After posting about the large bill the plumber had sent for some recent work ($850+), I received a number of comments prompting me to negotiate the amount with the plumber. Although I'm normally reticent about arguing about charges (I hate haggling), I thought I had nothing to loose in at least discussing my concern with the plumber. It took a while for the plumber to finally call back after I had left a message querying the bill, but, in the end, he called to say that he could see me point of view (although they had spent the amount of money charged in finally getting the work completed) and I should just send in a cheque for whatever amount I thought was reasonable. This was a good move on his part, as we have had work done on both our home and rental property so he wouldn't want to loose our business. Also, when left up to me I didn't want to be unreasonable about the bill, so I ended up just knocking $100 off the orginal invoice amount. So, thanks to all those who commented - you saved me $100!

Another easy $120 came in the form of gift vouchers I earned for scanning the barcodes of snack food items in my grocery shopping for a survey company during the past year or so. The scanning didn't really take any extra time or effort while packing away the shopping at home, so it was easy money. Unfortunately the survey company has now terminated the home scanning program.