VRBO.com - Vacation rentals by owner
Edmunds.com - Determine fair market value for a vehicle
KBB.com - Determine fair market value for a vehicle
CarFax.com - Vet a potential car purchase for wreck history
Prosper.com - Peer-to-peer lending online
LendingClub.com - Peer-to-peer lending online
PertuityDirect.com - Peer-to-peer lending online
VirginMoneyUS.com - Peer-to-peer lending online
BusinessBeware.biz - Business owners can vet out potential customers
ServiceLive.com - Put small home-repair jobs out for bid online
eHealthInsurance.com - Comparison shop for health insurance online

Think you can't afford Hawaii? Aloha, McFly! It's never been more affordable to stay in paradise!!

Hotel bookings on the Hawaiian Islands are at the worst level in 20 years, since record-keeping first began. In fact, 1 out of 3 hotel rooms sat vacant during the recent peak season. Historically, hoteliers hope to sell out more nights than not in a peak season.

So what's going on? Several airlines that flew to Hawaii -- including Aloha Airlines and ATA Airlines -- have both gone out of business. That leaves mainly the full-fare airlines serving Hawaii.

But even the full-fares are reducing their number of flights. Their business model is too inefficient to support extensive flying to some far-flung vacation destinations.

So if you're lucky enough to find a deal on airfare, you can count on your accommodations being very affordable. Clark particularly likes VRBO.com for finding cheap vacation rentals by owners.

Imagine if you're able to use frequent flier miles to get free airfare and use free stay points to get your hotel accommodation for nada. Hmmm…Free airfare + free stay points = time in paradise for FREE. That's the kind of math that Clark likes!

Have you been turned down by the bank for a loan? Why not borrow directly from your fellow man online using a peer-to-peer lending site?

Prosper.com is the granddaddy in this arena, while LendingClub.com is another extremely popular site.

Clark has long believed that P2P lenders offer so much for borrowers, but there's relatively little upside for lenders.

For borrowers, the biggest challenge is that you need a minimum level of credit worthiness to participate. As an example, PertuityDirect.com requires a 660 credit score.

The interest rates you pay as a borrower vary by website. With Propser, it tends to be between 7% and 24%. (Editor's note: As of June 2, 2009, Prosper is not coordinating any borrowing or lending, pending a completion of the company's SEC registration.)

For lenders, The Wall Street Journal now reports they get a return on their money of under 3%. Not too enticing considering you can get a better return on CDs with no risk!

Finally, there's one oddball P2P option from Richard Branson. VirginMoneyUS.com is designed to help you make loans to friends and family members. The company handles all the paperwork, including sending notices about payments and collecting on debts in the event of default.

They even harass your family for you so you can preserve your relationships!

Here's one from the "revenge can be sweet" department…

Clark has spoken in the past about sites where consumers can share their collective wisdom about businesses (Yelp.com) or the travel experience (TripAdvisor.com).

Well, what if a business wants to find online reviews of customers so they can avoid the bad ones? BusinessBeware.biz offers just such a service for a nominal fee of $5.

If customers can diss a business online, now business has its own website to diss customers! Of course, the idea is simply to help business owners vet out the "bad apple" customers and steer clear of them.

Meanwhile, ServiceLive.com is a related service that allows you to name your price for small home-repairs. You essentially put your small repairs up for bid online.

ServiceLive.com is free for consumers. They take a 10% cut of the price you pay the contractor. And a part of the money they collect is used to do background checks on contractors.

Remember the Yugo? This much-maligned vehicle made in the former Yugoslavia was just about the worst car ever made in the history of the automotive industry. In fact, Consumer Reports once said a consumer would be "better off buying a good used car than a new Yugo."

The quest for a good cheap automobile goes on. Recently, India rolled out a 4-door, 5-seater called the Nano that sells for around $2,000. Orders for the Nano exceeded 200,000 in just 2 weeks and the customer waiting list had to be shutdown.

The Nano would sell for around $5,000 if it were to come stateside. That accounts for the expense of retro-fitting the Nano for our emissions and safety standards. Even so, that would still be almost half the cost of the current cheapest car in America -- a stripped-down Nissan Versa at $9,300.

The inspiration for the Nano was the Logan by Renault. This particular 4-door sedan is available in Europe fully equipped for $6,000-8,000. It was originally marketed in Eastern Europe, but has found vast popularity among Western Europeans.

It's clear there's a large untapped market for a reliable basic new car in the United States. Many Americans live on an annual salary of $30,000-$40,000. They simply can't afford to buy a new car.

Clark wants to go on record with his prediction that we will have a mainstream affordable vehicle retailing at $7,995 (or less) by 2012. Only time will tell if he's right.