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Welcome to AVZ
How to Negotiate a Better Price on Everything?
These days, many people rely on technology to save money. They go online for Groupon offers, they print coupons, and they scan deals pages.
But there's an even simpler way to save. It's the technique human beings have been using since they developed the ability to use language: ask for a better deal.
Granted, we often haggle when shopping for big-ticket items like cars or houses. But there's no reason you shouldn't try it with less-expensive items. It can work when you buy furniture or even stay at a hotel. In fact, a national Consumer Reports survey a few years ago found Americans who ask for a discount get it up to 83 percent of the time.
How do you know if you can haggle for something? There's only one way to find out, and the worst that can happen is a "no." If you want to boost your odds, try these tips...
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To Pay Off Loans, Grads Put Off Marriage, Children
Between the ages of 18 and 22, Jodi Romine took out $74,000 in student loans to help finance her business-management degree at Kent State University in Ohio. What seemed like a good investment will delay her career, her marriage and decision to have children.
Ms. Romine's $900-a-month loan payments eat up 60% of the paycheck she earns as a bank teller in Beaufort, S.C., the best job she could get after graduating in 2008. Her fiancé Dean Hawkins, 31, spends 40% of his paycheck on student loans. They each work more than 60 hours a week. He teaches as well as coaches high-school baseball and football teams, studies in a full-time master's degree program, and moonlights weekends as a server at a restaurant. Ms. Romine, now 26, also works a second job, as a waitress. She is making all her loan payments on time.
They can't buy a house, visit their families in Ohio as often as they would like or spend money on dates. Plans to marry or have children are on hold, says Ms. Romine. "I'm just looking for some way to manage my finances."
High school's Class of 2012 is getting ready for college, with students in their late teens and early 20s facing one of the biggest financial decisions they will ever make.
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Social Security Claiming Slows
Each year, Americans make changes in their lives that impact
Social Security sign-ups spiked in 2009, when a record high of 3.2 million Americans age 62 and older began collecting benefits. But the number of people newly claiming Social Security has since declined to 3.1 million in 2010 and 3 million in 2011, according to a recent Urban Institute analysis of Social Security Administration data.
Part of the 2009 surge in new Social Security applications was due to the oldest baby boomers reaching the age of eligibility for Social Security benefits. Many people also signed up for Social Security in 2009 after they were laid off and couldn't find a new job during the recession. "Older Americans were more likely to claim Social Security retirement benefits in 2009 than in previous years as the labor market weakened and the unemployment rate for workers age 55 to 64 rose to 6.6 percent, more than double the 2007 rate," writes Richard Johnson, a senior fellow and director of the program on retirement policy for the Urban Institute, in the report. "High unemployment generally increases the share of adults age 62 and older who claim Social Security because it provides crucial income support for those who can't find work."
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Albrecht, Viggiano, Zureck & Company, P.C.
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