Get a suit for a wedding.

Standing there in the mall, I feel like a jerk for what I'm about to do. I have to give myself a pep talk: "The economy is in the toilet. People are going to play ball."

After all, I came of age in boom times, when it was expected that you would pay $30,000 over asking for your house and not blink at dropping $300 for a pair of jeans while happily maxing out your credit cards on mink cars and platinum underwear.

Not that I ever bought $300 jeans.

But in the aspirational age of plenty, like most people I know, I wasn't exactly vying for the status of ruler of the cheapos.

But now that we're all worried about our jobs and squirrelling away Kraft Dinner for the truly dark times, that kind of profligate spending is a thing of the past, and it's time to wheel and deal, if only to get that little bit extra off the top.

The thing is, I suck at negotiating.

My problems start as soon as I begin speaking. At Harry Rosen, I tell the salesman I am looking for something in a two button, navy blue variety. He walks me over to the Canali rack because clearly I can afford an $1,800 suit.

Maybe he could also validate my jet parking for me. Still, no harm in trying it on, I think.

"What kind of deal can you give me on this?" I ask.

I might as well have started flailing my arms above my head and screaming "me want savings!"

If negotiation is a seduction, then I was the date who shows up at your door wearing a gold chain gleaming amid too much chest hair, a pervy glint in his eye and a smile that says, "Let's party!"

"No deals on this one," he says.

When I ask what he could offer me a deal on, he shows me a less expensive Hugo Boss. Could he knock $100 off? Sorry, he says, he isn't allowed to make deals.

I leave, frustrated. What's worse, I have more or less the same exchange at two other stores.

I consult some experts. You know, professional cheapskates.

"You have to use exact phrasing," Michael Sloopka, a Guelph, Ont.-based negotiating expert and president of NegotiatingCoach.com tells me when I call him up. "I don't let people say, 'Can I get a deal?' Instead, you should ask, 'Do you have any flexibility on pricing?' "

That lets you start a conversation with a salesperson, Mr. Sloopka says.

"The secret to this is not to use this economy to bully, badger or confront people. The secret is to optimize win-win," he says.

Win-win?

"You need to help them find a way to save face," says Ed Brodow, author of Negotiation Boot Camp.

But, he adds, "now is the time to be assertive."

There is a very simple reason most people don't try to negotiate for the stuff they buy, Mr. Brodow tells me.

"It sounds crazy, but they're afraid of appearing cheap," he says.

I am afraid of not being able to make mortgage payments. I am afraid of having to pay for my daughter's college education by selling a kidney down Mexico way. I am also afraid of Tilda Swinton, but that's another matter. Point is, I'm not afraid of looking cheap.

I decide to go to Tom's Place, an independently owned Toronto store where a salesman may be a little more willing to bargain. Tom isn't in, but his older brother, William, is.

He shows me six or seven suits, including a navy blue Sean John that I like. Too bad the price tag is $1,400.

"Do you have any flexibility on pricing?" I ask, trying not to sound like Biff the high-school quarterback reading lines in the senior class play.

William tells me he could sell it for $350. Man, this "exact phrasing" stuff is gold.

William explains that the store has so many suits in stock they constantly need to slash prices.

I go for the win-win. I ask what he could do for me if I bought a shirt and tie along with the suit. He says he could knock off another $100.

Turns out the suit must have been ridiculously marked up. Similar suits sell for about $495 - I later found one like it online for $299. Maybe I'm not a natural negotiator after all.

Sure, it might have been the same deal everyone else who walks through the door gets, but there's a pride in getting a deal, one the suckers walking around in $300 jeans will never know.

Now I'm off to negotiate for a wedding present. His and her platinum underwear, perhaps? Probably not. But whatever I pay for the gift, I'm going to make sure I won't have to dip into my KD reserves just yet.