Money…a major need for early retirement, whether you have money or a plan to earn money. It’s the most important factor for early retirement. My father taught me that “a penny saved is a penny earned.” These days a penny can’t buy much, but if you have a lot of pennies it adds up. So how do you save all these pennies? In modern day terms, we’re not saving physical pennies but it’s the idea of finding ways to save money. There are many ways to save money and I’ll blog my own experiences. This article is titled “Never Hurts to Ask.” Never hurts to ask what? It never hurts to ask

Is this the lowest price?
Are there any specials?
Are there any discounts?
Is there anything you can do to knock the price down?
Do you price match?

These are all questions I’ve used in the past. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t. Most of the big box stores do price match. If I have loyalty points with one store and there’s an item cheaper at another competitor’s store, I’ll print the cheaper price out, go to the store, and ask can you price match. Some places even price match against Amazon. A couple of conditions though…they have to have the product in the store and the product has to be exact same model. If the model looks the same but the model number is off by one letter or number, then it’s not the same product and no price match.

There are some jobs are given extra discounts. I have teacher friends and at some stores, they give an extra discount for teachers. Some stores give extra discounts for first responders and law enforcement.

When I go to restaurants, first thing I is do you have any specials or any deals going on? Typically, it’s like happy hour specials there are times there’s a promotion going on that we didn’t realize is going on and would have missed it if we didn’t ask.

I have 2 examples I can share with you. One, I wanted to put hard wood flooring in my house and its was a big purchase. First, let me tell you how hard it is to pick out the color you want. I went to my local hardware store. I talked to one of the managers saying I want to make a big order. After I gave him the square footage, he said he could give me 15%. I said thank you but I said I’m about to spend a huge amount of money, can you give me a better discount. He came eventually gave me 17%. Hey, 2% more is better than nothing.

My second story. I go to an office supply store and shop for a wireless mouse and keyboard. I do a price check online on my phone and Amazon has it for cheaper. I ask the store cashier, do you price match against Amazon and he says yes. I said great and showed him my phone to show proof of the price.

Bottom line, it never hurts to ask. The worse that happened to me is they say no. At first, I felt embarrassed asking but saving a few dollars here and there really adds up so it’s more money in your pocket and more money that goes towards your savings, in my case my early retirement portfolio. If you are interested in following my journey, email subscribe to get alerts of latest posts or follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest.

To see all my previous articles, go to my Archive page.