Mr. Gibson Posted February 23, 2015 Share Posted February 23, 2015 . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stein Posted February 23, 2015 Share Posted February 23, 2015 I did it in the ICU when my platelet count was low and there was a hole in my guts. I told the additions manager I would be paying my co pay in full before I left the hospital if we could work a deal. Suddenly co pay went from $1600 to $700. I paid it with my FSA on the spot. Now that Obama care has jacked my deductible through the roof and destroyed my specialist coverage, I get to do this a lot more. Never pay retail! I like this. I choose this to respond to. ALL transactions are negotiable, whether you negotiate or not. In many ways and for many things, taking things for granted and paying the asking price allows the seller to jack up prices. Personally, if someone wants my business, then the price has to be right. If it isn't, I got 2 options: ask for a "better" price, or take a walk. My money/business, my choice. I don't have an issue with either asking for a better price, saying no to negotiating, or choosing not to do business. I DO have a problem with being forced to pay for something and being told what it will cost. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rct Posted February 23, 2015 Share Posted February 23, 2015 I'm guessing then all the super studly uber negotiators that never pay retail have never been to the grocery store because that's where yer gettin had, not the music shoppe. rct Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hall Posted February 23, 2015 Share Posted February 23, 2015 With you on that, rct ! steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
'Scales Posted February 23, 2015 Share Posted February 23, 2015 I'm guessing then all the super studly uber negotiators that never pay retail have never been to the grocery store because that's where yer gettin had, not the music shoppe. rct too right. What price those Dorito's for cash? Vending machines must be interesting too. The internet is great for music purchases - I compare all and choose cheapest - seems to be via eBay as often as not and there I never pay more than I'm prepared to and usually quite a bit less (got an mxr micro amp for c$50 delivered the other day, amazing). Whatever makes you happy in this life though - there's no right or wrong on this topic, just preference. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Searcy Posted February 24, 2015 Share Posted February 24, 2015 I'm guessing then all the super studly uber negotiators that never pay retail have never been to the grocery store because that's where yer gettin had, not the music shoppe. rct I'm not getting had anywhere. I shop at three different grocery stores. Aldi, Costco and Publix. Deals are everywhere if your willing to work them. Never pay retail!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Searcy Posted February 24, 2015 Share Posted February 24, 2015 too right. What price those Dorito's for cash? Vending machines must be interesting too. The internet is great for music purchases - I compare all and choose cheapest - seems to be via eBay as often as not and there I never pay more than I'm prepared to and usually quite a bit less (got an mxr micro amp for c$50 delivered the other day, amazing). Whatever makes you happy in this life though - there's no right or wrong on this topic, just preference. I don't much like Doritos and I never buy anything out of vending machines. If you catch the sales right a 2 L of Coke is $.99. I promise you, however cheap I sound on this forum I'm much cheaper than that. I may be the cheapest bastard that ever lived. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
'Scales Posted February 24, 2015 Share Posted February 24, 2015 I'm pretty cheap on a lot of stuff too I must admit. And though bargaining with retailers doesn't interest me, my father-in-law and I homebrew all our alcohol - beer works out at about 20c a glass I think and the other stuff is cheap too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deeman Posted February 24, 2015 Share Posted February 24, 2015 I'm guessing then all the super studly uber negotiators that never pay retail have never been to the grocery store because that's where yer gettin had, not the music shoppe. rct I also shop at a few different places for different items depending on sales and pricing and i grow a vegetable and herb garden. Not to mention garage sales, thrift stores and other resale shops. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kelly campbell Posted February 24, 2015 Share Posted February 24, 2015 There is nothing wrong with being frugal, I think there is a difference between cheap and frugal. I look at cheap as being more when you expect someone or some business to take a reduction in their profit margin so you can save money..especially if someone works on commission you have now taken money from that individual..I also don't buy it when some one says they NEVER pay retail. I guess I also feel like it is more function of todays narcististic society...you know the " I am special and different from the rest of the world therefore you should let me pay less". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milod Posted February 24, 2015 Share Posted February 24, 2015 Actually I don't even think "frugal" is the correct word either. That's when you just plain can't afford full price on "X" and buy "Y" because it's less cost. This comment earlier makes great sense on almost everything we purchase. "I always try to get a good deal simply because I buy and have 10 times the gear I actually need. If I do not get a good deal, that's fine I do not need to buy pretty much anything else for the rest of my life. The problem with music gear is that a good portion of their sales are driven by unnecessary purchases." I'm not sure that is the bottom line on almost everything we have. When I was a kid we had a coal fired furnace that ran outa coal in the wee hours and the house got doggone chilly. None of us died of it, and we enjoyed the kitchen by the stove for hot chocolate and some warm food types for breakfast before we girded for our day at school. Air conditioning? One of the town's two grocery stores had it. The movie theater had it. I knew of no home that did. I remember coming home from school to "watch" the westerns and kid shows on the radio. Then television burst on the scene and ... no thanks in a living room with stale air compared to the outside because... we had no air conditioning in summer and one would warm things of an evening when it was cold. We "need" very little. We want quite a lot. Even the folks who give away virtually all they earn are "buying" what's important to them. It is my observation that folks like us - unless there's someone here whose mental processes are mostly business per se - work and play kinda to a max. The folks who end up with all the cash - and then the toys - often by intent don't have the cash to buy from a vending machine and prefer others to buy dinner for them at a negotiation session. It's virtually as natural to be "that way" as it is for most of us here to find ourselves humming or at least silently humming or singing a tune. Alas, I ain't like that. OTOH, at my age it makes no sense to attempt to change that much of my nature since I'll croak in another five or 10 years or less anyway. Then again... one might ask whether, after some thought, it's worthwhile to change one's nature regardless if one is "rewarded" by a given lifestyle, assuming there's a feeling of overall economic, and specifically one's own job stability if one enjoys the job and always making it better. One might note that even in theoretical "communist" societies - whether religious sect such as the Hutterites or Marxists - in reality negotiation and barter are huge segments of the real economy both internally and externally. Sometimes the goodwill brought by a lowered price for the seller can be worth far more than a few dollars of lost profit - and each customer who leaves a store feeling slightly cheated, costs more than his/her own loss of sales for the enterprise because that customers tells everyone he/she can. Why? Unless there's not enough of a commodity that's vital for survival, there almost always are options at greater and lesser price tags. That's a matter of perceived value to both the buyer and seller. When the seller does so at greater than the value to him/his enterprise, he wins more profit. If not, he has to adjust the price tag so he can remain in business or ... go outa business. If it were easy, we'd all be buying and selling widgets or whatever. I know that, for example, I've bought stuff at "market price" and still felt cheated; I've paid more or charged less on occasions that made for yet more profit. It's an art. The guys who do it well have much nicer homes than mine in "our" culture. Life's interesting. m Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Searcy Posted February 24, 2015 Share Posted February 24, 2015 There is nothing wrong with being frugal, I think there is a difference between cheap and frugal. I look at cheap as being more when you expect someone or some business to take a reduction in their profit margin so you can save money..especially if someone works on commission you have now taken money from that individual.. That's me 100%. And if I don't get a reduction than that salesperson is charging me more just to increase their profit margin and they have now taken money away from me. "Never pay retail" is more a philosophy than a statement of fact. It involves things like "never borrow money" and "never opening a credit card" and "live within your means" and "dont be an early adapter" and "always spend money based on a budget". It also means rejecting societal norms like having car payments, buying extended warranties, being embarrassed to shop in a Big Lots, pawn shop or a GoodWill or insisting that used things are not good enough and having to have the latest TVs and phones when they come out. These are lessons that life taught me years ago back when I was flat broke. It takes a lot of discipline to keep room in a storage shed to store a bail of paper towels or rebuild the front end on a 250,000 mile 96 Honda instead of running down to the car lot and falling for the "no money down! everybody rides!" scam. I mean... you HAVE to have a car payment... right? But once you embrace that philosophy you might be amazed at all the deals you can find and all the doodads you can live without. I've been doing this for a long time. Most folks just shake their heads at me the same way I shake my head at them when they cart home a new $1000 TV they just bought on credit while proclaiming "The little man can't get ahead". And while it doesn't happen often I'm still always a little amazed when I run across that rare person who who actually gets upset that I live this way. But this IS how I live. Cheap, frugal, thrifty, You can call it what you like. whatcha gonna do? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kelly campbell Posted February 24, 2015 Share Posted February 24, 2015 Actually it does not upset me I just don't know how people can be that way, I am sure my wife would like it I were more that way. I also like your attitude, unabashed not defensive and no excuses, I appreciate the honesty. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milod Posted February 24, 2015 Share Posted February 24, 2015 For what it's worth, it's my observation that different folks not only will reflect their own background on buying a lotta "stuff" and seeking the best price for such materials, and often they'll take on different spending habits at different times in their lives. Been there, done that. Some factors, I think, also have to do with local and state sales taxes on "stuff" that we buy. Figure 8 percent on a $100 purchase and you've just spent an extra light lunch. In my case, driving to a guitar store costs me about eight gallons of gas. At around $3 per gallon it's another $25 bucks or so. That's enough over $30 that on a $100 guitar store purchase that my wife and I just lost the price tag of what's a standard decent lunch in this part of the world. Or, I can buy "mail order" that lacks the tax and the well-gamed governmental fuel costs. (It'll almost certainly be both less expensive fuel and safer than rail shipping with the Keystone XL pipeline approved, I'll add. And yes, I've studied it more than most folks on either side because it'll cut through part of my county.) Anyway, with a minor $100 purchase, I'm paying extra about a third of the cost at the nearest guitar store. On the other hand, if I buy mail order, some stuff is pretty likely to be "no problem," but I've had problems with about a third of the guitars I've bought online largely due to rather different climate conditions, etc. That's not a problem at the closest guitar store, and they'll adjust the doggone thing pretty much on the spot if I ask nicely. So on a $600 purchase, now I'm spending $48 in tax plus the $25 or so travel for about $75. This time of year that'd buy us one heck of a dinner and drinks in this part of the world. So it's a matter of weighing the options. No more, no less. Were I to be in a bigger population base and the accompanying bigger paycheck for what I do, I'd probably go to the guitar store and see if they'd make certain the price tag pretty well matched online, or figure a little better price on the case if a less expensive guitar or thisorthat on something to lessen the impact of the sales tax. And some places... yeah, they'll make more on a true cash purchase than on a credit card - the amount varies - and may be willing to make that a good "excuse" for a bit of a discount. On a $600 purchase, that's lunch or ... gee, maybe a cupla sets of strings they can sell and still have the same "real" profit margin. Again, it's weighing the options. Some, btw, are "us" entirely. Some... let's just say that the personalities and customer experience with different firms will vary, and that also tilts the options at times. m Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zigzag Posted February 24, 2015 Share Posted February 24, 2015 NM Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drog Posted February 24, 2015 Share Posted February 24, 2015 I can't stand waiting in line while some idiot tries to negotiate a better deal with the cashier. Now you are just wasting my time as well. Never trust a person that always negotiates. Thats my rule I live by. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Searcy Posted February 24, 2015 Share Posted February 24, 2015 I can't stand waiting in line while some idiot tries to negotiate a better deal with the cashier. Now you are just wasting my time as well. Never trust a person that always negotiates. Thats my rule I live by. Now you're just trying to hurt my feelings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deeman Posted February 24, 2015 Share Posted February 24, 2015 I can't stand waiting in line while some idiot tries to negotiate a better deal with the cashier. Now you are just wasting my time as well. Never trust a person that always negotiates. Thats my rule I live by. Quit being such a crabby patty. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riffster Posted February 24, 2015 Share Posted February 24, 2015 I can't stand waiting in line while some idiot tries to negotiate a better deal with the cashier. Now you are just wasting my time as well. Never trust a person that always negotiates. Thats my rule I live by. In my experience the people that talk the most and waste time of employees at GC are the folks that like to talk gear, they want a conversation as part of the sale, some lonley existence. But I would not call them idiots. Earlier last year I bought a guitar at GC, take a breath, it was on sale so I did not have to negotiate, anyway the cutest girl there asked me if I needed something I said yes, bought the guitar and it took her forever to ring me up because she was fairly needed some training, well there was a line of lonely middle aged men behind me huffing and puffing because they wanted to be ringed up by this girl. Probably these lonley souls were blaming it on me. Never trust a cranky middle aged guy is a rule I live by. But seriously, GC needs to train their staff better and if you asked me I would say those guys worried too much about their own commision instead of making a sale are part of the problem. I have a call this morning for an insurance rate negotiation, now why would these people not want to pay more for their health insurance? they are taking money out of my pocket, I am going to get less commission. They said something about having a better quote from somebody else but I'll probably disregard that piece of information. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rct Posted February 24, 2015 Share Posted February 24, 2015 GC is in the middle of re-training. And uniforming. And letting seniorer sellers go. And eliminating anything from the store that doesn't have data(whatever that might be) to back up the sale of it. At least at our store here. I don't see anyone else saying they are seeing the same in theirs, might just be under performers that are changing up, and I can definitely see ours being an underperformer. rct Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
badbluesplayer Posted February 24, 2015 Share Posted February 24, 2015 Never trust a cranky middle aged guy is a rule I live by. Was that you in the line in front of me? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milod Posted February 24, 2015 Share Posted February 24, 2015 I'm seldom all that happy I'm as old as I am, although the alternative certainly isn't more attractive... but when I look at some of the cute younger women sales clerks and such I keep remembering that they could be my granddaughters. Now a good-looking 50-60 year old girl is a lot more interesting. m Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Gibson Posted February 24, 2015 Share Posted February 24, 2015 . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rct Posted February 24, 2015 Share Posted February 24, 2015 50 - 60 year old babes? Did somebody say that? I get tired of being thanked for my never-wrong-guitar-knowledge, I'd like to flex my other speciality now and again. rct Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rct Posted February 24, 2015 Share Posted February 24, 2015 rct Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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