Wednesday, August 17, 2011

How to Survive in America Part 1

Having gone through a lot of problems/adventures/funny moments in a single year I think we have some experience about living in America. Some may find my/our experiences awful, some may find them funny and some may say, what's the big deal it is life, so just get over it :).

In two weeks we will have completed our 1 year in Columbus minus the 3 week holiday we spent in Turkey. The biggest lesson learned during this time in America is you have to fight for a lot of things. People may say you can't have/do something but generally you can negotiate your way through a lot of stuff.

I'm going to list some of my/our experiences and thoughts so it is easier to read.

1)All my friends have had problems with AT&T. Currently AT&T is our service provider for internet and cell-phone numbers. As expected from such a large company, it is hard to get a customer service representative on the phone and when you do you can't get off the phone for an hour. If you happen to forget to ask/tell something then you call them again and be told that your previous customer service representative had not done what you asked for. I think me and my husband have passed the point of getting angry for this stuff. However, we learned that we can negotiate things. For example if they tell you, they're going to charge you $22.95/month for internet and you've read online(on their website) that it is $19.95/month, you have to tell them this information to get the $19.95 price. In other words, you cannot afford to be stupid if you care about your money. For this case $3 per month only makes $36 per year, it doesn't seem much but if you consider that you go through websites to find coupons for $5 off of a meal from a restaurant then you need to always be careful.

2)That makes me want to continue with this "coupon" frenzy in America. We don't have this "collecting coupons" stuff in Turkey. In America they send coupons to your email, mail and from time to time will hand them out to you on streets. You get coupons from a lot of different places such as grocery stores, restaurants, clothing stores, car service places and even from funeral homes. Yes, you did read funeral homes! At first you think why bother with this stuff, but after a while you realize that some coupons offer great deals, for example you get half price meals at some restaurants and considering you have to eat outside a lot during busy weeks/months you need to find places that has better prices. This is how I became one of those online coupon hunters :). We just moved to a new place, and there is a restaurant that we like a lot and the first thing I did after getting a couple of dinners to go from that place was to go online and look for their coupons. Now we have a coupon that says you can get your meal for half price with up to $10 value :).

America wants you to consume consume and consume. However, it is up to you to find the best deal out there and not get sucked into retail therapy during the process.

I'll be back soon with other experiences that include fighting for our rights and how to pay less:).

2 comments:

  1. Dont forget to add that you should Google for "discount code" or "free shipping" code if you're shopping online. Makes a lot of difference

    Ez

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