Some great ways to save money!!!!!

I pride myself on trying to make funny and entertaining posts on here. Maybe I am pretty successful.... maybe I am not, but there is nothing funny about this post. This is about saving money.... and exercising your rights as a consumer.

As a former banker, and current unemployed blogger, I have to stretch my pennies as much as possible. To quote Carl Weathers in Arrested Development, "Whoa, Whoa, whoa. There's plenty of meat on that bone. Now you take this home, throw it in a pot, a potato. Baby, you've got a stew going. " If you want to save money, you have to think like Carl Weathers... or some other out-of-work actor.

These 3 principles of saving money are based on utilizing your rights as a consumer. I do not want anyone to abuse them, but you should know your rights and use them when appropriate!!

#1.
Here is the first way to save money. Any time you see something on sale for a great price, go to Future shop, or some other store that does price matching, and buy it there. They do a price match and then beat the price by 10% of the difference. Its a good deal, and the bigger the difference in price, the more money you save. I find it works best with video games because their prices are almost always behind in price drops. Here is an example of my most recent one:

Dead or Alive 4 for x-box 360 - price $69.99
price drop at Walmart $18.89
minus 10% difference -$5.10
price I paid = $13.79

Pretty sweet deal I think. So use it as much as you can, and you will save a fortune.

#2.
Number 2 is a very little known way to save money. There is a little something in Canada called the Retail Council of Canada. If the store that you are shopping at is a member of the Councel, they have pricing policies that they should be following. The most significant, if an item rings up at a higher price than the price on the shelf, the item is free up to a $10 value. If it is more expensive than that, $10 is deducted from the corrected price.

http://www.retailcouncil.org


#3.
The Third way--- Complain, complain, complain.

Here is a nice template that I use for most of my complaints. This has never failed, and most likely will never fail because any properly trained manager will try to do their best to make things right with their customers. Try it out next time you are unhappy with the service you receive:

I would like to express a complaint that I have with (Insert Company name here). I would like to tell you that (Insert Grievance here). I feel that this service is not what should be expected from a company that is supposed to be a leader in customer service. I am strongly considering canceling my service and moving to another service provider. I am writing this email because I am a dedicated (Company Name) customer that has almost every product that you offer, and I would like to give you an opportunity to retain me as a customer.


Now, use these tips wisely, they are very powerful. They should only be used when you receive poor service or an insuperior product. You want to exercise every right that you have as a consumer, but you don't want to abuse the kindness of others.

Things that I have gotten free with this method are: A free meal at an expensive restaurant, a free meal at a cheap restaurant (McDonalds), A free month of cable, a free Nerf football, free T.V. dinners, and a few others that I can't remember right now.