a good idea and there is no substitute for being able to compare multiple loan products against each other to get a picture of real costs over time.
  The downside is that this can take a LOT of time and unless you know the market well, you could be asking the wrong questions of the wrong people.
  

• Get specialist car finance advice and guidance.
  In other words, you could get someone to use their knowledge and experience to shop around for you.
  

There are specialist companies that provide these services and they can be found on the Internet and they may be able to open up a number of attractively prices propositions that you would not even have known existed.
So, instead of seeing 'get car finance' as a reminder to yourself you could use it as an instruction for someone else to do the work for you!