xxxx

Laziness is a curse and the end result of nothing but procrastination. One of the seven deadly sins known as sloth, laziness was even punishable by death in Christian mythology. Those who were guilty were fed to the snake pits in hell.

Worse yet, laziness is digging into your greed and is actually costing you money.  Forbes magazine had a special showing ways that being lazy is costing you money.

1) Not doing enough research to choose the best rate on your savings account. When you stay content with your bank without doing comparison shopping, you are setting yourself up to not realize the full returns you could be having if you just did a little comparison shopping. Traditional banks offer less than 1% while some banks can offer up to 2.25% APY. On $100,000, over five years, that’s an additional $8,000! Looking for a new bank won’t take too much time either. Just make sure the bank you put your money in is FDIC insured.

2) Open your retirement fund as soon as you can. If you’re like me, or even close to it, you’re not thinking about retirement, but you and I should both be thinking about it because we all get old, it’s something that happens to everyone. Say you’re 25 and start saving $5,000 annually at 6% interest a year, well by the time you’re 65, which would have come out to $821,000…not too shabby. You can also try to see if your company offers a 401 (k), then you can save for retirement and not have to worry about anything.

3) You have to send in rebates to get the rebates! Oh, how many times have I bought something what was “so many dollars off” after mail in rebate and just not ever sent it in? I think that this is what companies are planning on when they offer this kind of rebate. Recently, I bought a new phone that offers a $100 mail in rebate after the phone has been activated for 30 days. I’m thinking it has something to do with the carrier hoping that people will forget, possibly. Seriously though, filling out a mail in rebate takes minutes and (in the case of the phone) can save you hundreds. You may even be able to get household items for free this way.

4) You have to pay attention to 0% APR deadlines. Oh we’ve all heard the promos for the credit cards about 0% financing for “a set number” of months. Well, if you remember to pay off the balance within that amount of time, then you’re fine, but if you carry a balance past the deadline, then you could be setting yourself up to pay more money in interest than if you had stuck to your “set interest” credit card. In the example given by Forbes, if you purchase a $3,200 TV with 0% interest for 18 months, you have to remember to pay it off in that time frame because one day past the 18 month mark and you will owe interest on the entire $3,200 (at 22% interest that’s $700!) even if you have paid $3,199.

5) Look into renegotiating for a better deal because you may be surprised to find what you can get. Just to bring up the cell phone story again, I called the carrier the next day and was able to “upgrade” my plan to a plan with more minutes for $10 less a month, plus get a corporate discount on top of it. I was able to get that just by asking nicely. You can negotiate on things like cell phone plans, leases (especially in the real estate market we’re in right now landlords may be even more willing to work with you), hotel rooms, electronics, and furniture. Who knows, you may just end up saving yourself even more than what the “mail-in rebate” can get you!

Jeremy

View all posts by Jeremy
Jeremys website