Today I have to call Lowe’s; they promised our tile would arrive by today and yesterday we got an e-mail saying it’d be here on Saturday. No big deal except we don’t have a freaking bathroom and so yes it’s a big deal.
Yesterday I called my bank. A cashier’s check that I had deposited bounced. I called the bank that sent the check, called my bank, called the bank that sent the check again, eventually got it straightened out.
Fraud alerts that need to be checked, fees that have been tacked on unnecessarily, and oh yeah remember when I thought signing up for a free phone number with FreedomPop would be awesome and now, a year after canceling it, they still charge one or two cents every stupid month to my credit card? They haven’t responded to me asking them to knock it off, so now I have to call the credit card company and have them blocked.
Sometimes I think, “I need an assistant.” Less than one second after that, I think, “ooh, I should look into being somebody’s virtual assistant as a side hustle.” I guess it’s not so bad. Or it wouldn’t be so bad if somebody would pay me for it.
Being intentional with money means finding promo codes and making choices that prioritize value over cost, it means getting extra income where possible and shaving off pennies on the other side, but it also means making phone calls. So many phone calls.
For me, maybe reaching FI won’t mean retiring early, it’ll just mean letting myself let those things go.
Phone calls are the worst! But there is a way to make them pay…sometimes. Whenever we have to deal with something like not getting the proper number of awards points on our credit card, or being over-billed for out-of-country cell-phone use (these come to mind because they both happened within the past month), we always ask for extra compensation for the hassle. It doesn’t always work, but surprisingly often we’ll get a really great perk. Hilton recently threw us 10,000 bonus points for having to deal with their computer error, for example, but only because we asked. Hospitality companies are really great about this, but other companies are catching on too. Anyway, it’s always worth asking if they can throw you a perk — when it works, it makes the all the hassle actually feel like a paying side-gig!
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I’m definitely going to ask for Lowe’s to compensate somehow! Will it make up for an extra four days without a toilet? Maybe not, but it’s something.
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$70 off! So this time, definitely worth it. For those penny charges from FreedomPop, maybe not.
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Yes! Good for you!!!!
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Yes! I spent 3 hours yesterday making various phone calls trying to optimize bills etc. On a side note, a few months ago our local Lowe’s delayed our tile order too! After making several phone calls with fake-patience/snark, a manager finally straightened it out. Stay fierce!
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Oh I bet your bills are in much better shape now!
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