Haggle!
If you live in the United States then you’re probably used to negotiating when buying a car or a home, but that’s about it. Unless your job involves routine negotiations then it’s likely the thought never occurs to you to haggle on everyday purchases. When you’re trying to save some money and get your finances in order, however, haggling can save you quite a bit of money especially when the purchase you plan on making is an expensive one.
If you’re not familiar with haggling, here is a crash course:
1. You find out how much a store is charging for the item you want to buy.
2. You find a salesperson and ask, “How can I get a lower price on this item?”
3. The salesperson presents various options, the two of you go back and forth, and you wind up paying less than if you had never asked the question to begin with.
This is a rather streamlined scenario, of course, because sometimes you’ll have to deal with a manager or you might get presented with absolutely no options for a lower price. On the other hand, if you actually ask the question then you may be surprised at the response you get.
It’s especially true at stores where you’re spending a large amount of money. For example, if you go into a furniture store with the intention of buying a new sofa the last thing you want to do is walk in and pay full price. Ask questions such as:
- How can I get a discount on this sofa?
- How about you throw in free delivery to my home?
- Are there any coupons from your store circulating around right now?
Some people are embarrassed about asking questions like this, but the truth of the matter is this: When you’re trying to get your finances in order, you need to save money where you can. Even if you only manage to get a 10% discount on your purchase, that’s still money in your pocket that you may have spent if you hadn’t taken the time to do a little haggling.
June 2nd, 2008 at 12:00 am
[…] Haggle […]
June 2nd, 2008 at 12:06 am
[…] Original post by Tamsen Butler […]