Asking For Savings

  Doesn't it always seem like saving money is such a challenge and so time consuming?  Well sometimes it's not.  Sometimes all you have to do is ask.  It's really that simple you just have to get over the fear of someone saying "no" or the worry about what someone else will think.

  In the past week I have had three experiences where I was able to save money simply by asking and by asking nicely I might add.  The first was at Toys R Us.  For some reason I brought the wrong 20% off one item coupon with me.  I virtually always have one of these on hand but this time I had an expired one.  I decided to ask at the service desk if there was anything they could do.  I was told that they do not keep the coupons at the store but they would see if there was anything a manager could do.  Low and behold the manager was able to find me one.  That saved me $8.00 as I was buying a new booster seat for my daughter.

  The second savings came last night.  One of my best friends and I decided to go out to the movies for Mothers Day.  The local theater near us was doing free movies for moms and we decided that sounded great.  It is an eat in style theater meaning you get to order a sit down meal there complete with just about anything you want and a usually very friendly server.  We decided to splurge and order the BBQ nacho's.  Well an hour into the movie the nacho's still had not come so we waved the waiter over and quietly and nicely told him to just cancel our order as the movie was almost over.  ( By the way are movies getting shorter or what?) After a million apologies he offered us both ice cream sundaes on the house.  I highly recommend Water for Elephants and Mint Chip with hot fudge.

  The third savings this week came this morning when our Direct TV DVR died.  Hubby was so bummed he had recorded a ton of movies on the weekend that they did the free HBO preview and they were all wiped out.  We called and they said they would ship out a new box and just as we were hanging up I decided to tell the rep very nicely how bummed hubby was about his movies. He said that he could not give us anther HBO weekend but how would we like two months of Showtime?  I like HBO better but free Showtime works for me.

  The moral of the story is it never hurts to ask and you do not have to get ugly when you ask.