Did you know a single question can save you hundreds—or even thousands—of dollars? Over the years, I’ve negotiated lower prices, higher salaries, refunded fees, insurance settlements, and even major home improvement projects. None of these wins came from special negotiation tactics. They came from one simple habit: asking. Most people accept the first price, the first offer, or the first answer they receive. But the reality is that many prices, salaries, fees, and opportunities are far more flexible than they appear. In this article, I’ll show you how a simple willingness to ask has saved my family money, increased my income, and opened doors that would have remained closed otherwise.

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The One Simple Step to Save and Earn More Money

If you want to save more money and earn more income, ask for it.

Ask for a lower price. Ask for a refund. Ask for a raise. Ask for a better offer.

Most people never ask, which means they never discover what opportunities were available.

Over the years, a simple willingness to respectfully negotiate has saved my family thousands of dollars and increased my income significantly.

Why Prices Are More Flexible Than Most People Realize

I’m a big money geek. Are you?

If so, let’s get word-nerd together.

If not, this section will leave you feeling empowered and more capable to navigate money.

The uppercase Marketplace is an all encompassing idea.

It represents the exchange of goods, ideas, and services.

The bazaar down the street selling knock-off gem stones, the farm stand on the corner of Main Street and First Street, your neighborhood lawn mower kids, and even your side gig on Etsy and Fiverr are all part of the big-M Marketplace.

I use big-M because this Marketplace isn’t restricted to geography or industry.

It’s all encompassing.

This is important because the Marketplace (all exchanges of goods, ideas, and services) boils down to value.

And value is subjective and unique to each person.

Prices Are Based on Perceived Value

Big deal, right? Wrong. The fact that the big-M Marketplace is a value-centric system means the price one pays is fluid!

Value is not defined by the provider of the product or service.

Value is defined by the customer. The seller can set a price, but that does not mean a customer will pay it.

For example, let’s say I charged people to read this article. As the content provider, I can set any price I want. One Million dollars sounds pretty good to me!

But unfortunately for me and fortunately for you, the Marketplace is value-centric. Which means if you, as the customer don’t believe this article is worth one million dollars, you don’t have to pay it.

Maybe you think it’s only worth $1.99. Maybe someone else thinks it’s worth $5. Knowing customer’s only pay what they agree to pay, I’d never charge a price that wouldn’t convert.

After doing market research, let’s say I settled on $2.50 to read this article.

I you’re part of the $5 crowd, you’d believe the content was valuable enough to pay the $2.50 fee. If you were part of the $1.99 crowd, you may step outside your comfort zone a bit and pay up or you may tell me “Thanks, but no thanks.”

On a very large and complex scale, that is exactly what is going on in the marketplace.

Prices that seem set in stone are often negotiated there in silence by supply and demand.

Prices drop until enough people are willing to pay.

The seller may only want 1 buyer or they may want 5,000.

Regardless, the price will always drop until sales are made.

Now how does this help you save and earn a ton of money?

I’m glad you asked!

How One Question Saved Us $1,300

I’m about to drop an earth-shattering idea on you.

Ready for it?

Here it is.

To save more money on purchases and earn more money, all you have to do is…ask for it.

Did that burst your bubble?

Hopefully not. It’s not a novel idea. It’s just common-sense, or as is unfortunately the case in modern society, it’s un-common sense.

We as the customer define the value we are willing to pay.

We have an incredible ability to challenge the cost.

A Real Example From Our Backyard

Recently, my family had a big tree removal and pruning job done at our new home in Texas.

We’ve got a ton of large, established and beautiful trees on our property that were well overgrown. We also wanted to open up the backyard more to make it kid friendly and get far fewer leaves and seeds in our pool – which was more like a pond in the last hailstorm we got.

Something you should know about me, if you don’t already, is I’m real picky about service providers.

I don’t want an average level of quality service.

I want a professional.

An artist.

Whatever their occupation, the service provider needs to be excellent at what they do so we can enjoy their work for years and years.

After reaching out to a few tree service companies, we settled on one we really liked. They seemed to capture our vision for the tree work, how we wanted to maintain the beauty of the trees in the front yard while only raising the canopy a little and cleaning the dead branches, and leaving the backyard lush and private with a few trees and large limbs to be removed.

We knew the company was going to be more expensive than others because of this artistic vision.

It felt like they were the right company for us to choose.

On the spot, the owner gave me the price – $6,500.

While I didn’t show my horror face-to-face, I felt it inside. The price just seemed high.

In other words, the value I as the customer placed on the work being negotiated didn’t seem to line up with the cost the provider determined.

Now, please, please know this. Providers can choose to set any cost and that’s fine. But customers can choose any provider and that’s fine too. It’s a beautiful system of give and take that makes the Marketplace so wonderful!.

Let’s get back to the story.

The tree service provider left and my wife and I mulled things over. The $6,500 was quite a bit higher than the $4,700 price I got from another high-quality company. But we really, really liked the higher-priced company.

So, the following day, I shared my thoughts with the service provider. This is the exact message I sent him:

“My wife and I were able to chat over your visit. The cost you quoted me is quite a bit higher than others. Are you able to help me understand any major cost contributors to help us consider if scope can be reduced to lower the cost?”

Me

Do you see anything magical in my message to the service provider?

No, right?

I didn’t even ask for a lower price or a discount. I asked about scope reduction. I felt the cost was high and I just wanted to see what could be done about it.

In very simple terms, I gave the big “ask” in a very subtle, respectful way.

And here was his incredible, unexpected, and point-worthy response:

“I’ll be glad to do all work you and I discussed for $5,200. I recommend to do the work well done and complete like I offered you, if we start down-grading the job it won’t be what you had in mind.”

Service Provider

Catch all that? The service provider, instead of offering ways to reduce the scope of the project to cut costs, slashes the price by $1,300 – that’s 20% right off the top!

At this moment, it’s all too easy to get wrapped up on the original price of $6,500. That’s NOT the point here at all. If you think it’s the point, and you are bent out that the original cost was a high and ridiculous offer, you’ve missed it.

It doesn’t matter what price was originally offered. It could have been an even more ridiculous amount of $20,000 or it could have been a solid $3,000.

The point here, and it is a HUGE, mega point, is that my one text message, that took all of about 15 seconds to write, saved us $1,300.

That’s $1,300 in savings in 15 seconds of work. It was a truly simple question. I challenged the price set by the provider based on the value I determined the job to be as the customer.

Now, let’s be real honest here.

He could have said no.

He could have said, “I’m an artist, that’s my price, it’ll be worth it, take it or leave it.”

Many people, me included, feel uncomfortable challenging cost.

Negotiation can feel like an unfriendly way of interacting with people. But please know it’s not.

Negotiation is a powerful, effective way of living true to yourself. The feelings you have inside regarding what something is worth to you or what you are worth to someone else should be expressed through effective negotiation. The results will speak for itself.

Before I share a couple more stories to really get you fired up to keep value at the forefront of your mind when interacting with the Marketplace, it’s important we delve into why we don’t ask for a better deal.

Why we Don’t Ask for a Better Deal

Are you uncomfortable asking for a better deal?

Long ago, my wife and I were at a community yard sale.

If there was ever a suitable time to negotiate price, it’s at a yard sale.

We all know prices are generated on a whim by sellers who have too much junk and want to get rid of it all.

We also know the majority of stuff at a yard sale will be taken straight to a Goodwill or Salvation Army for free donation if it isn’t sold – further confirming that the price placed by these sole-proprietors are wild guesses at what value the Marketplace will bring them.

At said yard sale, a lady was selling some old picture frames. They were $1 each.

I wanted two of them or a $2 total. That’s not much, right? Is it worth negotiating over?

To me…absolutely. It’s a yard sale! That’s half the fun, right? And not to mention a great opportunity to practice negotiation skills.

I had $2 on me and would have been willing to pay full price on the picture frames. But I wanted to know how fluid the price was. How negotiable the provider would be.

So, very gently I said, “Would you take $1 for the two picture frames?”

I’m sure you’ve already assumed the answer or I wouldn’t be sharing it.

She instantly agreed. There wasn’t even a delay. She just wanted to get rid of the product.

She understood value and price were all subjective and because of me simply asking for it, I got a good deal. I saved 50% with a single sentence and a small dose of courage.

I use the word courage intentionally.

It takes courage to challenge anyone on anything.

It takes boldness to rock the boat of our minds.

It takes intentionality to probe someone’s preconceived notions and challenge their assessment of value.

But most importantly, it takes putting ourselves first. And that is a very, very hard thing for most of us to do even in our self-centered modern world.

There is an inherent trust we give other people, especially strangers. We are inclined to believe they are truthful and sincere. We yearn to think they have our best interests at heart.

Even though we know that is often not the case, we subconsciously believe it. And so we don’t want to disagree with them on their perceived value of product or service.

After all, if they say the job costs $6,500 it MUST be worth that much. They MUST have performed market research to know what other companies charge and what customers are willing to pay. They MUST have to cover certain expenses and they MUST be taking only a small profit. So we MUST pay it without question, right?

Wrong.

That’s not how the Marketplace works.

It’s a game of subjective trading and to play the game well, we must stand firm in our beliefs. If we believe something is of lesser value to us, not to them or anyone else, but to us, we must acknowledge our belief and express it through effective negotiation.

We must be willing to walk away to honor our beliefs or be willing to pay the price they set.

5 Times Asking Saved Me Money

1. A bed was broken in an RV we rented. I asked what discount would be provided and got $80 off with no hassle.

2. My bank charged a late payment fee when my family moved cross-country. I asked them to refund the fee. They did.

3. My insurance company wanted to declare our vehicle totaled from a hailstorm. I asked them not to. They reversed course and paid for all the repairs. The repair shop estimate then came in too high and the insurance company changed to declare it a total loss again. I asked the shop to adjust cost to come in under the threshold. They did and we didn’t have to buy a new car.

4. I switched jobs a few years into my professional career. I was comfortable at my current company but interested in helping another company grow in the area from the ground up. I asked for more than they initially offered. They paid gladly.

5. Earlier this year I purchased a $225 mosquito trap. Despite mosquito treatments, we just weren’t seeing relief. The mosquito trap came and I ran it all day every day for months. It didn’t help. The idea of returning it was in my mind for a while but kept getting de-prioritized. Eventually, I planned on just bringing it to Goodwill to get it out of the garage. But then I decided to send a note to the company and see if they would refund it. I emailed and asked if it could be returned. They said yes but I needed my order number…which I couldn’t find. I asked them to provide my order number. They did. I returned it for a full refund less shipping costs. This took all of 15 minutes from start to finish.

Those are all financially related, but perhaps you’re in a more emotional spot of needing to ask a courageous question.

Asking Isn’t Just About Money

I was head over heels for a girl I met at church. After getting to know each other, I asked her to be my girlfriend. She said yes. A little while later, I asked her dad for his blessing to propose to her. He said yes. And shortly after that, I asked the woman of my dreams to marry me. She said yes and my life was forever changed.

I could go on and on about all the times I asked and then received. Not because of external factors but simply because of asking.

Even ancient Biblical scripture presents the power of asking and receiving.

“Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asks receives; and he that seeks finds; and to him that knocks it shall be opened.”

Matthew 7:7-8

While these verses pertain to prayer to God but the underlying current applies across spectrums. Asking leads to receiving.

Do not let yourself for a moment think these results are unique to me because of who I am.

They are not.

These results are the reward of challenging our own preconceived notions and making our beliefs known. Your situations will be unique to you and different but they will still hinge on asking the question and seeing the response.

Kristin Wong wrote about How to Get Over Your Fear of Negotiating and Ask for More over at Life Hacker’s Two Cents division. It’s worth reading.

In it, she discusses this fear people have called line crossing illusion. We tend to think being normally assertive is actually over-assertive and that expressing what we believe is offensive.

We think challenging people in a healthy way crosses the proverbial line. But sadly, the line and that line of thinking is an illusion.

Respectful negotiation is healthy and normal!

Why Most People Never Ask

Most people don’t avoid negotiation because they lack skill.

They avoid it because they fear rejection.

We imagine the other person will be offended, think less of us, or immediately say no.

In reality, respectful negotiation is normal.

Sometimes the answer is no. But many times the answer is yes—and you never discover that unless you ask.

Overcome the Fear of Rejection and Find Your Power

Let me be the one to tell you, you’re probably holding yourself back.

It’s statistically reasonable to assume you have agreed to pay higher prices than what you could have paid. It’s also statistically reasonable to assume you’ve asked for lower raises or a lower paying job than you could have gotten.

My negotiation journey started in my childhood, as do most, but I became more conscious of the healthy power of negotiation as a teenager.

I was working the classic teenager job at Papa John’s Pizza in the early 2000’s, just at the turn of the millenium.

I was making $7 per hour flipping pizzas and taking customer orders.

It was not the most money I ever made as a teenager (that was attributed to working for my dad and learning website design and programming – a valuable skill for the ages!), but it did offer free pizza to eat and a steady income over the summer.

After a month of working, I felt more valuable to the company than when I was first hired.

I believed it was time to ask for a raise – something they didn’t just hand out at regular intervals.

With much trepidation, I asked for a sit-down meeting with my then store manager. He was a much older man and very confident. A fast talker that made me feel a bit insignificant.

Even though I was timid and worried my request would be rejected, I did it anyway.

Within that little hole of an office, I expressed the skills I had developed and compared them to when I first started. I expressed I felt I deserved a raise because of the value I was now bringing to his establishment.

Looking back, I’m not even sure I said how much of a raise I thought was appropriate – which I definitely should have done and encourage all of you to do. You must put a number on the table.

My store manager wasn’t entirely enthused with the idea of giving me a raise but did offer a meager increase of 25 cents. Small, yes, but it was a raise and, compared against $7 per hour, was a 3.5% increase.

Not too shabby for the new pizza making boy.

But here’s a huge kicker for you to take home and mull over.

I was working with an experienced older teenager who had been there longer than me. He was still making the same amount he started with.

The difference between us? It wasn’t skill. It wasn’t experience. It wasn’t even work ethic or availability. The older teenager was probably better than me in every regard.

Every regard except one.

I asked for the raise and he didn’t.

Side note – me telling him I got a raise caused him to then ask for a raise almost immediately. It didn’t go over too well and later that year we both went to work for Domino’s!

Fast forward nearly two decades. I’m a Professional Engineer. I’ve got schooling, job experience, and many years of raises under my belt.

An opportunity presents itself for me to re-organize within the company and take on new challenges and a new role. For years, I see it from the sidelines as it grows ever closer to my mind and heart.

I finally raise my hand and ask for the opportunity to serve the company in the new capacity.

I get it.

I then ask for a salary adjustment.

Inside, I want to aim low so low no one would think twice but I’m encouraged by others to ask for what’s fair and appropriate given the new role and responsibilities as well as the risk and stress that comes with moving a family halfway across the country to start something new.

I ask for what I believe is appropriate.

They pay gladly very close to my asking price.

Are you seeing the power of asking for receiving at work?

Now it’s your turn.

There is no difference between you and me in the human sense.

Our value as people come from God.

In the Marketplace, we define the value we are willing to work for and the value we are willing to pay, sell, or trade for.

Have you been asking for a lower cost? Have you been asking for higher pay?

I can tell you that stepping out and asking for what you believe in is well worth the little dose of courage required.

Two books that would be incredibly helpful to you, as they have been for me, is Brian Tracy’s The 100 Absolutely Unbreakable Laws of Business Success and Chris Voss’ Never Split the Difference: Negotiate as if Your Life Depended on It.

Both will inspire you and give you tools to negotiate for more of what you believe in.

Final Thoughts

The biggest financial opportunities in my life rarely came from finding a secret investment, side hustle, or budgeting trick. More often, they came from having the courage to ask.

Sometimes asking saved hundreds or even thousands of dollars. Other times it led to higher income, new opportunities, stronger relationships, or experiences I would have otherwise missed.

Not every request will be successful. Some people will say no. That’s okay.

The goal isn’t to win every negotiation. The goal is to stop rejecting yourself before someone else has the chance to answer.

If there is something you believe is worth pursuing—a better price, a raise, an opportunity, a conversation, or a dream—consider asking.

You may be surprised how often the answer is yes.