As a general rule, we pay cash. I hate paying interest and see no reason to finance anything, even with the cries of “no payments until June” or “zero percent interest.” There’s always a catch.

On a recent furniture-buying trip to Grand Piano & Furniture, we worked out a good deal with the salesmen. Well, actually, Amy worked out the good deal. She’s the negotiator. When we set down to pay the salesman started off with “let me explain our financing plans..” but I cut him short by saying “we’ll pay cash.”

“Oh,” he said as the smile disappeared from his face. “Just a moment please. I need to talk to my manager.”

Which is salesman lingo for “oh, hell, I discounted the price knowing we would make it back up on the financing and now they want to pay cash. My ass is in a sling.”

Finally, he emerged from his manager’s office with a last plea: “We can offer a financing plan with no payments for 12 months.”

“If I pay cash I won’t have any payments ever.”

“We can zero out the interest for six months.”

“If I pay cash the interest is zero forever.”

Back to his manager. Finally, he returned and took us to the cashier who looked at the paperwork and said: “Has anyone explained our finance options to you?”

“Yes,” I said. “I’m paying cash.” Her mood turned sour and she took my money.

A few days later, we walked into a Schewel’s store to look at some other furniture. The first thing the salesman asked was “will you be financing with us?”

“No,” I said. “We’ll be paying cash.”

“OK. If you pay cash I can discount this furniture 15 percent but if you finance it the discount is 50 percent.”

Instead, we took a 100 percent discount by walking out.