In Ramit Sethi’s book, “I Will Teach You To Be Rich,” he compares frugal people to cheap people. He has a post on his site showing some of the differences. Some of the comparisons include:

Cheap people try to get the lowest price on everything.

Frugal people try to get the lowest price on most things, but spend a lot on items they really care about.

The one that applies here is:

Cheap people are unreasonable and cannot understand why they can’t get something for free. Sometimes this is an act, but sometimes it’s not.

Frugal people will try as hard as cheap people to get a deal, but they understand that it’s a dance and, in the end, they don’t intrinsically deserve a special deal.

About 3 months ago I purchased a pair of pants from Gap. They looked good in the store, but after wearing them a few times, they just weren’t for me. I knew that it was too late to return them, so I went into the store to ask what they could do to help me. I explained my situation, but unfortunately the sales clerk said that they don’t accept returns past 30 days. I asked for store credit. No. I asked to just choose a different size of the same style. Nope.

So, I asked for the manager. I’ve been getting more and more experience negotiating, and at this point, I have a pretty good idea of what it takes to get what you want. Unfortunately, the manager wasn’t willing to help me, either. I didn’t yell at him, I didn’t argue for an hour, and I’m certainly not bashing the store now. They have policies and I’m no exception. So now I’m left with a pair of pants that don’t fit perfectly.

The point is that just because we don’t like the way something is, doesn’t mean we have a right to change it. Sure, it would have been nice to get a new pair of pants, but I completely understand why I was denied. Had I come in a week or two earlier, things might have been different.

When negotiating, take a step back and think about what you’re negotiating for and whether you have a better argument that the other guy. “Because I don’t like paying full price” works sometimes, but other times it’s best to move on and learn from your experience. The lesson I learned is to read the return policy carefully.

My sister-in-law owns an iPhone, but when she went away on a business trip a few months ago, took a cheap international cell phone her mom had and left the iPhone at home for the week and a half she was away. My brother, Not thinking that his actions would have any consequences, took his sim card and put it in his wife’s iPhone and suddenly he had thousands of apps at his fingertips.

He was probably pretty amused by it for that week and a half, but what he didn’t realize is that if you’re going to use an unlimited service, you should probably sign up for the unlimited data plan. For those 10 days he was happy as a clam, but every time he checked his email or downloaded an app, it was costing us money. And it wasn’t just a few cents here or there, it was over $900 for the 10 days he had the phone.

When the cell phone bill came out, I saw a $600 overage and realized something was wrong. I scanned the bill and found that one number used a ridiculous amount of data. I called my brother make sure it was a mistake (surely he didn’t actually use that much data), and when I told him that our account was messed up and it said he had an iPhone, he paused for a second and said, “O crap.” He really did it. I’ve had my share of negotiations with AT&T, so I told him not to worry, that it wouldn’t be a big deal, and that I would take care of it. But first I called him a few names and made fun of him quite a bit.

I called up AT&T to explain what happened and get the charges reduced, and got a customer service representative who listened to my problem and agreed to try and resolve the situation. The conversation went something like this:

Customer Service Representative: Hi, my name is Tracy, how can I help you today?

Me: Hi, I just got my bill and saw that there are some ridiculous overages for this month, so I wanted to try and get that reduced.

Tracy: I’ll be happy to help you. It looks like the 0480 number has a lot of data usage this month.

Me: Yah, my brother put his sim card in an iPhone and didn’t realize that he should have signed up for a data plan first. Is there a way to remove the charges?

Tracy: Well, unfortunately it looks like the charges are valid because he didn’t sign up for a plan before the billing cycle began, so there’s not much I can do. If he had called up in advance to get a data plan before doing so, it would have only been the $30 cost of unlimited data for the month.

Me: Yah, I know that the charges are technically valid, but if you looked what happened, it was obviously a mistake. He doesn’t have an iPhone usually and it was a temporary mistake. We’ve been loyal customers for 10 years and we’ve liked our service a lot, so I’d hate for this to give us a bad impression of AT&T. Is there anything you can do? I’d like as a courtesy to have the bill changed. Can you apply the $30 a month data package retroactively?

Tracy: Well, we do appreciate your business, so as a one-time courtesy, this is what I can do: While I can’t remove all the charges, I can retroactively apply a $30 data plan to that line so you’ll be charged only the $30 and not $600.

Me: Wow, that would be great. You just saved us $570!

Tracy: It’s not a problem. Actually, I can apply the data plan from the date he started using data, which was 7 days before the end of the billing cycle, so the charges will be prorated. So for those 7 days, it comes out to $7.32.

Me: Thanks, I really appreciate it. Since we just realized what was happening, can you do the same thing for this month as well? He’s been using it for the past few days, while the bill was coming out, but after the billing cycle started, so I’m sure he’s racked up some more charges.

Tracy: I’m unable to remove charges from a bill that hasn’t come out yet, but what I can do is keep the data plan on for this month. When your next bill comes out, you will see the charges on the account, so you’ll have to call back next month and a customer service representative will see my notes and make the adjustment for you.

Me: That’s not a problem. Thanks so much, I really appreciate you helping me out!

I called my brother and told him that I got the bill reduced to $300 and that he should send me a check because I already paid the bill. Just kidding. He was pretty relieved that he didn’t cause our family such a large, unnecessary charge. He felt bad about using the data, so he took out the sim card and put it back in his regular flip phone.

I called up AT&T again to have the data package removed since he stopped using the iPhone, and the prorated charges for the month totaling just $3. Then, when the next bill came out with $300 in data charges, I called up again, told them to reference the notes, and they were able to credit our account. So instead of paying over $900 for 10 days worth of data, we paid only $10.

While I like to think that I have special powers and just plain good at negotiating, the truth is that I’m nothing special. Customer service representatives are there to help you. They may not always jump at the opportunity to reduce your bill, but ultimately they are willing to help if you ask the right questions. If you think you’re paying too much for your phone, cable, or internet, call up and ask if they have any promotions that could save you money. You definitely won’t save money by sitting on the sidelines.

I love negotiating and getting what I deserve, especially when it’s from a bank or the cable company. I hate when they steal your money or provide you with sub-par service without some time of reimbursement. So you can imagine my thoughts when Lauren’s cable went out for a few days.

The Internet went out on Friday, and Comcast promised they would come within a few days. On Monday they set up an appointment for between 9am and 1pm on Monday (they couldn’t pinpoint it any more than that??) and at 2:30 still weren’t there. In fact, they never came. They didn’t set up another appointment until Wednesday, when they said they would come on Friday. Nope, they didn’t show up. They didn’t even call. They finally came on Tuesday to fix the Internet. A week and a half without Internet. Can you imagine??

So of course, we called up to get what was rightfully ours. She should be reimbursed not only for the time that the Internet was out, but also for the time she had to spend waiting for them, the disrespect she was shown when they didn’t call to say they would be late (not to mention when Lauren called to ask about their status and was told, “we’re coming soon” the day they never showed up).

The conversation was pretty typical, and started off with Lauren explaining the situation and the woman on the other end saying she’d help any way she could. She offered $9 to make up for the week and a half the service was out. No way was that good enough. So Lauren requested to talk to a supervisor. After 20 minutes, the supervisor finally came on the line, heard the story, and offered $15 to make up for the inconvenience. I thought that was still too low, but the truth is that out of the $24 bill, $15 is over 60% of a month’s service, which is pretty good. And after being on hold and talking for over an hour, we decided it wasn’t worth wasting any more of our day.

I’m adding Comcast to my list of companies I hate. 33% of America has no choice but to use Comcast, so they continue to take advantage of their customers and completely disregard the fact that people have lives. I wonder what they would say if they arrived, called, and told them that I would let them in anywhere from one minute to 3 hours from now.

We’ve all had bad bank experiences, and I wanted to share mine.

I opened my account back in March, and in August saw a banner on the site for $25 free when I start using bill pay. The only qualifications listed were that I had to make two bill pay transactions within the first month. No problem, I was about to start anyway, so the timing was great.

I started using bill pay, made my mandatory transactions, and about 3 months later realized that I never got my $25. Frustrated, I called up. After being put on hold for 20 minutes, a customer service representative said that since I opened up the account in a branch, technically my bill pay account was activated then even though I didn’t use it until August.

That’s a load of crap, the all time dumbest rule ever. I never signed anything saying I wanted to use bill pay, so I went into a branch to talk to an accounts manager, Wendy, who has been extremely helpful. She did some research, called up a few people, and got it all taken care of. They said that they would put in a request and a check would be mailed rather than deposited into my account. No problem, as long as I got the money in the end.

A month went by and I still never received my check, or any other communication from Bank of America, so I went to go visit Wendy again. Again she helped me and called up some people, complained about their system (which I loved because she knew that it shouldn’t be this difficult to get what you deserve), and put in a request for me.

Wendy was wonderful and I couldn’t thank her enough. After sitting with her for half an hour, she figured I had to get back to work after my lunch break and offered to finish up talking to different people over the phone and assured me that everything would be taken care of. I have no doubt that she exhausted all effort.

I just don’t trust Bank of America to come through.

I’ve been making a conscious effort not to worry about every last penny (hence the name of the blog) and instead tackle large recurring charges. The most success I’ve had has been with AT&T. To show how much we have saved, here’s a breakdown of how much we pay and how much we save:

• AT&T Family Plan 700 Minutes 200 bonus minutes per line (800 total; added by customer service representative)
• Unlimited Text Messages for the entire family (added by customer service representative; expires in 4 months)
• 1700 rollover minutes (1,000 added by customer service representative)

• 18% employee discount

We use about 1,600 or 1,700 minutes a month as a family, so right now, we are dipping into our rollover minutes slightly (only 22 last month). When those run out, we’ll have to upgrade to the 1,400 plan, or get more rollover minutes added.

Here’s a breakdown of how much our cell phone bill would be each month if we paid for all of our features. They are the cheapest plans and features to cover our usage:

• AT&T Family Plan 2,100 minutes – $109.99 for 2 lines + 2 additional lines @ $9.99 each
• Unlimited Text Messages – $30 for the family

This comes out to about $160 + taxes.

Our bill this month? Less than $75 + taxes. So I save about $85 a month, which over the course of one year, comes out to over $1,000 in savings. That’s a lot for just a few minutes of research and a couple of phone calls.
 

This month, it turns out that his texting again went over his limit, and halfway through the month he was already at 200 texts. So, it was time to make a change. I had a 1,500 text message plan for $8.99 that was put on awhile ago with a special code that has since expired. Finally, my father uses 10-15 text messages per month ($2-$3) and my mother usually calls 411 and gets text messages sent to her phone, but does not know how to access them ($1).

For the last few years, I’ve monitored my family’s AT&T plan by adding text messages for my brothers and me and arguing unnecessary charges from time to time. We started with 200 text messages, but there came a point where I was exceeding that limit and needed an upgrade. $15 for 1,500 text messages seemed like a lot, so I found a code online, spent an hour finding a representative who would add the code for me, and I now have 1,500 text messages for $8.99, which is must more reasonable.

What I didn’t consider until a few months ago is that while we were on a 2,100 minute plan, we were only using about 1800 minutes a month. So while we had lots of rollover minutes, we never had a need for them. I wanted a solution. I found another code online, this one for 200 free bonus minutes. I called up, talked to several different customer service representatives, and finally one agreed to add it to my line. Nervously, I asked the woman if she could add it to some of the other lines, and she said that it would be no problem. So suddenly we had an extra 1,000 minutes for the month that we weren’t paying for. I was able to drop us down to 1,400 minutes and reduced the monthly cost from $109.99 to $89.99 (plus an employer discount). I was pretty happy about saving the family about 200 a year.

My biggest accomplishment was not this, however. With 1,400 minutes, plus an additional 1,000 a month, we were now at a 2,400 plan for the price of 1,400. We were racking up rollover minutes an alarming rate, but they were never needed. I wanted to drop us down to 700 a month (for $69.99), but was aware of the AT&T policy that the number of rollover minutes could not exceed the number of minutes paid for each month. So with just 1,700 minutes (plus 700 rollover minutes to start), we’d be dipping into our rollover minutes and after a few months, we would need to go back to the 1,400 minute package. I called AT&T and negotiated reducing our minutes to 700 under the condition that as a buffer, they would add 1,000 rollover minutes. After getting this applied, we now had 700 minutes a month, plus 1,000 free minutes a month, plus 700 rollover minutes, plus an extra 1,000 rollover minutes. So 1,700 a month plus a 1,700 buffer. Our phone usage has increased steadily an we now use about 2,000 minutes a month, so I expect our buffer to last about 5 months. At that point, we’ll be forced to increase back to the 1,400 minute plan.

While that seems like an appropriate amount, AT&T has introduced a new feature, “A-List” which allows you to select 10 out of networks numbers that anyone in the family can call at any time, without using minutes. That’s a great deal, and would reduce the number of minutes used each month, but the offer only applies to plans with 1,400 minutes of more.

So eventually we’ll be stuck between a 700 minute plan (+1,000) that won’t cover our minute usage and a 1,400 minute plan (+1,000) that would cover us and give us many hundreds of rollover minutes a month. Neither plan is ideal, and the best idea seems to be to switch between plans every few months. It’s not ideal, but likely worth the little time and effort required.

Overall, I was able to reduce our monthly costs by $40 a month ($480 a year!), even while our phone usage increased. A little research a lot of haggling can sometimes go a long way.

In an earlier post, I talked about always bargaining and that you can always haggle with people who are taking your money. This happens most often for my phone bill, but also happened before renting our apartment as we were able to convince the landlord to reduce the rent. When we moved in, we were able to get very cheap Internet and cable, loaded with extra features that they agreed to add on after we had them drop the price significantly.

Now, I’m starting to put that into practice, and I built up the courage to negotiate with my barber. I just moved into the area and had no loyalty to any barber, but the first one I went to did a great job. Corfu Barber Shop is a tiny little place hidden underground. It’s a real experience: there are sports magazines and some other dirty magazines sitting on the shelf, but it seems like nobody reads them because there’s never a line. John doesn’t speak much English but is a real perfectionist. He does a great job on my neck and I got one of my best haircuts there, so of course, I was going to go back.

Like many barbers in the area, he charges $18, and with tip, it comes out to $20. Usually, I get my hair cut shorter than necessary, and it takes a week to look good. Then 4 weeks later, it’s time to get it cut again.

I’ve been considering negotiating with my barber for a few weeks now, and when it was time to go in, I had a plan. I did some calculations and decided on a course of action. For awhile, I’ve wanted to get my hair cut every month so that it never gets too long and I can avoid that awkward week when people can see my scalp because my hair is too short.

I proposed paying $15, including tip, for each haircut, and in return, offering him two things: First, I agreed to come only to him, which guarantees him my business, something I assumed was very valuable to him, and second, to come in every four weeks instead of every six weeks, giving him consistent business.

Here is the difference in cost:

As you can see, the cost difference comes out to about $13, which over the course of the year is nothing to brag about. However, the real value comes from the fact that I can always look sharp and have a shaved neck. I no longer have to worry about being made fun of when I get a haircut and I also don’t have to put up with long hair and the hassle of “doing” it every morning. Plus, I probably save a few pennies by using less shampoo.

Most importantly, this experience gave me the confidence to haggle the next time, too.