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Thrifty Tips To Maximizing Your Money
Hint: One of the Only “New” Things I Buy Is Coffee
We all like shopping. There’s a reason it’s called “retail therapy.” But most of us also like seeing a nice balance in our bank accounts. So, what’s a girl to do?
I’ll tell you.
Buy used stuff. It’s really that simple. There are very few things in this world that you can’t get a heckuva deal on if you are just willing to get it second instead of first.
When I was renovating my kitchen years ago, I was simply coveting the notion of a built-in double oven. This was more than 15 years ago, so those things were new on the market. They were not cheap. I thumbed through pages of magazines, seeing them glistening in new kitchens and had such envy. I shopped for the other appliances — refrigerator, dishwasher — at an outlet scratch & dent, and scoured for ones that had really no visible blemishes, but I was certain I wouldn’t find my perfect oven(s). Until I was perusing the Sears in the swanky mall, looking for something unrelated, and there, perfectly wrapped in that shrink wrap that told me it had been delivered and then un-delivered, was a gleaming double wall oven. Someone had custom-ordered it for their own kitchen, and hadn’t measured quite correctly. I bought it on the spot. A $3,000 oven combo was mine for $1,500. Shazam!
