Poor
Man Survival
Self
Reliance tools for independent minded people…
ISSN
2161-5543
A
Digest of Urban Survival Resources
Sometimes
you get the peanut, sometimes you get the shell...the story of my
life.
>>The Poor Man
20
Consumer Hacks You Need to Know
I
know everything is cyclical and this past month has been a bitch.
Our online sales at every site we own have been nearly flat. The
only bright spot was a physical auction I conducted last week. To
compound my frustration a wind storm blew off half our roof and also
damaged our ISP leaving us without full internet access and despite
my best technical efforts, my primary computer is about to become an
electronic filing cabinet while I await its replacement.
Our
vehicle is starting to drain our account as well...a few hundred
there, a hundred here and soon it's another $1,000 and I'm just
thrilled about all the summer expenses [if summer ever gets here] we
incur each year with tons of soil, seed, fertilizer, etc. I'm ready
to drop anchor on a houseboat somewhere and become a damned hermit.
Beside, I like fish but my dog -a lab if you can believe it- hates
water!
With
all that in mind I thought I would share some of Steve Gillman's
thoughts on saving money...
One of
the best ways to save money may be to complain, and Comcast offers
plenty of reasons for complaints. So I recently called to say their
service was too expensive and I wanted to cancel, and they cut my
rate by $17 per month for six months. I saved $102 for a few minutes
on the phone — and it was the third time I’ve done that with
Comcast.
You
too probably love to save money and/or get better products and
services, so add regular complaints-by-phone to your arsenal of
consumer hacks. And keep reading to learn why you need to abandon
your online shopping cart, order fries without salt, buy auto
insurance in December, how to get free extended warranties, and much
more.
What
do you do when you no longer need your DVDs, textbooks, and
electronic devices? Don’t sell them for a few pennies at a rummage
sale! Use the Amazon
Trade-in Program
instead. Submit your things to see if they qualify, print a mailing
label, and send everything off to Amazon. You’ll be paid with an
Amazon gift card.
The
best time to get a deal on vegetables at a farmers market is during
the last half-hour before they close. I’ve bought tomatoes and
other vegetables for half-price in the final 30 minutes. Vendors are
happy to sell them rather than pack them up and possibly throw them
away if they spoil.
Sometimes
those fries have been sitting there for a while before they get
scooped into a bag or box for you. But if you have a few minutes you
can get really fresh fries. Just ask for them without salt. The
kitchen staff will have to cook a new batch, because the ones waiting
are already salted. Once you get your fresh fries you can salt them
yourself to taste.
When
the cashier asks if you want the extended warranty, do you say yes?
According to a Card
Hub
Sudy 31 percent of people buy extended warranties each year. But many
are already covered for free by their credit cards. And Card Hub
found that none of the cards which have this extra feature require
you to sign up or register the product. Check your credit cards and
buy your next printer or TV with one that offers an extended
warranty.
Not
sure if you’re ready to pay the price for something you see on
Amazon? Use a price tracking service like CamelCamelCamel
to show you whether the price is trending up or down. It will also
notify you when there’s a drop in price.
Cash-back
websites
make a commission when you visit retailers through their links and
buy something. They refund much of that commission to you. These
programs are free and easy to use; once you sign up and go to
retailers through the links on the rebate site you’re automatically
credited a rebate for each purchase. You might get only 1 percent
back shopping at Walmart, but it can go much higher. For example,
Ebates.com
has been rebating 5 to 10 percent (on double rebate days) for
Backcountry.com purchases.
You
probably use a cash-back credit card, but do you use the
right one
for each purchase? For example, my American Express business card
gives me 5 percent back on purchases made at office supply stores, so
I buy printer paper with that one. For eating out it offers only 1
percent, so I use a different card, one that gives me 3 percent cash
back at restaurants. If you get confused, use a permanent marker to
write “gas,” “grocery,” and such on the back of each card.
Another
good tool for shopping online, Cost
Shredder
helps you combine savings strategies. You choose the retailer and it
locates the best discounted gift cards, best cash-back website to go
through, and a cash back credit card. Use all three to “stack”
your savings (of course you can also do this yourself without the
tool).
As a
former carpet cleaner I can tell you that during the slow winter
season prices are very
negotiable. Do your annual cleaning during slow times to get the best
deal. And check out my list of 10 more ways
to save on carpet cleaning.
Buy a
car on the last day of the month, says the common advice. Sales
people are struggling to meet monthly quotas or book one more
commission, so they’re more likely to lower prices. But a report
on MainStreet.com
suggests a catch; when the last day falls on a weekend, the
dealership’s “sales month” typically goes through the next
Monday. So when the month ends on a Saturday or Sunday, wait until
Monday (the 1st or 2nd of the new month) to negotiate your purchase.
I’ve
discovered by accident (several times) that you can often get a deal
by abandoning your online shopping cart. For example, I was buying a
discounted Home Depot gift card for $94 (face value $100), and I had
to leave before completing the order. The next day I had an email
offering me $5 off to complete my purchase. Now I routinely abandon
shopping carts and complete my purchases a day or two later —
sometimes with a discount.
When
you’re considering buying a product or service, first get on any
related mailing list and wait a while. You might get a steep
discount. For example, I signed up for Udemy.com and considered
taking some classes that cost $49 to $199, but I was busy. After a
week I started getting emails offering “Any Class for $15,” an
eventually “Any Class for $10.” I’ve used this strategy
numerous times.
A
study done by InsuranceQuotes.com
found you can pay much more for car insurance if you buy at the wrong
time. Nationwide, the cheapest month for auto insurance is December,
and the most expensive is March. Differences between lowest and
highest-price months varied from state to state. The worst one is
Hawaii, where car insurance costs 47.9% more in March than in
December. The best month varies by state too, so use the handy
tool on InsuranceQuotes.com
to see when you should shop for a new policy.
You
can pay up to $60 to have the hazy headlights open your car
“restored.” Or you can polish them with a rag and toothpaste,
according to MotoringAbout.com.
My results were okay — at least as good as a $10 cleaning product
I’d previously tried.
One
contributor
on Quora.com
suggests that online retailers may track you and adjust prices
upwards depending on which websites or pages you’ve previously
visited. He might be right, given the recent growth of dynamic
pricing
(instantly adjusting prices according to various factors). The
solution is to clear
your browser cookies
before shopping on a website, so the retailer can’t know where
you’ve been.
Shopping-hack
expert Mark
Ellwood agrees
you should clear your browser, but also notes that some retailers may
use your IP address to determine your location and adjust prices
accordingly. He suggests VPN to hide your IP address, or simply
checking prices away from home before you make a large purchase
online.
Amazon
will often refund the difference in price if you buy something from
them and the price drops in the next 30 days. They don’t advertise
this, and you have to ask for it, but there are numerous
reports
of customers successfully getting a refund.
Attend
college in another state and you might pay double or triple what
residents pay. But you can get a big discount if the college
participates in the Midwest Student Exchange Program, and if you live
in Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri,
Nebraska, North Dakota, or Wisconsin. The MSEP
advises
that you contact the Campus Administrator to ask how to apply as an
MSEP student, and says to expect “savings between $500 and $5,000.”
Have
you ever spent thirty minutes on the phone with customer support and
still not had your problem resolved? On LifeHacker.com, Alan
Henry suggests
you start
with regular customer service, to establish an attempt to resolve
your problem, but then quickly escalate to higher levels as
necessary. Asking for a manager might work, but Henry also recommends
using CallRed.com,
which he
says
“lets you send a private, complete message directly to a company’s
executive customer service team.”
Additional
Resources
The
Poor Man’s Essential Survival Package
--The Doctors Protocol: Secrets of Survival
--How to Survive the Coming Economic Collapse
--Guide to Self Reliant Living
--Becoming Self Sufficient for Six Months
--How I Found Freedom in an Un-free World
Yours
for better living,
Bruce
‘the Poor Man’
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