Haggling in America: 4 Things I Never Thought were Negotiable + Haggling Tips

For some reason Americans don't haggle or negotiate over price--you either pay the listed price or you don't buy it. Except at maybe garage sales or car delearships, but even there we hate it. The recently released Edmonds Survey of 1002 car buyers shows this:

"One in five Americans (21%) would rather say sayonara to sex for a month than haggle over the price of a car; 44 percent would give up Facebook for one month and 29 percent would turn over their Smartphone for a weekend if it meant avoiding the haggle" 

Somehow haggling has gotten a bad rap in American culture: it feels slimy, dishonest, price-gougey--just sell me the car for a fair price rather than marking it up $4k and making the sale into this time-consuming game of counter-offers. We get emotional about it. When I offer half for whatever the sticker price says at a garage sale (my standard rule), people get insulted:

"$4 is a VERY FAIR price for this chair, and you want me to give it to you for $2!? This was $199 when I bought it!"

Despite all this cultural disdain, I've discovered you can negotiate for a surprising amount of things in America, you can save a bunch of a money, and it's not hard (but maybe a little bit unsettling at first).

Here are a few of my tales about how I discovered this, followed by some tips. Note: I'm not claiming to be some master negotiator, but I think just by making the smallest effort you can reap huge savings.

DIY Air Freshener: Cut Up Christmas Tree Branches

The closets and cupboards that we don't open very often were acquiring some nasty dank and stale smells over time. Rather than buying an air freshener, we found out that cut up Christmas Tree branches worked pretty well as DIY air fresheners. It's been about 4 months and the closets still smell pine-fresh. Take that Glade!

XMas Tree Timmings make a great DIY Air Freshener

We cut up an entire mini-tree into several tubs of branches and put them in the closets and cabinets that don't get opened very much.