Always Return or Appeal!

Always take the time to return or appeal! When you will dive into dumpsters for coupons to save $.25 on a bar of soap, you also need to fight the money sucking aspect of the consumer system by returning crappy, damaged, or unsatisfactory products. Sometimes it won't be possible or won't work out in your favor, but if you will make efforts for .25 in savings, shouldn't you make that much more effort to return or replace a crappy $30 extension grabber or to have a $40 parking fine appealed?? I certainly think so and my husband is always pointing out to me the inconsistencies in my money saving practices. I admit that he has often been right. There is a car, my brother's car, still sitting in my driveway that I could have earned a few bucks on by now if I would have just made a phone call to have it picked up. Why haven't I done it??? I am promising right now that it will be done this week!
What I have done though, are these three things:
1. I finally exchanged a bra at Kmart that didn't fit. The one that didn't fit sat in a bag in my office for at least 5 months! $30 worth of bra, just sitting there! Now I have one that fits beautifully!
2. I appealed a parking citation at my University. By rights I was in the wrong but I didn't park illegally on purpose. The signing was ambiguous at best and so I immediately appealed, citing my parking history and lack of previous citations. I had no idea how it would go but I had to at least try.

Gratefully, the citation was reversed because of my clean record and reduced to a warning. I will of course heed the regulations of that parking lot now and I will more carefully assess the legality of future parking options at the school. But I wouldn't have had the opportunity for a reversal if I wouldn't have taken those 10 minutes to appeal. Don't know about you, but $40 for 10 minutes of writing is pretty worthwhile in my opinion! 

3. 

My fabulous grabber that I was so excited about broke the first time I used it!! I was super bummed and my first thought was that I was going to have to buy another one. That thought didn't last long though. Why should I have to buy another one?? Their product was crap. I spent a fair amount of money in good faith, counting on them to provide a quality product. 

I couldn't find the receipt but I went back to the store anyway and they very graciously replaced it. I felt so proud of myself as I walked out. 

Here's the thing, stores and manufacturers often count on returns and exchanges being too much of an inconvenience for you to bother making it happen. The same goes for redeeming gift cards and coupons. 

I see evidence of this in the dumpsters all the time; brand new items still in packages or with tags. I'm willing to bet that a lot of these were inconveniences that resulted not only in wasted items heading for the landfill, but also lost value for the buyers or gift recipients.

Now it should be mentioned that there are lots of people who take illegal or at least ethically questionable advantage of returns and exchanges and I'm definitely not condoning that!! I'm just saying that if you feel you were short changed or that the system is trying to take advantage of you, you have the right to fight back! Part of saving money is making sure your money isn't wasted or taken from you. It's worth the time and effort!

Even if it doesn't always go your way, it definitely WON'T go your way if you don't at least try! 

So dig out those receipts and crappy products, make yourself aware of return/exchange/appeal policies, and get to work! :-)