Business Online

Here's a new site I've enjoyed browsing through for cars in the UK, specifically they are used cars offered by dealers as opposed to private sale used cars. I'm not sure if everyone will agree with me, but I do tend to think buying from a dealer gives more protection unless you know the seller and the vehicle. If you don't it can be a huge gamble buying a car from a stranger.

The way trusteddealers.co.uk works is that only dealers with a strong reputation are included in their database, which is the main selling point, any dealer wanting to be part of their network, and therefore have their vehicles listed on the Trusted Dealers website need to satisfy certain criteria or they don't get listed.

The cynic in me says any dealer who pays up the subscription fee is going to get listed, but I don't honestly see any sign of that when I browse the dealer directory. The overwhelming majority seem like dealers that have been in business for a while, and who agree to the Trusted Dealers 10 points of difference ideal.

How this works is that every vehicle needs to be checked against a list of gotchas that trip up the unwary and hopefully avoid nasty surprises after the vehicle has been sold. I think it's actually worth paying a little more, including dealer markup, to get a car that has been inspected and it's record checked, especially if you're buying a car with complex engineering like a trusteddealers.co.uk/used-bmw-3-series. Here's what they do:

First, the legals of the car are checked, is the VIN and registration correct, does the vehicle have any charges against it that would mean a former owner's creditor could seize the car, and is the car known to have been written off for insurance. If any of these are negative the vehicle cannot be listed for sale by the dealer.

Next the car is given a thorough mechanical and physical inspection, including making sure the odometer hasn't been tampered with. Nobody wants to drive away in a lemon that will stall at the next corner and require a full engine replacement. Extreme example I know, but how often do you hear of mechanics spraying lubricant into the engine to mask sounds, and then a week later the car dies? It happens, so knowing that a reputable dealer has signed off the car in good working condition is a peace of mind bonus.

Finally, you get to test drive the car according to your needs to make sure you'll be happy to drive your new car home and show it off to your friends. Couldn't be easier.

Good luck to Bulgaria, they've just secured an investment from a Chinese car company to make a bunch of Chinese brand cars for sale throughout the EU... yeah I'll be interested to see how this works out for them.

In the BBC articlethey make a big deal of the Chinese copying the Japanese and Koreans and exporting to Europe and the US because that is where the money is. Either that is a sad indictment of our society that cars are perceived to be more important than other things, or our public transport infrastructure is so poor that people are forced to buy cars.

Either way I think the Chinese are just doing what is logical for any business looking at markets to promote their products. I don't agree with their goals, I think there are already too many large corporations in the automotive space producing vehicles that are all more or less similar to their competitors, and if the Chinese are going to export I'd prefer they don't bring old technology into Europe that we already have too much of.

Wouldn't it be great if instead they'd be clever about their manufacturing and leapfrog the western economies with electric vehicles, self driving vehicles, shared ownership vehicles etc? Oh well, that's my rant for the day.

My parents are getting older and want to travel more now that they are retired and have more time on their hands than they've ever had before. Raising kids and working meant like most people their holidays were family holidays, but they feel they didn't really get the chance to go to the places they really wanted to see, or do the things they really wanted to do.

Child friendly holidays aren't conducive to rekindling the romance and excitement in their life. I'm all for them going and enjoying the world, they certainly deserve it. The problem is how to pay for it, after a lifetime of working they still don't have much in the way of savings, and what they do have they want to keep secure for a rainy day. They can't or won't draw down from their pension, and they don't want to sell their home. The alternative is a reverse mortgage.

The only option is to borrow money, but living on a reduced income from their pension means they'd struggle to repay the loan, and then run the risk of losing everything. I certainly don't want them to do that, and I keep saying to them I don't want to inherit their home, it is just a building and when they aren't there it won't feel like a home, so why not use the equity in their home without selling and do some of the traveling they want to do?

Of course using the equity in your home isn't for the faint-hearted and needs to be considered carefully, there have been some nightmare stories of people losing their homes and all their savings, which is why in the US it is now mandatory to attend some counseling to make sure the process and implications are understood, after which a certificate is issued that allows government approved reverse mortgage specialists to start the process of securing the home in exchange for a lump sum payment to be used for whatever the owner desires.

All in all the system seems quite robust, I wish it was the same all over the world, but sadly it isn't. Getting the right advice, and making sure the repayment amount isn't excessive really means shopping around, or use a financial planner to ensure the best reverse mortgage contract. Failing to do so can be disastrous, but in the right hands the freedom a lump sum payment can give is nothing short of mind blowing.

A lot of attention is given to bigger more established brands of car, but recently I've been noticing a lot more Kia cars on our roads, and some of their models look quite decent. Where I live quite a few Kia dealerships seem to have opened, but it's rare to see a dealership open with a dedicated website straight away. Mind you in this day of age a good website that shows the models on sale and contact/location details should almost be considered mandatory.

The reason I came across Jennings Kia is simple, I write a lot about cars, one of my fun part-time jobs is researching motoring and writing articles for online journals, so to find a dealer website that is so well laid out was quite a pleasant surprise. It seems to help that Jennings is an established dealer of other marques like Ford and Mazda, so perhaps they've already experienced how powerful a well structured website can be.

I particularly love their detailed model pages, just check out the Kia Picanto or Kia Sportage pages for an example. Quite frankly the car dealers in my area could take a leaf out of the Jennings book if they're serious about promoting their new car sales.

The Kia is a great car, in fact I'd say as good as any Japanese car these days, and given the choice I'd happily own one. Especially the SUV models.

Have you ever worked with Excel? The spreadsheet program from Microsoft? If you have you'll know how powerful it is, but completely useless if you don't know how to do calculations. Here's a new site I'm proud of and want to share, a simple and easy blog filled with Excel Formulas for beginner to advanced. As time goes by the site will be updated even more, hopefully to become a valuable resource.

At the moment one of the most useful formulas is the convert function, for example swtiching from kilograms to grams etc. It sounds easy, but when you've got data in a certain format and it needs to be in a different format for comparison this really is a must know conversion.

Of course the biggest use for Excel isn't in home spreadsheets for budgeting, it is more popular amongst engineers who use it for planning, project management, testing calculations, lookups, so being able to input data and output simple easy to read and copy results is golden. OK, if you look at the site right now you might be forgiven for thinking it's pretty sparse, but understand that the first batch of formulas are aimed at advanced users.

Currently the site includes Amorling, Bin2Hex, Complex, Convert, DELTA, ERFC, Imaginary, Hex2Dec, Gestep, and Imabs formulas. Watch as more get added in the coming weeks. Whilst current formulas require loading the Analysis Toolpak, up and coming articles will also focus on guides for university students, as well as some of the more common formulas used in business accounting.

All versions of Excel handle formulas, but most users should be using the most upto date version supplied, which is still part of the Microsoft Office 2010 package, and has open document standards and extra toolsets that can be downloaded and purchased. Comparing it with other spreadsheet tools Excel is still the industry favorite, and the range of formulas staggering.