We drive a hard bargain

I am becoming more and more my mother's child and my spouse's spouse! Oh how I used to want to shrivel up and slide under a rock with embarrassment whenever we would be at a garage sale and mom would dicker on the price of things. Or when we were at a restaurant, and if the food wasn't cooked right or there was an error between what she ordered and what they brought out, she would send it back. I never did, at all.......that is until I started paying for the bill! :) Then with Jason, never paying full price when there was any room for dickering. When we were in Oklahoma, he taught me that you can even negotiate prices at the meat service case!?!?!?! Are you kidding me? That was the strangest thing! He also taught me that at restaurants, when you get free refills, you can ask for a to go cup and even take a refill to go!! Crazy, I would have never guessed.

So this weekend Jason went out to Schwabs to check out used tires for his Toyota. They had a really nice set with alot of tread left for almost $400 after mounting and balancing. Ya they were really good tires, and ya Jason really needs new tires, but we both really have a hard time paying that price for USED tires!!! We hate to put brand new tires and pay the price for them since we will be getting the Toyota ready to sell so we can buy a Diesel. So he came on home and we got on the computer and checked craigslist and we found a really great deal for a set of 4 with 50% tread on them for $60. That is a really good deal, even having to drive to Portland to get them. So we went down to Portland to meed the old boy that was selling them. We get there, and the guy had left and left his mom to show us the tires. She opened the garage and the tires were worn out!!! They were already in the wear bars! They were worse than what we were taking off of the toyota! That ol boy was pretty lucky he wasn't there, Jason was not pleased! So we left and luckily we brought the laptop so we got online and called around to some tire companies with no luck, then found another listing on craigslist. A set of 4 with 40% tread on them and mounted on stock Toyota wheels for $80. So we called the gal, and she wasn't sure how much tread is left, she was just told about 40% tread. Well it was on the way, so we stopped by to check them out. They were nice, a little less than 40% but still definitely wearable! Then she mentioned that she had a brand new set that have been worn one week that she forgot she had. We looked at them, and they were the stock size that came on the 4Runner, with stock wheels and she said she got them at cost from the tire company for $260. What a great deal! She said she'd have to get $200 out of them. Well we hummed and hawed and Jason said he just couldn't do $200 for them. She asked what we could do for them. I knew Jason was going to say $150, and just before he did, he stopped and asked her what her absolute bottom dollar was. She said $100. $100!!! Jason said we could do $100! I asked Jason if he was sure we could. See we pulled out $100 in cash to come to town to get $60 tires. Well on the way I had to go to the bathroom so I have this thing where I have to buy something at the convenient store if I stop to use their restroom. So I bought us a water and Snapple which broke one of the $20s. So I had $15 left, Jason had $80 and a crinkled $1 in his pocket. The lady said not to worry, $95 was fine. The deal got even better!!! Saved another $5! We really are blessed. Out of no where, God just gives us a break on things! The day was good, then was not great, then really great!!!

We finished the day off stopping by Jason's folks house and getting to spend some much needed time with them. It was a great day and I had such a nice time on the ride to Portland and back just getting to be with Jason and talk about random stuff. No where to be but with each other. Life is great!