Slash your bills with a phone call: 7 pro negotiating tips
By Lauren Schwahn, NerdWallet
As we get deeper into the holiday season, it may feel like your expenses are piling up. Reducing your monthly bills can be one way to ease the pressure on your budget.
Lowering your bills might be easier than you think. With a phone call and a little preparation, you may be able to save money on internet, phone, cable or utility bills — and maybe others. Talking to your service providers could, for example, get you a lower rate or promotional discount, or point you toward a financial assistance program.
Use these expert tips to negotiate better deals with customer service representatives.
1. Time the call right
The outcome of the conversation can largely depend on when you pick up the phone. Choose a moment when you have time — and patience — to spare, so you can focus fully on the call.
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Wall Street parties like it’s 1998 as AI fuels gains unmatched since dot-com era
By STAN CHOE, AP Business Writer
NEW YORK (AP) — The S&P 500 is on track to close 2024 with a gain of nearly 27%, after setting 50 record highs this year. That’s on top of its 24.2% spurt the year before, a spectacular two-year run unmatched since the dot-com boom.
This time around, it’s not dot-com stocks boosting the market but skyrocketing prices for companies in the artificial-intelligence business. Nvidia, for example, has more than doubled in value after surging over three times in 2023 because its chips are powering much of the move into AI. Super Micro Computer, which makes servers used in AI and other computing, has jumped nearly 48% this year after more than tripling last year.
The economy, meanwhile, isn’t far removed from its last recession, which struck with the COVID-19 pandemic. But perhaps more importantly, it’s so far avoided a recession that many on Wall Street worried was inevitable after the Federal Reserve hiked its main interest rate to a two-decade high in hopes of slowing the economy to beat high inflation.
As data centers proliferate, conflict with local communities follows
By DAN MERICA AND JESSE BEDAYN
ALEXANDRIA, VA. (AP) — The sprawling, windowless warehouses that hold rows of high-speed servers powering almost everything the world does on phones and computers are increasingly becoming fixtures of the American landscape, popping up in towns, cities and suburbs across the United States.
Demand for data centers ballooned in recent years due to the rapid growth of cloud computing and artificial intelligence, and urban and rural governments alike are competing for lucrative deals with big tech companies.
But as data centers begin to move into more densely populated areas, abutting homes and schools, parks and recreation centers, some residents are pushing back against the world’s most powerful corporations over concerns about the economic, social and environmental health of their communities.
In Northern Virginia, more than 300 data centers dot the rolling hills of the area’s westernmost counties and butt up against wooded bike trails winding through the suburbs. But one of the latest proposals in the area, Plaza 500, would see a 466,000-square-foot facility and adjacent electrical substation built a few hundred feet from townhomes, playgrounds and a community center.
NASA delays Artemis II to 2026 and Artemis III moon landing to 2027
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson announced another delay to the first human spaceflight planned for the Artemis moon program and its planned follow-up mission that aims to return humans to the moon’s surface for the first time since 1972.
Artemis II, which was already pushed from 2024 to late 2025, now won’t fly until at least April 2026, with Artemis III planned now for mid-2027.
“The endeavor like Artemis over a half a century after Apollo is hard,” Nelson said Thursday. “It’s the pinnacle of new possibilities. It’s the most daring, technologically challenging, collaborative, international endeavor that humanity has ever set out to do.”
The delay is primarily due to damage found to the heat shield of the uncrewed Orion capsule that flew in 2022 on the Artemis I mission.
“The heat shield performed in unexpected ways, and since then we have been studying the data to determine the best path forward,” Nelson said about understanding the safety risks facing the Artemis II astronauts.