In part 1 of this series I talked about getting the best deals in restaurants and retailers. Although those money saving concepts can be used anywhere there are some types of deals that might only be achieved if you know a little more than just gift cards and coupons. In Part 2 of this series I’m going to talk about just that. cable bills, phone bills, the plumber, or even getting that tree cut down in your yard can all be done at a discount if you know how.
How to get the best deal on your bills
-Your home rent
For some bills it might be next to impossible to do anything to lower it other than changing it completely. Something like your rent you can’t really change unless you move. You could however negotiate to keep your rent down the next year, especially if you’ve been a good tenant. When I was a renter I did this many times. I had been living somewhere for a year and I wanted to stay another year.
I anticipated that rent would likely go up if I just waited for my lease term to end. Rent going up each year is a normal and expected thing so landlords do it. The key is not to wait so long to start your negotiations. You have to give 30 days notice and sign a new term lease before then, so a good rule is to start negotiating 3 months before your lease ends. That should give you enough time to make a deal while still being able to move somewhere else if you wanted to.
If you wait until it’s closer to your 30 day notice date then you don’t have as much leverage because it will seem like you will be staying there either way. Give the landlord some time to think about it, but not too much time. What you’re trying to do is show them that you’re a good tenant and that if you can’t keep the rent down you are still giving yourself time for an option to move somewhere else. You never threaten to move, but only give yourself the time in case you do want to move. This way you can also get the new rental agreement ahead of time and know what type of monthly rate you’ll be responsible for and whether or not you can afford it.
-Your cable bill, TV and internet
Cable tv and internet is another expense most people will pay for. You could save some money and become a “cord cutter” and skip the cable tv, but you’ll still need to pay for internet if you want some entertainment at home. So what do you do to get the best deal on internet and TV?
First of all, you should shop around for your choices. Most places will have at least two good options for you to choose from. Where I am we have Comcast and AT&T for internet as the best options. I went with Comcast this go around. Before you sign up though you need to be sure that you search around for good neighborhood deals. You just need to find a Comcast rep that is in sales who hands out deals to apartment complexes and neighborhoods. Sometimes these deals will be better than what you see advertised on Comcast’s own website.
Another good way to find a deal is to just call into Comcast and see what they offer you. If you tell them that you’re trying to decide between them and their competitor, in this case AT&T, then they’ll give you a host of options to try and get your business. Some of these options may not be seen on their sites.
Of Course, a lot of the times these deals are usually just “promotional rates” that will end after 1 or 2 years. Once this happens you’ll need to either cancel and change to a different service or renegotiate a better rate.
The same negotiating tactic will work for your AT&T cell phone bill, your Comcast cable bill, and even the plumber. The key is to always bring up their competitors to make them give you the best price.
The best deal on lawn service and tree trimming
For any service you want to try and find a couple competitors to come and give you a free estimate. A free estimate is just that, free. So you lose nothing but time. Also, this gives you a chance to interview the contractor that will be working on your house. This could be a maid, a plumber, or even a nanny. I never hire the first guy that comes to my house even if I think he’s the “best” one. I want to see what others have to say in order for me to get a better idea of what is going on.
With something like tree trimming, the best thing you can do is get a few guys out to your house to look at your trees and give you an estimate. I did this recently and I got a huge range of prices. I mean a huge range. And it was all for the same supposed work. The difference was thousands of dollars. Thousands!
After interviewing and picking out the best people that had the best sense and the best prices I would then send out emails to all of them asking them if they were able to lower their prices anymore. Some of them would come back and lower their prices while others would not, so this is definitely hit and miss.
However, after getting some discounts from a couple of them I would then ask them if there was an off-season where I could get the work done and get an even cheaper rate. I was happy to hear from 3 different companies that they do have a slower season in the winter time and that if I got the work done then I could save another 50% off of the prices. 50% off for the same work, just for waiting a few months. I was in no hurry to trim my trees so I waited.
The keys to the best deal on anything
1- The most important key thing to know is that everything is negotiable. Once you realize that you’ll be doing great.
2- When you do negotiate you need to come at them with hard evidence of competitors prices to make the competitors fight against each other.
3- Once you’ve exhausted going back and forth with competitors you should ask them if there’s anything else you can do to lower the price. That might seem strange, but being straight and blunt will work a lot of the time. I let them know that I’m trying to save as much money as possible and I would love to know if there is any other way I could do that with them for this service. I’d say 50% of the time I learn something new, like an off-season to do the work, or another cheaper alternative that will do the same job for less. If you don’t ask though you’ll never know.
This completes this 2 part series on “How to get the best deal on anything.” However in the future I’ll dive more into detail on all of these subjects that I just quickly skimmed over. Some people need the nitty gritty details, I get it, and you’ll get them. Expect me to write about these deals again with much more detail. For now though just know that you can always get a good deal on anything if you would just look around a bit and learn how to negotiate a little.