A car is probably going to be your biggest expense outside of the purchase or rental of your home. Paying too much for a car through purchase price or financing can leave you in the hole if the vehicle is totalled in an accident or stolen. An insurance company is going to pay only the value of your car, not the exorbitant balance left on your finance interest. Another concern is retaining good re-sale or trade value if you plan on replacing your vehicle every few years.

Consumer Reports list the top 10 best cars for holding value and the bottom 10. Not surprisingly, all of the top 10 are imports. 9 of the bottom 10 are American made models.

Check out the list.

CNN has an article looking at Consumer Reports’ latest survey on reliability in 2006 and 2007 cars. It makes interesting reading, with some winners you would expect and some surprising losers.

Toyota and Lexus do well but I was amazed that Volkswagen have so many models that owners reported as unreliable. As a result, I wonder just how reliable these surveys are. How were they conducted and what questions were asked? And to what extent has the usual problem with these surveys been overcome – that many owners hesitate to pour scorn on what was their own choice, after all?

These questions are answered in Consumer Reports’ FAQ on the matter. It does seem that they make a good job of their investigations and so we would be wise to take note of their findings when looking for a new car.

Have a read and be prepared for some surprises.

Despite OPEC’s decision to cut production, the price of a barrel of oil continues to fall and so do gasoline prices. Prices have fallen even further in the last week, for a total of an average of 25 cents for the month of October.

Gas reached peaks of over $3 per gallon earlier in the year, but with gas now averaging about $2.20 per gallon nationwide, consumers are breathing a sigh of relief and their confidence in the economy shows in the market. But gas prices affect more than the general economy and decisions about long road trips.

When gas prices were rising the effects on personal finance were measurable according to Wayne Hochwarter, an associate professor of management in the College of Business at Florida State University.

Hochwarter’s study found that although the consumption of gasoline did not decrease, expenses in other areas of personal finance changed. The cost of gas forced consumers to rethink the way they spend money and at times cut back on necessities as well as non-essential expenditures.

Hochwarter also found that the stress of such worries negatively affected employees at work, leading to more job stress, lower job performance and depression.

Read about Hochwarter’s study here. Then, if you are in Oklahoma City, go fill your tank for $1.81 per gallon.

If you are vacillating on whether or not to buy that Toyota hybrid vehicle, this might give you incentive to do it sooner rather than later.

The deadline to receive the full tax credit for the purchase of a Toyota hybrid is October 1,2006. Taxpayers will only be entitled to a 50% credit for vehicles purchased after October 1.

And the credit goes down from there. If you wait until April 2007, you will only be allowed 25% of the credit.