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 Between saving money for the down
payment and all the extra costs incurred in buying and moving, where do you find the
budget to furnish your new home?
To save tons of money, writes Angela Colley on MoneyTalksNews.com, take the alternate path to buying at retail furniture stores.
"I realized," writes Colley, "that I'd have to spend $4,473 just to get the basics to furnish my
(new) house by buying at retail prices."
She saved a ton of money by shopping
garage sales, flea markets and clearance racks.
One big lesson
she learned is that "it's not embarrassing to ask friends and family if they
have furnishings they no longer need - maybe because they tend to stash the
stuff in a garage or spare bedroom." They're usually more than happy to put it
to use.
Here are Colley's
helpful hints to shopping this way, saving you time and money:
Garage Sales:
Keep a watchful eye out for signs as you are driving near your home and
peruse online websites that host garage sale ads, like Yard Sale Search and GarageSales.com.
Flea Markets:
Look for local indoor and outdoor flea markets online. A couple
of websites she suggests are FleaPortal and Collectors.org.
Online Discounters: like Overstock.com
can be a great resource. Colley found her bed frame at a huge
discount.
Best Times of Year to Shop for
Furniture: Everything has
its season and furniture is no exception.
Back to School is a great
time to find deals at most major stores because of dorm sales. Wait for just
after school starts to catch the clearance sales.
"January
and July are (also) great times to find sales on furniture" states an
article on About.com, "because new furniture styles hit the showroom floor
twice a year (in February and August) and stores need to make room for all
those arrivals."
Always look for Freebies: Obviously friends and family are a great
resource, but there are other sources available too. Colley says she had heard of Freecycle
, but hadn't used it before. Freecycle is
an online network connecting people who want to get rid of stuff with nearby
people who might want it. She signed up
and got a desk and matching chair for free.
The moral to this story of Colley's is that she furnished her whole house this way for
only $716.97! "It took some legwork - and a lot of early-morning
garage-sale hunting -"she says. "But considering
what I was planning on spending, I saved $3,730.76 (or enough money to pay my
rent for four months.) Knowing how much I saved, I'll probably never buy from a furniture store again."
Read the full story
at Money Talks News.
Posted on March 06, 2012 10:49:38 by  Scott.Shields
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