Okay, I admit it: I'm unabashedly cheap, perhaps to the point of being penny-wise, pound-foolish. I can't help it! I feel dissatisfied with myself and emotionally discontent if I don't feel like I got the best deal. If you were raised in a Korean immigrant household, you might come to understand this feeling too.

The extent of my zealousness (read: ridiculousness) came to light during a recent move to Boston, where my brother and I drove around for two days to 8 different furniture stores, in search of a new bed for me.

It wasn't enough for me to test out the beds--I needed to find the most ideal price. For both a mattress and a frame, I was hoping to spend no more than $300-350 for a brand new bed. After all, I was only going to be in Boston for a year, before I would have to sell that bed and move onto the next. All that I required from a new bed was that it be as comfortable as a plank of plywood, wrapped in a quilt. That's what happens when you were raised on firm beds.

I had sold my Shifman mattress (starting retail price: $3,000) and a birch wood frame, together for $250 on Craigslist. Why? I just wanted to move the unit quickly, on a particular day. Also, there was a tear in the mattress, and I didn't want some fussy Craigslister to put up a stink about it. I did have some buyer's remorse as I parted with it, but it was made clear to me by two very rational men in my life--my brother and Kevin--that it was a used mattress, and it was only worth what someone else was willing to pay for it.

The result of the 2 days of trolling for beds resulted, I'm happy to note, in victory. I successfully bargained down a mattress to half its retail price, although I didn't end up buying that one. I did end up buying a different mattress within my budget, that normally retailed for $1500.

My friend Morgan asked me how I do it, as she would never have entertained the idea of bargaining. While on the surface I know she was asking about the actual, logistical means by which one enters a negotiating discussion/dialectic, I know what the subtext was:

"How do you live with yourself? I mean, really? With people out there in the world actively thinking you're a cheap-ass? How do you go to bed at night?"

The answer is, it's not easy. I lose sleep at night thinking about how to save, and whether I've saved enough, and whether I comported myself in an utterly gauche manner, and whether I'm going to run into that salesman at a cocktail party one day.

"So, what do you like, say to them?" Morgan continued. " 'Give me a discount, right now!'?"

So I explained.

To get the best discount, you have to start by laying down the psychological groundwork. One of our first stops was Mattress Discounters, a huge, bi-floor retail space on Comm Ave (pictured above). The salesman was a Black dude in his late 30s, who looked like he spent more time in the weight room at Bally's than in a mattress showroom. As I walked into the store, I kind of had a general look of disdain, with my nose turned up slightly the whole time. You have to walk into the space like you're higher and mightier than the store, and hte low-grade goods the salesman is peddling. Don't be obnoxious; just exude a general, "Eh, that don't impress me much" kind of attitude. I also have a veneer of annoyance, lifting up corners and inspecting things with a scrutinizing eye.

"Oh...are they all like that?" I'll point to a speck, a hairline crack, a smudge.
"No, no!" the salesman will usually rush to correct, "That's just our floor model. All of our products are brand new."
"Hmm," I'll counter, murmuring my disapproval, giving the impression that I am mentally filing it away. Sometimes I'll throw in for good measure, half-under my breath (but always loud enough for him to hear), "Even still, it shouldn't do that..."

Such was the case with the MD (mattress discounters) salesman. By the time the walk-through is over, you should have successfully created the image that you're not wowed. A leprechaun could show up at your door with a huge pot of gold and a six-pack of Guinness, and you still wouldn't even crack a smile. Even if you are brimming with joy on the inside--yes! This is my platonic ideal of a __(insert desired product here)__ , just don't dare show it on the outside.

Feel free to drop hints along the way about your current state of financial duress. "Yeah, I just started grad school. I'm spending enough already on college loans, I don't want to have to go into further debt for my furniture, too" something to that effect. This establishes that you are not a Daddy's girl with his Amex card.

I’m reminded of an episode of the Cosby Show, where Dr. Huxtable takes Theo along to go shopping for a new car. Painting the picture of poverty, he forces his son to don a mouth-eaten sweater and a baseball cap. The whole time, Dr. H is laying it on thick, about their financial state, and how hard life is, and so forth. When the car salesman turns to Theo and asks, “What does your father do?” he takes one look at his dad, who’s throwing him the death stare, and he shrugs his shoulders and says, “I wouldn’t want to do it.”

MD led me past the bottom showroom filled with pillow-top and memory foam mattresses starting at the $1,000 level, to the more affordable mattresses. Prices ranged from $200-400 for a full-sized mattress, box springs another $120.

Once you hone in on the item you want, you can say, casually, I’m looking at this one.”

Pause. Wait for him to counter. If he doesn’t, or he says something lame like yup, that’s a good model, then you say,

"Is this the best you can do?" or “Can you do better than this?” while gesturing at the price tag.

The salesman will most likely launch into a schpeel about rising manufacturing costs, and how the list price is at cost, blah blah bullsh*t. I generally feel out the salesman at this point, to see if he’s going to volunteer to lower the price or not. Feel free to interrupt him—after all, you don’t really respect him—and say,

“Yeah, I’ve been to mattress stores all morning (feel free to list them), and they had mattresses of similar firmness starting at 120 (feel free to drop about a hundred off the lowest price tag you’ve seen). I’m also paying in CASH so I’m hoping you can do better.”

The salesman at this point will hopefully volunteer to drop 40-50 off. That’s not good enough, but at least now you’ll be underway on some kick-ass negotiating. Always ask for cheaper, knowing they can only meet you part-way.

Feel free to say things like they are truths, or act surprised when they can’t meet them: “Oh! That’s funny, because College Furniture down the block does free delivery. My apartment’s only three blocks away from here, and I can’t fit a full-sized mattress in my car.”

Also, always ask if they can knock off the tax, too. It never hurts.

See how pliable they are. My best mattress deal (which I didn’t end up buying) was knocking down a $750 mattress to $360, which included tax and delivery. If I was certain to buy it, I’m sure I could have knocked it down a little more, but so it goes.

If you ever need an exit strategy, here are a couple of options:
“You have a lot of nice stuff here, but it’s just not the price range I was looking to pay. Thanks so much for your time.” Big smile, and a feel free to punctuate with a twist of a hair tendril (the dumb/innocent girl act is always a good note to end on).

Or: “Thanks so much. As you can probably imagine, I’m still making the rounds, but—what’s your name? So nice to meet you. Do you have a card? Will you be here tomorrow? Perfect.”

And... scene.

There will be plenty of times where this approach just won’t work. Of the 8 stores I visited, two of them refused to play the game, and I blame it on stubborn shop keepers, but maybe it’s just that my negotiating skills aren’t advanced enough for these types.

I went into Bedworks, where everything is made in the store. Lots of high quality stuff. Their full-sized futons started at $380, a price I didn’t like. It’s a freakin futon. I tried all my tricks—Is this the best you can do? I’ll be paying in cash. Can you knock off tax? Can you at least do free delivery?—and the guy would not budget. He deposits everything into the bank, unlike other stores that fake receipts and fake your warranty. He asked me if I spent time in South American or Africa. No, why?

"Where’d you learn to bargain?” he asked me. “Americans don’t really know how. That’s why we price everything so low, because we wouldn’t want anyone to balk at the price and walk away. So I wondered if you did a lot of traveling.”

“Ha ha, no, it’s that I’m the daughter of Korean immigrants. So...if I don’t get the futon cover, could you drop the price to reflect that?” No no no.

Well, I’ll have to think about this, as it’s a little above my price range. But thanks so much. As my brother and I left, he said,

“You should have told them we were Chinese.”

“Why?”

“You don’t want people to start thinking that all Koreans are cheap. They’ll start creating stereotypes.”

I ended up buying my bed off Craigslist. I wasn’t planning on buying a used bed, but it was a high-quality memory foam, and bed bugs, dust mites, and others can’t embed themselves in the foam (whereas they can hide out between the coils of bed springs, I suppose). And the frame was solid cherry wood, and both came with the original receipt and 15 years left on the warranty. It was originally posted for 500, from a girl who was absolutely unwilling to budge below 400, seeing she’d paid $1500 for it. But I told her I’d come by just to take a look, as tonight would be the last night I’d have my brother and his SUV to help. She asked if I could still do 350, and I said, how about more like...320? (there were dings on the frame that annoyed me). She begrudgingly agreed. I too, was just too tired to even attempt yet another trip to a furniture store.

I couldn’t sleep that well that night, despite my great bargain. I kept replaying images in my head, where instead of being proud of myself, I felt...really cheap. And dumb. I cringed as I replayed the moments over and over in my head. Hopefully that girl will forget me. Hopefully the guy at Bedworks will forget me, and there will be some other bargain-savvy Asian girl who comes into the store, and he can forget all about me.