Fourth Friday Financial: The Art of Negotiating

Technically this is still FFF – although, this is really the Fifth Friday Financial. My beautiful bride does such an awesome job of finding bargains for our family and many of you do too. Yes, you will continue to enjoy lots of savings just by following MtS and putting these strategies into action. But did you know you can save even more just by asking! Yup – the art of negotiation

So be honest when you hear the word negotiating do your palms immediately start to sweat? Well if you can overcome this hurdle you are well on your way to saving. Dave Ramsey does a great job of identifying the ground rules for finding a bargain:

• Always tell the truth
• Do not harm the other party
• Create a win – win

Clearly there are a lot of negotiating tactics and there are some key strategies that you can leverage. But in my opinion step one in negotiating is to just understand that in most cases, to get a bargain all you have to do is ask. I figure, the worst thing that could happen is the seller will say “no”. Just this week by “asking” Mary and I saved $200 annually on cable services (of course this was after Mary passed the phone to me). Honestly – all I did was ask and with no resistance the company agreed!

Remember that finding a deal often requires patience, especially on your bigger ticket items. But that is what I really appreciate about what Mary does through MtS. For the most part if you follow along you can save on the small to medium sized purchases you buy everyday anyway. I guess when you think about it Mary has done the “negotiating” for you! 😉

Negotiating is something that you have to practice, but give it a shot. You will be surprised how easy it can be.

Happy Easter – I hope you all enjoy time with family and friends.

Fourth Friday Financial (FFF) is written by Mary’s Dear Hubby Andy, because he was “voluntold”. 😉 We have been together for 2 decades and you will begin to see that our differences compliment each other well. Through this monthly series we hope you find practical information for taking control of your finances.