You have issues with your pipes, and the plumber you find talks like a marine and charges like a lawyer.

What to Consider: Your bargaining potential turns on whether the situation is an immediate crisis or a longer-term problem. If you need the job done immediately, the best you can do is ask for a discount and see whether the plumber, electrician, or carpenter laughs in your ear or gives it to you for the sake of customer relations. (He may surprise you.) But if the problem isn't posing an immediate threat, then you have something tangible to offer: time. Or as Robert Maiolo, the owner of Friendly Plumber, in San Francisco, puts it: "If there's scheduling flexibility on the customer's side, then there can be more pricing flexibility on the contractor's side, and chances are I'd be able to give them my standard negotiating discount." (Which is about 10 percent.)

What to Say: Plumbers, electricians, and carpenters typically don't have the time or the inclination to do a lot of dickering over their prices. So be polite and don't haggle for the sake of haggling. "If someone asks me, in a simple and friendly way, what's the best price I can give them," Maiolo says, "then not only would I not be insulted but I'd sharpen my pencil."