Spend Less By Asking

I recently finished reading Ramit Sethi’s I Will Teach You To Be Rich. He gives very good practical personal finance advice,but I felt the book was written for and suited for an American audience. For example, when discussing how to pick a bank, he talks of asking the bank to waive fixed fees and other fees and threatening to move banks of they do not. Well, in Kenya, banks are almost cartel-like. Unless you have a huge bank balance, the relationship manager won’t blink at your threats to move to a competitor because of a fixed charge. On a rare occasion they will waive a charge, but using this as a negotiating tactic rarely works for you and I.

While I couldn’t apply this advice directly, I did decide to be deliberate in my asking. I do negotiate quite a bit,but I’ve found that in financial services, stuff is more or less fixed, (unless you have a big bank balance!). But I decided to ask.

I tested this out when paying my medical insurance. A local bank had approached me offering to be my insurance agent (banks are now actively selling insurance products) and I decided to try it out. The lady serving me calculated my policy amount which was quite a bit, and just as I was writing the cheque, I decided to ask, “Can you allow me to pay in 3 installments without charging me interest on it?”. I was expecting her to at most give me a lower interest rate or to refuse considering I do not bank with them, so imagine my pleasant surprise when she responded, “Sure!”.
Because I asked, I got free premium financing and as we know, a shilling today is worth more than one tomorrow! The best part about this is I now have a leg in. Should I need to insure high value items, I’ll probably get free financing on this too.

My second example is still in insurance, this time my motor insurance which I insure directly with the insurance company. My car is quite old, so its value and insurance premium are not substantial. However when I got the quotation, I got the feeling the company didn’t give me a “no claims discount”. This is a discount you’re entitled to if you do not make claims. Now, my insurance is about 33,000 bob so I could have just paid, but I decided to ASK! Yes, the company had “forgotten” to credit my discount, in actual fact my insurance premium was 28,000 bob.

That is the beauty in asking. You may not receive what you wish for, but then you may.

I just might call my bank and ask for a bank charges waiver. I won’t threaten them though! 🙂

Read how I saved on my HELB loan penalties by asking, and how you can get flexi-time at work, by asking!