Today, I Saved $800...In About An Hour

This is a super-fast read. I’ll have you in and out in less than five minutes and give you some info to help you save money. 

This morning I realized my credit card company hit me with a $40 late payment fee for being one day late with my payment. Ouch! But I legit forgot to pay my bill. So, here’s what I did:

First, I made the past due payment online. While I was online, I launched the credit card company’s chat feature and asked the customer service associate to waive the $40 late fee. I left the chat window open and kept doing my work while the associate worked on my account. 

After a few moments, the associate let me know they would issue me a credit for $40. Mission accomplished! Total time elapsed: 3 minutes. So let me share the message I wrote to persuade my credit card company to waive the late fee. Here it is verbatim:

Hello Larry. Requesting waiver of the $40 late fee on my account. I just submitted payment. It was due yesterday. 

Riveting, right? Okay, not exactly my best literary work, but it got the result I wanted. And saving $40 in three minutes translates to exactly $800 per hour. And saving $800 in an hour makes for a more attention-grabbing blog post title! LOL. 

So, what's the moral of the story? Well for one, pay your bills on-time. But, if you forget to pay (or you can’t pay), it doesn't hurt to simply ask for a break. You’ll be surprised how often a reasonable request will result in you getting exactly what you asked for. 

Many years ago, I was negotiating a home purchase and I was getting increasingly frustrated in the process because I didn’t feel like the seller was offering any concessions. Then, a mentor hit me with some words that have stuck with me ever since. She said, “You don’t ask, you don’t get!” Bam! That got me all the way together! And it became a guiding philosophy for all of life. 

In a future post, I’ll tell the story about a social experiment in which I made unreasonable asks of other people. I’ll share what I asked for, who I asked, and how they responded. 

But for now, your task is to just ask.

Gtall signing off.