Every Friday I publish “Frugal Friday!“, an open-ended series with some of the simple and best ways to really save you money both now and in the future.

I was suffering from a small degree of writer’s block today. When I first came up with the idea of ‘Frugal Friday’, I had millions of post ideas zinging around in my brain, and it took much restraint not to write one huge article there and then with my ideas.

Now I have come to actually write another one, and my mind has gone blank. Every writer’s worst nightmare.

So I sat back and analysed myself for a moment. “What do I do that is frugal?”. I have written recently about saving money on your cooking and food shopping which are two of my passions, and something that everyone else has to do as well. I wrote about making good savings on the running cost of your car. Again, most people have a car and so that was a worthwhile article.

Then it suddenly dawned on me: haggling.

I have saved countless hundreds if not thousands of pounds over the years by haggling: with car dealers; shop assistants; telesales folks; a real varied range of different scenarios and people that more often than not, resulted in a saving.

Some examples from just this year include getting half-priced multiroom (for 2 rooms) for 12 months and a free Sky+ box for my satellite viewing pleasure. I got a 15% discount on my mobile phone bill without entering into a new contract. I even saved £150 off of a new set of tyres for my car.

So how do I did I do it, and how can you do the same?

Ask For a Discount

One of the simplest and most obvious ways is simply to ask for a discount. I once got 10% off in Curry’s just for asking if they could do me a discount! Front-line sales folks often have small discretionary powers when it comes to knocking value off of a product, but they won’t unless you ask.

Go Armed

I needed a new tyre earlier on this year on my car due to a slow-puncture in a non-repairable place. Two others were coming up for probably being illegal, so I decided I’d get them all replaced at the same time.

Unfortunately the ‘slow’ had suddenly gone from slow to not so slow, and I found myself in the nearest Kwik-Fit. While they are not exactly my first port of call for maintenance, it was a case of “needs must” as I would not have made it home.  After choosing my brand, I sat down in reception.

I didn’t read the free magazines or drink instant plastic coffee, however. I dug my mobile phone out of my pocket and began price hunting for the brand and model of tyre I had just been cajoled by circumstance into purchasing. Unsurprisingly, the price I was paying was well over the odds of what I could have paid if I had ordered online.

When the chap called me over to pay, I asked for a discount. When he replied that the “price was good” already, I showed him my findings. Even my Ford dealer was coming out cheaper than what they were charging, and that was saying something. I walked out after a few more minutes of discussion with over £150 discount applied.

A Warning Shot

This works really well for services provided on a monthly basis such as satellite TV or cable, mobile phones, insurances, credit cards and so on. Mention that you are “considering leaving for another provider” and many customer service agents will launch into retention mode. How far you get depends on who you get, and what the company is, but sometimes this is all you need do.

I did this to Sky earlier in the year, and got offered Sky+ for free instead of the usual £60 installation. A good result. You can do the same with your credit card if you don’t like the interest rate, or your cell phone package, or your gym membership or any number of regularly paid for services.

Make The Explicit Threat

Sometimes though merely thinking aloud to a customer service agent is not sufficient. Sometimes you must explicitly state “I wish to cancel my account” before they will pass you through to the Retention Team. These folks have enormous power, and can make the world move if they like you enough and you are otherwise profitable.

I escalated my Warning Shot to Sky to an Explicit Threat and the tone of the conversation changed. It was no longer a cheerful discussion, it was pure business: They wanted mine, and they would clearly work to get it. In the end I settled for a free Sky+ box, free installation, and half-priced multiroom x2 for 12 months.

Don’t Be Afraid to Back Down

Sometimes, despite escalating through the stages of Asking, Arming, Warning and Threatening, you get met with the grim response of “very well. Your account will be cancelled.”

Ack! They have called your bluff.

You now have two options. You can back-pedal if you wish. “I should really discuss this with my partner first. I will get back to you on this” is a good back-down method. Sometimes, despite fighting the good fight, you lose. If you are ultimately happy with the service you are being provided with then there is no shame in backing down from the haggling fight.

Or Follow Through

If however you don’t mind switching (remember, new customers generally get some cracking deals), keep going. You may well find you get a call back about 5 days before your contract expires pleading with you to reconsider. This worked very well for me with my mobile contract with Three. I had built up a 6 year relationship with the company, but I was not really happy. I am still not, but that is another post altogether. I went through the stages, and eventually asked for my PAC code to transfer my number and close down my account. I had not expected them to let it get to that stage, though.

To my utter surprise, they gave it to me. Without argument.

I rolled with it and followed through. I was not actually all that concerned about losing the service, in reality. Except, 4 days before my contract was due to be shut off, I received a call from their retentions team pleading with me to renew my contract. I spent a good 20 minutes on the phone with them explaining that I did not wish to renew, but would remain if they could reduce my monthly payments.

I received a 15% discount without having to renew my contract. They will apply a 15% discount to my monthly bill on a month-by-month basis until I decide to re-cancel, upgrade or renew. That suits me perfectly!

Haggling is at the end of the day, all about being brazen enough to ask. As someone far wiser than I once quipped: “If you don’t ask, you don’t get!”

Have you haggled, or does the thought of arguing over a price seem embarrassing to you? Share your views in the comments!

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As many of you will know, my journey to debt freedom began back in January 2009. I have been diligently working to pay off my debt  since then, and now that the end of the tunnel is in sight, surely it should be time for inward celebration? After all, in a maximum of two months time I will be entirely debt free.

In reality, I am more frustrated now than I have been at any point in the long, arduous road to a positive net worth. I sat down to try and work out just why that is.

In the beginning, it was fun finding places to make cuts in my budget. After 4 months I had pared down my outgoings to their absolute barest minimums. There is now not a realistic penny left to be shaved without going totally insane or malnourished along the way. I enjoyed seeing the balances come down. I enjoyed working overtime to make it happen faster. I enjoyed the mental challenge of not spending a single penny on myself unless it was absolutely necessary and budgeted for.

In my overtime quest, I have just spent 7 days away from home working 15 hour days and being accommodated at night for a few hours before getting up and doing it all over again and again and again. The days were long. I missed my family. I did nothing but work and sleep.

The money will be good when it comes in, but I am now completed exhausted, mentally and physically.

I have one day off before returning to my ‘normal’ work tomorrow.

I am frustrated because no matter how hard I work now,  I remain in debt until the numbers come together in one or two months time.  I am so close, yet so far away.

I find myself wishing for 2 months to just fly by so I can finally say “I am debt free!”.

In our lives we are constantly striving toward one or more goals. These vary from person to person and life-stage to life-stage. I strive to be debt free; others strive to buy their first home. You may be striving for some other target.

The one thing that remains the absolute same, regardless of what you are striving for, is that it is a future event. You require the passage of time for it to come to fruition. We are ultimately wishing our lives away to reach an arbitrary goal that constitutes only one portion of our ultimately very short lives.

I vow, here and now, to stop ‘striving to be debt free’.

I am striving for one target, and one target alone.

To live every day to the maximum it can be.

Enjoy the sunrise if you are fortunate enough to be awake. Help others in your day as you would like to be helped. Treat others as you would like to be treated. Make the most of time with friends and family. Appreciate the sunset each day.

Do not desire the passing of time to achieve your goals. By all means celebrate it when the event arrives, but not to the detriment of everything and everyone around you. I will be debt free. I will be a home-owner. You will achieve whatever it is you are striving to achieve in time.

Live your life by its journey, not its final destination.

Why should you wish away 2 months or 2 years or 2 decades of your life to reach a goal? When one goal is out of the way, you will replace it with another and then another. All events that will occur in the future, and each requiring your patience to achieve it.

Patience is a virtue, and it is the journey that matters.

Others will not judge you on what you achieve, but who you were whilst getting there.

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Earlier on this month I questioned whether to start saving for the sole purpose of buying a house, or going back to renting and continuing with the freedom to both save and invest, once I’ve paid off my debts.

At the time I didn’t have an answer, but I think I have made up my mind.

I will return to renting. Here’s why.

House prices remain inflated. Despite the credit crunch, house prices have not fallen very much at all compared to their explosive growth over the previous 9 years. While the term doesn’t fit precisely, the fact that property prices are reportedly on the increase again after “slumping” in my view is merely a dead cat bounce.

A mortgage is expensive. My generation has all but been priced out of house-buying, and the current bubble house prices remain in keep this so.  Even an interest only mortgage works out more expensive than the equivalent rental cost, and that’s even before taking into account the maintenance costs of buying rather than renting and other sundry ownership-related expenses.

I want to invest. Virtually all sources I have researched agree that financial freedom cannot be achieved by saving alone. If my desire to retire early is to become a reality, my money will need to work very hard for me and I cannot do this while tied to paying an expensive mortgage for an overpriced property. This therefore means that realistically any purchase of a house needs to be entirely made with cash once the market finally relents and corrects (or Gordon Brown stops shoring up the bubble, whichever happens first).

My inheritance may enable this. I hope not to have to cross this particular bridge for a while yet, but my grandmother left me a sum when she died. This was invested further in property by my parents and now (even post-crash) stands at around three times its original value in today’s money.

My father has a reasonable property portfolio that will one day hopefully pass to me, along with a unique liftetime accumulation of rare collectibles that may fetch anywhere from £5 to £1 million at auction depending on the day.

On my mother’s side I also have a share of their existing property.

If the figures I have are even remotely correct, then I have quite a tidy sum of future wealth to be realised at some stage, although the worth of that will vary greatly depending on when it becomes cashable, thanks to inflation. While I hope for the higher estimate, even the lower will enable the purchase of a nice property, with probably 50% still unused. The more left over the better as it’d be an excellent headstart on my compounding goals and investment plans.

All said however, I’m not in the habit of counting money I don’t have so while these figures are comforting, they may as well be written in monopoly money for the moment. The existance of possible inheritance a decade or more down the road does not change the fact I am still almost £5,000 in debt now and have no cash in savings that isn’t already earmarked for debt elimination.

My revised plan then is continue to work my way out of debt, finish my divorce, save hard for a further 12 months while resident with my parents – taking advantage of the minimal overheads that provides – and then look for a small rental property much closer to work. This will enable me to cut my diesel bill considerably as well as cut the time it takes me to get to work and back home.

Is this a sensible strategy? Would you do different?

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