Laziness Costs You Money

Businesses are profiting regularly on our collective laziness as a society. Whether it's late fees, not mailing in a rebate, or something as simple as not shopping around for the best deal, companies big and small are making money off of our carelessness with our own money.

Not spending the time to shop around for the best interest rate available for your savings account can prove costly. Online institutions routinely offer better interest rates than traditional banks. Doing a quick online search for the best rate at an FDIC insured bank and the time spent to create your account will take less than an hour but will benefit you big time when your savings generates twice the interest per year.

Many companies offer products at rebate prices on the assumption that customers will be too lazy to follow through and mail in the rebate. And they're usually right. By not taking the time to fill out a rebate and mail it, you are essentially giving away your money for nothing - sometimes up to 10% on large ticket items. Filling out and mailing the rebate takes less than 10 minutes - it's worth the time.

Many people cost themselves big time by not paying attention to the deadlines on their 0% financing. Lots of stores will offer a payment plan of 0% interest and no payments for a year. This only means that you are not required to make a payment for a year, not that you should wait that long. These deals are only beneficial to you if you have paid off the debt by the end of that year. And quite often when the interest rate kicks in, it's at a very high rate and applies to the original purchase amount, not the remaining amount.

These are just a few scenarios where a little time and effort goes a long way in saving you hard earned money.