Mom's Got Money

CHAPTER 6How to Negotiate, Earn Extra Money, and Start Investing

In 2008, when my husband and I were just dating, we saved up our money from working and backpacked our way through Europe. We'd just left Florence, Italy, and he could barely get his giant backpack shut. There he was, pulling at the strings on the top of the bag trying to shove everything in so we could keep going to our next stop.

His overflowing backpack was my fault because he was helping to carry my things, the treasures I'd just purchased by haggling my way through the Florence markets. Those treasures, my friends, were shoes. Beautiful Italian boots kind of shoes. I bought them because I was able to negotiate with the vendors in the market, somehow making those handmade leather beauties mine on a college student's budget.

Look, I was not leaving that country without those boots, so there was no choice but to fill our packs with them as though we didn't have to drag them through several more train stations on our trip.

We laugh about it now because I was so determined and it was so long ago, when we didn't have a care in the world. Back then, I wasn't thinking about investing in the market, saving for my kids' college, or trying to remember to defrost the chicken for dinner. I was just a kid who was willing to negotiate for boots, and for the record, I still own them today.

I don't know where I learned to negotiate, but I do know it's something I've always enjoyed doing. Lots of people hate the confrontation ...