You can buy cars at a discount with Target? huh, you learn new things every day.
Well, I'm not much of a house guy but there's plenty of car people here, myself included. Shoot any of us a PM if you need any help or info on a car. As for the actual buying process... I can't help with that, sorry :*(
I can tell you what not to do when buying a car
You know never first year release did that twice, never a modified car - did that twice. Never a high mileage car/truck - did that three times.
If you can turn a wrench you can push those limits a lot harder, if not? Keep it conservative and go for something that has a solid rep and anyone can work on.
My best advice for actually buying a car - they need to sell one, you never need to buy one. Even if you need one desperately there is another dealer, seller who will treat you right..
For buying a house, do you homework and know what you have to do, what money you need to get together - this means what loan type you are looking at, what loan insurance you will or not need to carry, what your credit needs to look like, what area you are looking at - this will tell you a clue about how much cash you need. Start with your bank, just ask for a Q&A what is process and what steps do I need to do. And you can go through what I mentioned above.
It took us about five years to stack the cash, and we got lucky and didn't actually look that long for a house before we found one and since we already had our act together it didn't take long to get the purchase done.. It also helped one my car club friends was a real estate agent, so he did our bidding - for a discounted fee.