Yes, You Can Negotiate Your Bills #209

with her to leave that conversation feeling good about yourself. Yeah. Man, I think a lot of people just forsake negotiation and a lot of instances because they don't believe as possible. It's just not something that they've thought about very much.

And so yeah, I think we can talk about which bills are worth negotiating, their worth making a call or a tweet whatever, maybe giving people a little bit of hope, and especially in this time right now, there's there's even increased room for negotiating some of your bills, and so we'll talk about what that entails as well. Yeah, man, But first I wanted to tell you a little story about some some jobs and money, specifically how it pertains

to my kids. You might know that I've tried to, you know, implement some systems with our girls to get them to kind of work for money. But I've done that unsuccessfully. But recently we started a new new little system. You and I we live in these old houses that are like a hundred years old. We live in these old neighborhoods, and dude, I think a hundred years ago, folks would just take their garbage and just throw it in the backyard. Because there's so much trash that we're

finding working its way up through the ground. Uh. It's like, especially after it rains, like we'll find little bits of like antique glass. And this is a problem obviously, because we want to be able to hang out in our backyard kind of play back. They were thought cutting up our feet. And so our new system we call it trash Treasures. Well, I like the naming convention already on board. And I've explained to the girls that for every piece of glass that you bring to me, you get paid

a nickel. Are you making them more gloves at least? Uh, they're very careful. This isn't glass that's like just broken, you know, Like there's a difference between like literally, this is old antique medicine bottles from a hundred years ago and versus like if you break a glass bottle like out in the parking lot or something like like I know you like to do, so I don't have to

call de facts correct. So all week they'll they'll pick up trash treasures and they'll put them in a little container that they each have, all three of them, all three the girls have their own little container, and then maybe about once a week they can redeem and cash in those trash treasures for money, and they get a nickel for every piece of glass or for every piece of metal, uh, and for everything else like plastic or just other weird stuff that they find, they get a penny.

And do you guess what, they are totally into it. They've completely bought into the system. Anytime they're kind of out back there keeping an eye on the ground for anything that sparkles to find a trash treasure. And this is something that's that's really worked for us, and I wanted to share this though, because we had a tough

time getting the girls on board, especially Eavy. She's the oldest, right, She's the oldest who can actually understand money, maybe the you know the best, but even still we've had a difficult time getting her on board with working and kind of doing jobs and getting paid for it. She hasn't had much interest in it. And it took this new system where we could directly tie the work that they're

doing with the money that they're earning. Is taken making that link between those two things as clear and straightforward as possible for them to finally realize that, like, oh cool, I do this thing and then I get paid for it. And so I wanted to share that because I think there might be a lot of folks out there who are having a tough time getting the ball rolling when it comes to figuring out chores or jobs with their kids and how to get them on board with earning

money and even being interested in it. And man, I would encourage folks to stick with the most simple system that they can think of, where they can directly link the work they're doing to the money that they're earning. Yeah. No, I love that, And it's starting small, getting somewhere. Getting the ball rolling so important, like getting the kids excited

about doing it. I think sometimes us where we as parents fall flat is we make it boring or we're trying to teach overcomplicated, right, That's what I tend to do is overcomplicate the systems, and I'm like, all right, this is here, here the charts, and here the different categories and all this. It's like, no, all we need is money and trash. Like literally, it just needs to

be that straightforward for us. Yeah, I agree, And so yeah, that's simpler you can make it, especially when kids are young, right, that that's when it needs to be at its most simplest, and you start to develop a routine around it. You start to kind of help them to understand how it works, the trade off of work in order to make money. And yeah, any way that you can kind of get them started young doing that. I love it. But maybe maybe get them some gloves just to get they do.

What's funny is they do each have a little nail, like a new nails does not rest or anything, and they'll use that to kind of like dig up right. Yeah, so they're almost like little archaeologists, little tools, you know, where they're kind of excavating pieces of the past. That's awesome.

That's awesome. Yeah, I love it, And hopefully that's an encouragement to other people out there who are trying to figure out how they can teach their kids to to do some stuff around the house that that helps out and also teaches their kids about how they go about earning money. And now's a good time to start. Now's as good of a time as any. All Right, Matt, let's mention the beer that we're having on the show today.

Today we're drinking a beer called Tampa Time Share. It's a great fruit basil goza by Wrecking Bar brew Pub, one of our favorite brewers right down the street. Looking forward to having this one on the show today with you, Bud. Yeah. A quick reminder, the reason that we have a craft beer every episode is because this is a way for us that you and I to to show right that we're enjoying something now while at the same time being responsible and doing long term smart things with our money

as well, like investing it. When it comes to our personal finances, there's always a balance, and this is one of the tangible ways that you and I are prioritizing the here and now over just the long term, because sometimes you can get really nerdy with it and have a pretty lackluster, boring life that you don't really enjoy living now, But like always, we try to bring some balance to that conversation. Yeah, agreed, man, And and yeah, this beer, I'm excited to check this one out. Should

be an interesting common flavors. So all right, Matt, let's get onto the subject at hand. We're talking about why, yes, you can negotiate your bills. And man, I think it's important to talk about what's negotiable and what isn't. I know you and I might differ on this, so let's let's get there in a second. I think everything in life is not negotiable. Right. If we went down the path of trying to negotiate everything, well, there's a chance you can lose some friends in the process. But there

are times where or we should be negotiating. I listened to a book recently called Gaining Ground Matton is by this farmer in Virginia. Excellent book, and he sells grass fed beef at local farmers markets. And after you hear about all of the work and the difficulty it takes in order to raise cattle in a local and sustainable way, what you can understand why he might be just a bit perturbed when people try to negotiate with him over the price, assuming that there should be closer to what

they would pay in the grocery store. Right, So I would say that negotiating with your your local farmer is probably not a great way to go because it's not like they're making a ton of money on the goods that they sell, and oftentimes it takes a lot more work to grow the produce right that they're that they're

turning out. And so while that might be bad for him, there are certainly some things in life that we should be negotiating, and right now it's even more important for some people to be eliminating bills from their lives altogether and negotiating some of the rest in order to tighten up their budget. Well man, yeah, so, like you alluded to, I might think that almost everything is up for negotiation. I think there is a lot more that should be

on the table to, you know, for us to talk about. Uh. Then we think it may not mean that you have a successful negotiation, right, It may not mean that you leave that conversation having to only pay half of maybe what they're asking, because like that other person, that other party could just say, well, I'm not flexible in the price,

and that's just the end of the conversation. In that sense, I feel like if there's no harm, there's no foul, right, And I think this is especially true as well if you're negotiating before you purchase something, because what you don't know is what that other party in this case, like the farmer, they might be willing to take way less, but you wouldn't know that unless you ask them, right,

unless you start that conversation. If in one instance, you were just gonna just keep on walking because you see that grass fed beef and you think, all right, there's no m paying twenty dollars a pound for that, But that farmer is looking to maybe move some product because they need to get some make room for for the new stuff, right, Like, he might be willing to accept way less, And unless you start that conversation and start

talking about it, you you would never know. And we can even flip that on its head a little bit, like, what if you start that conversation and you know the farmer, Let's say she explains to you how much time and energy and life that she's poured into her vegetables, right, Well, I think then there is a good chance you would leave that conversation with a new understanding and appreciation of all that went into that product, and you might be

willing at that point to pay exactly what she's asking for, you know, or who knows, maybe even more. But in that case, the farmer gains a customer just because they've had a chance to kind of sell the product essentially and and explain to you kind of all that goes into it. You know, like they might have a new cs A member for life after they've had that conversation where they were able to connect with you. So, when's

the last time you negotiated at all the all the time? Man, I think they always escort me out of the store. Oh here comes that crazy Matt dude again. No, but I really think that there's something to be said there when it comes to just having that conversation with uh, you know, with an individual. We talked about this on a recent episode, how we talked with our friend who did some work for us about negotiating their price a

little bit. I think the problem lies when you're expecting there to be a discount, right, because that kind of affects how you approach the conversation. Like I've owned my own business for the over over ten years, and I've never been annoyed if someone came to me, you know, asking for a discount. But you know when it is annoying if they expect a discount because of you know, they know somebody, if there's some sort of connection there, or just for whatever reason they think that, oh, we

should get a discount. That's when it rubs me the wrong way and I kind of don't want to work with that person at that point. It's the expectation. So you and I might disagree a little bit on this because I think there are some some points in time we're negotiating and even just asking, even just attempting to go there can signal something that that maybe you just

you don't want to portray. But I think where we can't agree is is that there are a lot of places where people don't negotiate that are ripe for negotiation. And that's really what we're gonna focus on in this episode. Yeah, I mean, and when one of the issues a lot of times in those situations is we oftentimes don't know

where to start. So one of the obvious problems that we're going to address today is knowing how to go about the process of negotiating, what strategies to use, what steps to take in order to make the biggest impact. You know, there's very little point of going through all the motions if nothing actually changes. And you know, also our financial lives are pretty complex, you know, at least mine are. I tend to over complicate things, um with lots of different bills showing up in the mail and

in our inboxes. And so we're gonna address not only how to negotiate, but also who to negotiate with in order to make it worth our time. Yeah, knowing where

negotiation is expected and where it's not is important. On the flip side of that local farmer that we just talked about, Matt, think about a flea market, right Haggling is expected there and right now, know that more and more financial companies are experiencing calls where customers are attempt seem to negotiate their rate, are hoping to have payments postponed. There are certain bills that that you shouldn't even consider negotiating right now unless you really need the help though.

For example, don't call your mortgage company and ask for forbearance if you haven't actually experienced any negative impact from COVID. I would say that's uncouth, that's not a good negotiation you should take part in, and they'll likely want proof that you need this help anyway. So what bill should you be negotiating? Well, Matt, let's get to some of those and then we'll talk about how to go about

it right after the break. All right, man, we're back from the break, and let's dive into some of the different bills that we should be negotiating. Before you know, you started negotiating with companies individually, it's important to look and see if they already have a policy in place that you can take part of. So, for example, at this point in time, there are over twenty private student loan lenders who have created a compact with ten different

states to provide ninety days worth of forbearance. So if you live in one of these states, there is no negotiation needed as you can take part of this pre arranged agreement. If you live in another state, you know, you can ask if they would be willing to extend the same policy to you as well. You can essentially take that framework and borrow it and see if that

would be something that they would be willing to honor. Yeah, no negotiation necessary, But that doesn't mean that you automatically receive this forbearance on private student loans like you will right now with federal student loans. Mount We've talked about this on the show. Most federal student loans right now qualify for a six month deferment. You're not accruing any sort of interest on those loans, and you're also don't have to pay for six months, and it's automatic, which

is great. But with private student loans, it's not the same. There are some proactive steps you need to take in order to put your private student loans on hold for these three months. Looks at the how two of that stuff later on in this episode, but it's important to note. I love that you said too that if you don't live in one of those ten states that has disagreement, you know what, that is an opportunity for you to say, you know what, student loan servicing company, you have this

agreement with these other tense states. I don't live in one of those states? Can you still honor that agreement for me? I think that's a great question. That's kind of one of those little pieces of negotiation that you could implement if you're not grafted in essentially to this plan that's been developed with with a bunch of states, I mean, and a quick point of clarification, let's go

ahead and kind of define deferments. Uh, And that typically means being able to stop paying uh, you know, a monthly bill for a set period of time without accruing interest, or as a forbearance is skipping out on those payments, but during that period of time it is accruing interest. So deferment is a little bit better than a forbearance, but both are nice. Yeah, alright, So let's talk about

two other things that can be negotiated, Matt. One that I think people also really rarely consider is negotiating the amount here paying for rent. Right, I getta say, I hope none of my tenants are listening to this show right now, But you totally can negotiate rent. And I've had tenants to do this in the past, and I've totally come to an agreement with them, and I actually

respected and appreciated their willingness to partake negotiating with me. Yeah, you appreciate them starting that conversation and talking to you about it. Right, you were defended, you were put off. I was not. I was not, but I'm also not selling grass fed beef. But maybe maybe I will that now. I just probably eat it all. But um. But yeah, especially in our current environment, I think that there's an

increased ability for tenants to negotiate their rent. Right. In particular, if you've been a great tenant that takes care of the place, you pay on time, asking for a discount

makes sense to me. You can even sweeten the pot by signing a longer lease term, and I think this makes the landlord more likely to agree awesent times in negotiations, there is a give and a take, right, and this is a particular example where you can say, listen, i want to pay a little bit less in rent, but I'm willing to sign a longer term in order to

make that worthier while. And so yeah, make sure in your negotiation strategies, especially if you're talking to a landlord about what your rent is going to be, what what your monthly payment amount is going to be, make sure you're offering them some sort of incentive to make it worth their while. But I think if you're doing that, you can definitely negotiate your rent. And that's thing that people just don't think to do very often. Yeah, and

real quickly. Your rent amount might be negotiable, but typically your mortgage payment is not. However, on previous episodes, we've talked about the mortgage forbearance programs that they have set up with mortgages that are backed by Fannie May Freddie Mack. Essentially, if you have a mortgage that is backed by those federal programs, and you're able to prove your need for that forbearance program, that could be something that you can

take part of. Yeah, your monthly mortgage amount not typically something that you can negotiate. It's a term that you've agreed to over an extended period of time, typically fifteen or thirty years. Right, So you can't just call up your lender and say I don't want to pay a month, I want to pay dollars a month. They're gonna laugh at you, right, and they're gonna say you didn't pay the full amount, and you're gonna run into some major

issues there. But right now, when it comes to the forbearance that you're being offered, you do have some ground to stand on when it comes to negotiation, and especially like we talked about Matt. The forbearance that homeowners are supposed to receive right now is only for people with Fannie and Freddie backed mortgages. But let's say you have

a mortgage that is not backed by Family or Freddie. Well, just like we talked about with those private student loans, this is a perfect time to tell your mortgage service or hey, look what's being offered to a huge segment of the population, to most Americans. I know that my mortgage is not backed by Fanni or Freddie, But can you still give me the terms that are offered to most of these people. Pointing out that that option exists for so many other people, I think gives you a

leg to stand on. It gives you just this perfect point of reference that makes it way more likely that you're gonna have some sort of success in getting forbearance. That can be meaningful and helpful. And if you're wondering if you have a mortgage that is backed by Fannie or Freddy, we'll put some links in our show notes where you can enter in your address and it'll let you know instantly whether or not you are automatically eligible for that program. Joel. Something else that you can negotiate

is your credit card. You can ask your credit card company for a month of deferment, and you could also ask for your annual fee to be waived. Specifically, if you have a travel rewards card, you likely aren't using it like you were three months ago, so your credit card company might just go ahead and wave that fee just to keep you using that card and keep you from closing that card. Yeah, that involves making a phone call. That involves asking, right and and attempting to get some

of that money back. Right that you would normally spend on an annual fee, and you could just close the card and be done with it. But as things begin to revert to, you know, a little bit more normal, who knows how long it will be, you might not necessarily want to cut that card out of your life, but you can cut the annual fee out of your life.

That's definitely worth looking into, worth asking about. Man, It's important to to note right now that negotiating some bills are gonna have negative side effects, So let's talk about that too, like a potential hit to your credit score for negotiating a bill. So it's important to ask your credit card servicer or your mortgage provider if they're going

to report any changes in standing to the credit bureaus. So, for example, if you negotiate a settlement with the credit card company, right, and this is not about eliminating a an annual fee, that should not have any negative impact on your credit score. But let's say you owe them five thousand dollars and you called them up and you say, hey, listen, I've only got will you take this and and consider

my debt paid in full? Sometimes they will take you up on that offer, and that sounds awesome, right, that sounds perfect. You've just negotiated a settlement. You now owe less debt than you did. But at the same time, you could owe tax on the forgiven amount, and you could be taking a negative hit to your credit score for years to come, which can cost you in other ways.

So it's important to note that there are sometimes when negotiating it seems like a really good deal and it seems like it's going to be a big help to you, and it can actually adversely affect you in other ways. So, in particular, if you're trying to negotiate a payoff a settlement amount for credit card debt, that's something you wanna you want to make sure you're aware of it could

have other negative, unintended consequences. Yeah, it's important to go into those negotiations with your eyes open and knowing that that's the possibility. Yeah. We talked recently with Thomas Niche from Money Management International, not for profit credit counseling agency. Those not for profit credit counselors can really help walk you through that kind of stuff so that you're not shooting yourself in the foot when you think you're negotiating

something down and and doing something awesome for yourself. If you haven't listened to that episode, we would highly recommend that if all this sounds important to you, impertinent, that

was episode one. Joel car Loans, let's talk about those if if you're in a hardship situation, there's a good chance you can get relief from a major lender in that industry, but refinancing might make even more sense, especially if you have a high interest rate and you know, while we would want you to be out of debt as soon as possible, anyway, for your individual specific situation, it might make more sense to extend the term of the loan in order to reduce your payments now if

you're not able to make those payments, but honestly, in the end, like we do not want you to have car loans or credit card debt. So yeah, negotiating those interest rates down, uh, forbearance on payments. It's going to see those options as kind of temporary relief, while your ultimate goal should be to be out from under those altogether. Yeah, credit card debt and and car loans, those are things that we don't like from the get go. We encourage

people not to have either ever. Right, That's that's what we're all about, Matt. Medical bills or another place where people can negotiate. And actually, I would say one of the bills that is most important and potentially easiest to negotiate too. But medical bills are a pain. But if you have lower income, you can especially be helped by negotiating medical bills that you have right thinking about treatment

and costs before you get a procedure. Well, that's the best course of action, and it can help you avoid medical bill shock getting that bill in the mail and freaking out over the total that you that you have to pay. And it's important to make sure to get the explanation of benefits, so you can know how to attack the negotiations on any medical bill you receive, but then reach out to your ensure and find out why they aren't covering certain portions. It's important to make that

phone call. Also asked to speak to a patient advocate at the hospital. They can often help you lower the overall bill or potentially help you get complete forgiveness of that bill, especially Matt. Like I said, depending on your income, depending on your a g I from last year, that can have a major impact on whether or not you're able to get a massive discount or even full forgiveness of of a medical bill for treatment that perceived angel you mentioned, you know how easy that might be. I

can personally attest to this. We had a bill from an antithesiologist for the birth of one of our girls, uh you know, when Kate got the epidural, and that bill was something like from that doctor's office, from that service provider, And that was also a birth that we paid for in cash and a lot of the amounts we worked out ahead of time, but this was one that we weren't planning on because we weren't planning on

the epidural. But then we ended up needing it due to the immediate circumstances in pain we've found ourselves in. But so what I did. I called up the office and dude, I'm not even kidding. I spent five minutes on the phone, and spending five minutes on the phone, they took it from down to fift dollars. You sound like a guy Co commercial right now, Dude. It was amazing. And I was so stoked, like I was jacked. I was.

I was like I could believe it, Like how much they were able to take off without me even hardly asking. And so I was like, well, shoot, I'm gonna press my luck a little bit. So I stayed on the phone with him and I was like, hey, look, you know, this isn't a bill that we were expecting. We weren't planning on this. Is there any way we can get

it down even more? And I think I spent like another five minutes on the phone, and we got it down from the second five minutes wasn't nearly worth the same amount of the first five minutes was, but I'll take it. We're able to get our bill downs literally by spending about ten minutes on the phone. A lot

of these offices. They're they're billing at their standard insurance rate or just at the standard listed rate that they normally do business app but just with a quick little phone call and they realized that they're dealing with an individual, that's all let's look for them to to gladly meet me in the middle like that, and they were happy that they got their bill paid. I was happy to

be able to pay away less. Yeah, Matt, I had to have something done at the end of last year, and I think the cash rate was like four d seventy dollars and the rate they build the insurance company was bucks. Think I think the insurance company actually ends up paying close to seven hundred. Unfortunately I met my deductible for the year, but I think the portion I would have been responsible for was like six hundred bucks.

So it would have been better for me from the get go just to just to negotiate a cash rate if I hadn't met my deductible. And that's what can

be confusing about about negotiating a medical bill. But they're all sorts of things that are considering worth looking into if you really want to negotiate that kind of debt, right, But let's talk about some of the tactics that people need to know in order to negotiate effectively, because there are specific ways to approach the actual process of negotiating things in your life, and we'll get to some of those right after the break. All right, man, we're back

from the break and we're talking about negotiating bills. And you know, the first thing to realize is that lenders, h debt services, service providers. They're all still looking to run a business, right, and so while there are often provisions in place that allow for some discounts or you know, forbearance, they're not going to be pounding on your door to make sure that you're taking advantage of these forgiveness measures.

And so it's important to mention that because we need to make sure that we are taking a proactive approach when it comes to the bills that we receive. Yeah, part of that involves research, right. An important aspect of taking these proactive steps are knowing what competitors are offering. So if you're looking to negotiate, know what offers are in the market. Right. In order to use the law of supply and demand to your advantage, you have to

be aware of the supply. For example, if you're trying to to do a refinance right now, take advantage of the uber low rates, which we talked about on the show pretty recently. You have a massive advantage if you've gotten multiple quotes from different lenders, because if there's one letter you specifically want to go with, well, you can hold up the rates that you're being offered by other lenders and see if they will meet it right, see if they will provide you with the same great deal

or maybe even beat the best deal you've gotten. That's the power of research, of knowing what's out there, of knowing the deals that are offered by other competitors. So as you begin your process of negotiating bills, UH, an important quality to have is persistence. You know you might need to call back and talk to someone else if you're trying to work something out with a company. You know, have you ever gotten a massively unhelpful customer service representative?

Never had that happen. We've all been there, and so you know, in that instance, maybe politely and of that conversation and calling back to speak with someone else, that can make all the difference in the world. Sometimes you might have gotten the wrong department, or maybe you just caught somebody you know on on a bad day, So just make sure to ask if there is another department

that handles bill negotiation requests. Yeah, it's amazing how that one person can make a big difference, and sometimes you can chalk it up to just someone having a bad day and you've got to speak to somebody else. So, for example, the major internet and TV providers, they have a customer retention department, Right, Matt, you just mentioned getting the wrong department. Well, that department in particular has far

more abilities to help you lower that bill. If you call just a main customer service line, you're gonna get stini, you're gonna get stone walled, and that normal customer service

rep just has their hands tied. And sometimes it takes you having to say that you're looking to cancel your service to get to the customer retention department to be able to actually get help, to be able to actually get traction on getting a reduced bill, on negotiating what your monthly rate is, and something else that's worth mentioning to. Just given the current times that we're finding ourselves in, given the economic downturn, with a lot of people having

issues with their finances. But a lot of the phone lines have been come really slammed for these different financial service companies. So if you're having trouble getting through, keep trying, even though it can be frustrating. If if that's your preferred way of communicating with these different companies, keep making those calls. You're gonna need to be patient. Also try some alternative methods of getting in touch as well. You can look online, going to the different chat features that

they offer. Those are my favorite because I can kind of do those at my own pace, and then once they've agreed to it, I screenshot it and I've got proof you know that they're going to fix my problem. But then there's also a website called get human dot com where there are numbers that can get you directly to some of the different departments that you're looking for when it comes to some of these different financial service providers. All right, let's talk about what you do when you

actually get somebody on the phone. And I would say the best way to go scream at them. Yeah, I was gonna say, yell and scream as long as you can, and I think the decibel level that you that you can reach directly corresponds to the amount of stavings here and receive right. I like it good approach. Now, I would say losing your cool or getting argumentative is never going to help your case. And I think you have to put yourself into position of the customer service rep. Right.

I mean, how would you feel after answering calls from ad two mostly ungrateful humans every day. Probably probably not great? Right? And if you can kindly connect with the representative that that answers you, if you can stay calm in the conversation, your likelihood of making progress is a lot higher even connecting with them on a semi personal level. Nobody does that, So if you can be the person that does, you can stand out from the crowd and you're much more

likely to actually see movement on your issue. No one wants to help someone who's argumentative, rude, and completely impersonal, so we would say be polite yet firm. I think if you can strike that balance, uh, stick off your rights in the negotiation, ask for what you feel like you deserve. You know, present that research like we mentioned earlier,

but be calm while you're doing it. Yeah, And I like what else you said there, Man, like beyond being calm and polite, but like trying to find a way to connect with them personally, like ask how they're doing right now. That's totally a way to stand out, right, Like if you're able to kind of break through just the kind of you know, process of just them listening to people yell at them and saying, yes, I can

click and do this. But if you yeah, I can kind of like snap them out of it a little bit and they're like, oh, actually, yeah, I'm doing pretty good, or you know, I'm I'm doing pretty terrible. But just like basically treating them like a human Like if you're able to kind of see them as another human being versus someone who basically is standing in between you and you know you getting what you want ideas to not treat them like an object or a tool, but to yeah,

I see them as an actual human being. And something else that's helpful is being willing to to walk away. You know, this doesn't apply to every negotiation scenario out there. Sometimes you know you're gonna be talking to the company who is your only option, Like in the case of maybe talking to your mortgage provider, you can't easily swap mortgage providers. That's an expensive refine there. Yeah, that's an

expensive negotiation. Um. But you know, if you do have some other choices, be willing to take your business somewhere else. Our ability to to vote with our wallet is so crucial, and that's really important as well if if negotiations fall flat. Yeah, sometimes it's a pain to switch companies. You don't really want to, But if you're going to lead a successful negotiation, you have to be willing to walk away to a competitor.

And the great thing is is in our country, we have so many service providers that are available to us typically in most situations. Now there's some monopolies, but very few. Yeah, it's pretty easy to find somebody else who can provide what we want for the price we want if we can't get what we want from the company we're currently with. So you know, when we're talking about walking away, sometimes negotiating isn't even the best tactic, right shopping with other providers?

Is you have to ask, am I even going to get the best deal if I negotiate? Or is this just wasted time? Maybe you should be shopping the open market in order to score even bigger savings. Like, for example, you could try and haggle with a big company like Verizon to get your phone bill down ten or twenty bucks. And that might sound smart, right, ten or twenty bucks save, that's great, But those Verizon phone bills are really really

expensive for a Verizon bill. That's only right exactly. But you could instead switch to a company like Visible Mobile right who offers a month plans, and you're saving roughly off your off your current Verizon bill, And there are other great cell phone providers to Mitmobile, Republic Wireless. But in that case, negotiation makes absolutely no sense. You're banging your head against the wall in hopes of a really small discount when shopping is going to give you the

far bigger discount. So make sure that you don't necessarily resort to negotiation no matter the circumstance. Make sure that you're picking the moments, picking the companies, and finding the times where negotiation does make sense, and then shopping around in the times where negotiation just doesn't make any sense at all. Yeah, I man, you know the fact is that we can't successfully negotiate your bill in every single case.

You know, I've seen way too many people get stressed over intense negotiations with a service provider when the stakes are just too low, too small to even matter. So know how much you could save by negotiating before you even begin the process. You don't want to win the battle with just this one specific company, but then lose the overall war of your personal finances, of your life. You know, you don't want to spend eight hours on the phone negotiating with some giant company. Uh, it's not

gonna get you very far. To make sure that you're picking your battles. Yeah, so hopefully, I think, Matt. In this episode, we've covered some potential places in your life with different financial services companies that you do business with, where you can negotiate that maybe you thought it wasn't

possible before. Hopefully we've given people some tactics to consider and just an overall realization that negotiations should be a little bit more of a part of their life than it currently is because it can make a difference in your monthly bills, It can save you some money, and you know what, negotiation also not always the best option. Walking away shopping around can sometimes save you even more money. That's right, man, So let's go ahead and kick it

back to the beer. This episode, we had a Tampa time Share, which we don't recommend time shares, by the way, but this is a Tampa time Share grapefruit basil goza, and this one was brewed by Wrecking Bar brew pup here in Atlanta. That's only a few miles from where we live. You're you actually live a little bit closer to it than I do. But what were your thoughts on this beer? Buddy oh Man? This one was really good.

It was a little bit salty, a lot of basil, a splash of great fruit juiciness, and I thought the flavors melted incredibly well together in this beer. And I love the name Tampa time Share. I love that name. It's so good. It's like a throwback name. Like you hear time Shared. It makes me think of like themed cruise ships and like like or themed restaurants maybe, you know, just like that whole kind of like seventies eighties era

kind of life. Yeah. I felt like to this beer could have been maybe too heavily sweet potentially, but it wasn't. These flavors are hard to get right and they're hard to balance well in a beer. I feel like they hit the notes quite nicely with the basil and the grapefruit and the salt, and it's just perfect beach summer beer. Makes me look forward to our upcoming beach trips. Oh heck, yeah, dude, this is a beer that I want to drink on

the beach while we're playing spike Ball or something like that. Oh, most definitely, man. And the style of beer. I think a lot of folks refer to them as Florida vices, and I guess the story goes is that they were kind of developed by these beeries down in Florida because it's really hot. They're hot and human, and so they wanted these light, easy drinking beers. But um, I'm with you as far as it not being overly sweet. That's salt, man.

It just gives it this savory, briany profile and makes it taste more like this is gonna sound weird, but it kind of makes it taste a little bit more like chicken noodle soup than it is like a fruit pop, you know what I'm saying. Like that brian Nous has an element of like, oh no, this is dinner, this isn't dessert, But it totally has like that herbally basil upfront, but then after you swile and you kind of taste

the beer. The lingering flavors are totally weedy. I love that um and it also it kind of makes me think of like a basil lime gimlet. Uh, if you're had one of those. No, I haven't, but one of those recently I could taste. It's like basil lime and Jim it sounds wonderful. This was a great beer, especially for the summertime. Avery, Buddy, Well, that's gonna be it for this episode. For folks who want show notes for this episode, you can check out our website at how

to money dot com. And if you're listening to this episode and you can think of a specific person who you know would benefit from hearing about negotiating bills, maybe this is someone who you know hates to negotiate, but they really need to hear it because they're overpaying in every aspect of life. Uh, send this episode to them. You can even negotiate that you would listen to one of their favorite podcast episodes too. Yeah, like a little

trade off. You just start that conversation. That's what's really important here. I just don't expect them to listen to it right, But of course, if you're not already a subscriber, we would love for you to hit subscribe. Make sure you don't miss any future episodes that are going to come out. All right, Bunny, Well, that's gonna be up for this episode until next time. Best Friends Out, Best Friends Out,