Thanks Julien. :)

I think our salesperson was just a bit too anxious to make the transaction, which explains why she came back w/ an additional requirement (phone bill) the following day.  
 
But as far as I'm concerned, once they take our money and sign the deal, there is no going back - if the bank needs anything that wasn't mentioned to us in the first place, the dealer will have to take it on himself. You don't add requirements once the deal is done, period. Though we did try our best to provide a few additional papers, because, well, we're nice people. ;)

Anyway, we finally found yesterday - after we went back to the dealership to provide a few extra papers - that Sprint accepted to sign contracts when you provide a deposit upfront, and since I needed a phone too, we went w/ that option. And we found out that we also had a discount w/ them, so... The good thing is that all those things will help w/ credit in the future, so we might as well put up w/ it now. So we would be able to provide the paper if the bank insisted. 

We've been here for 11 days and it feels like 3 or 4 weeks, so much time we've spent at the DMV, the car dealership and all that fun stuff. But the Jeep is ours, and we finally can enjoy the vacation.

But that's a lot of $, so the audio interface will indeed have to wait. Still, thanks for the link Grant. I hadn't heard about that one - I'll check it out.

Rain, I was thinking. About a house. Banks are not lending much for new homes and like you said requiring a huge down payment BUT if you can find a bank owned house that you like you can get financing and a much better deal because they want it off their books. So see what you can find in foreclosure bank owned homes. I think you'll find them much easier to work with and you may get a lot more home for the money. In any case, whatever bank Cirque is using should be willing to work with you. I heard about this on the radio just this week and they were talking about it as a way to get more house without the big down payment... maybe it will work for you. From what I hear there are a lot of foreclosures in Vegas. 

Julien

Thanks Julien. :) That's one of the options we're looking into. Actually, my wife started looking way back in January when we were in Russia. 

One of our friends here is real estate agent and he was surprised to see how much she knew and how well informed she is when we met him last week. But we won't buy the house before next year, probably in the summer or after.

The prices here are ridiculously low. We used to look for houses in Quebec, and nothing under 250k was even worth looking at. Even at 250k and up, most still needed a lot of work. We've seen very decent ones here going for less than half of that.

Rain, I think the issues you face are really a result of global insecurity. Global debt is out of control and countries that can still pull out of the dive are locking the vaults. It's sad and funny, all at once. The biggest crooks are the ones that manage global cash flow, unfortunately they seem to be untouchable. Average people are the easiest to control and banks like to think they're in control. Your new home town was hit extra hard since 2008 so I imagine that credit is very tough to obtain. At least you're in a town where "show folk" are not uncommon and considered an even bigger risk.

Good luck in the USA, but don't ever give up your Canadian passport. It's good to have options.

Good point, John.

When we first tried to convert that pre-paid plan into a regular monthly plan and were denied, my first thought was - why the heck don't they have an option to give them a deposit upfront? Because I can understand that, in this context, they don't want to take any risks, but a deposit gives them a guarantee. Fortunately, Sprint offered that option.

But again, that requires that you have the extra money to start out here. 

As for the Canadian passport - the plan is to go back eventually because that's where the family is. We want our kid(s) to be raised back there.

"They" say money can't buy happiness and that may be true in an overall sense, but MAN can it make a lot of little annoying problems go away... LOL.