Imagine you’re walking down the street and something shiny on the ground catches your eye. You look down, and about 10′ in front of you is a shiny penny. And while looking down you also notice a $20 bill even closer to you.

You’re a reasonable person, not one to walk past free money, so you carefully step over the $20 bill and reach down to pick-up the penny. Lucky you, Abraham Lincoln is practically smiling back at you–because after all, “a penny saved is a penny earned,“

And off you go.
Totally ignoring the $20 bill.

It sounds ridiculous, but there’s an old expression that describes exactly this, “Stepping over dollars to pick-up pennies,“

The phrase is used to describe situations where we ignore large dollar amounts and instead focus on relatively small amounts. Here’s some examples of where we see this play out fairly often:

When well-meaning finance guru’s tell you to skip the grande Frappuccino (saving $5), instead of telling you to renegotiate your insurance deductible (saving $1,000).

Or when you continue to use a dull razor–refusing to buy fresh blades (saving $15/mo), instead of renegotiating the lease on your apartment (saving $100/mo) or refinancing your mortgage (saving $80,000 over the life of the loan).

We do this all the time without realizing it. We give up something we need or want for the sake of “saving”, but totally neglect an opportunity to save way more–without sacrificing our quality of life.

Make a call today to your cable/internet provider, landlord, insurance companies, or wireless carrier and ask for a reduction. The worst they can say is “no”. The best that happens is you save $100’s without needless sacrifice.

Go live your wealthy life.