Big Purchases Need Big Research

I’ll take the white one, please This weekend Eric and I made some rather large purchases for the new home. We purchased a refrigerator and a washer and dryer. After about a week of researching and kicking tires we finally felt ready to buy.

Big purchases shouldn’t be made haphazardly. For me, there is definitely a correlation on how much money I’m about to spend and how much research I need to do to feel confident that I’m getting the right product at the right price. When thousands of dollars are involved you can bet that I’m going to try to be as knowledgeable as I can so I make the best decisions.

Here is the process I followed to help me figure out what I wanted and where to buy it:

1. Narrow the field. First, I developed a general idea of what I wanted. We currently have an old side-by-side refrigerator and it frustrates me that I can’t fit a pizza box or other large items in the freezer. It was time for a new style. After looking at fridges in person and learning about the pros and cons of the different configurations I felt a bottom freezer was a good choice for us. I liked the look and functionality of the french door/bottom freezer style best so I focused my search on that.

2. Research the brands and models. I started comparing the various brands/models online. This helped me compile and prioritize my preferences. To help me determine the top performers for my style I decided to sign up for Consumer Reports online. It costs money to subscribe, but having access to that information can be very valuable when making large durable good purchases. I was able to read the ratings and reviews and learned what to look for in a fridge of this type. Many of the models I considered hadn’t been tested by Consumer Reports yet but by reading reviews on other models I could get a feel for that brand’s overall performance. After doing plenty of research online I picked a few models that I wanted to get to know better in person.

3. Know your prices. With printouts of our favorite models in hand, we drove to the stores that carried the brands we were considering. We took careful notes of the model numbers, prices, discounts, price-match policies, and financing offers available in each store. We made sure to avoid the sales pitches and left without buying anything. We knew we needed to go home and compare the sales carefully to figure out who really had the best deal.

4. Go after the deal. After comparing the deals we decided that Best Buy came out ahead. They offered to price match the best deal we could find (including prices found up to 30 days after the sale), free delivery and installation, and 18 months no-interest financing. Most of the stores did price matching and had some sort of no-interest financing but Best Buy also had a rewards program that would give us about $85 back on the purchase. The other stores couldn’t beat that. The next day we approached the appliance supervisor, showed him the competition’s prices, and got the deal we were after. He kept saying that I “drive a hard bargain” but really I didn’t. I only made an educated purchase that gave me the best deal possible for what I wanted.

Now I’m sure you are wondering why we went back into debt by financing it instead of paying cash. I don’t like the fact that we have a balance on a store card of all things but this will allow us to continue to make interest on the money over the next 18 months. We set up automatic payments so we don’t miss any then set up notifications two months prior to the balance being due so we can pay it off in full. We have done this before and never had a problem with it. The important thing is that we didn’t use credit to buy something we couldn’t afford. We have that money already sitting in the bank so we might as well earn some interest on it as long as the rate on the card is at 0%.

Image Source: SqueakyMarmot

Ahh, How I’ve Missed Consumerism…

A new religion, you say? One of the ways we’ve managed to keep to our budget so well was that we steered clear of temptation. The last couple of months we didn’t go out to eat often to avoid spending too much there, and we didn’t go shopping anywhere except the grocery store (and then, with a specific list). We also just about stopped watching TV entirely so we didn’t see commercials for products.

Well, now that we are getting ever closer to moving in, we’ve had to go shopping. I have to say, it was pretty damn shocking! Having avoided shopping successfully for about the last 6 months, we hit several electronic stores, appliance stores, and the mall today in one fell swoop.

I had forgotten how overstimulating the stores were. The loud music, large numbers of people, bright lights, obnoxious signage, and just all around too much!

To make it that much worse, it’s less than a week until the busiest shopping day of the year. Black Friday. I went shopping on Black Friday once. Once. It was an absolutely awful experience. It was nothing like today, but I can see the beginning of the buildup.

The Christmas decorations are everywhere. Don’t get me wrong - I like Christmas just fine. But it’s just so overdone at the stores. Lights, displays, animated talking Santas, you name it!

There was a Sony PS3 truck playing very loud rap music in front of Fry’s Electronics. It was crazy! This huge semi trailer had big screen TVs and PS3 boxes all over it. I used to be a big gamer, so it was pretty tempting for me, but the way too loud rap music kept me away. The only thing that could have made this more obnoxious would be a group of bikini clad women shooting t-shirts at people with air guns (this isn’t a too uncommon tactic at big gaming conventions).

Luckily, we went in with a mission and avoided most of the temptations at the stores. We didn’t buy a single thing. We stuck to our commitment just to price the things we knew we wanted, and to compare the models that we were considering. We’ve done most of our comparison online, and have checked things out with Consumer Reports, but you really have to go in and see these things in person. Or at least we do. We measured, poked, prodded, flipped switches, and compared colors in person on refrigerators and washer/dryer combinations.

After all the insanity of today, I think I just need to sit back, relax, and enjoy the silence. I’ll finish my comparisons tomorrow after I get my chance to decompress.

Image Source: roland

Emotional Purchases: Our Anniversary Indulgence

Tradition can be yummy To say that we didn’t spend any money on our anniversary isn’t entirely true. We did decide at the last minute to spend some money on a treat for the both of us.

Traditionally, the bride and groom eat the top tier of their wedding cake on their first anniversary. We saved ours for this purpose. About two weeks after the wedding I realized it was taking up too much freezer space and said that we would eat it on our first month “anniversary” instead. We would just get a fresh one made if we decided to honor the tradition when we reached a year.

The morning before our anniversary Eric and I discussed getting a replacement topper to celebrate the occasion. In order to stay true to tradition, I contacted the bakery that made our wedding cake and asked what it would cost to make a small round topper like our original cake (without the decorations). It was white cake filled with fresh strawberries and cream cheese all iced in buttercream. Yum!

I knew it wasn’t going to be a cheap cake but the price still caught me off guard. I asked if they sold the cake by the slice but they didn’t - I would have to get a cake made and the smallest one fed six. After exhausting the options on the phone with her I impulsively said that would be fine, and placed an order for the bare minimum to be ready the following day.

When I hung up the phone a little wave of panic set in and I questioned my decision. I ended up calling a few friends to ask if I made a mistake and if I should cancel it. My mother said that I should cancel the order and suggested making one from scratch to save money. Although I normally would have made the cake myself we weren’t having the cake just to have cake. Either we followed tradition with that particular cake or we didn’t need to do it. It certainly wasn’t a requirement for us.

When I chatted with Eric about my concerns I was surprised to hear that he still wanted to get the cake. He said that we weren’t just buying any old cake; we were keeping with tradition for our first anniversary and that should be considered in the decision. He also said that we could make it work in our budget by counting it into food costs. I agreed that it was a lovely thing to do and with my husband’s encouragement I decided not to cancel the order.

This was definitely an emotionally driven purchase rather than a rational one. After placing the order my rational side immediately alerted me that I needed to step back and ask for other’s opinions. Honoring tradition (especially when it is wedding related) can elicit a strong emotional response and I realized I might not be able to trust my own judgment in this situation.

I wonder if this emotional response is what leads “normal” people to buy really expensive wedding gowns, designer baby furniture, huge diamond engagement rings, even costly funeral caskets. I can’t imagine these are completely rational purchases. There must be an emotional component influencing the decision.

To help cover the cost of this emotional purchase my rational side will take the cost of the cake from the grocery budget. That should be fine since we are already planning to limit our grocery purchases this month to mainly the fresh essentials. In preparation for the move we are cleaning out the pantry and freezer so my grocery trips will cost significantly less.

*drool* And boy, is it a good cake! Thoroughly and utterly delicious! The cake is more like eight or ten servings, not six, so we are still enjoying it this week.

Of course, this will not become a yearly thing. It was a $40 splurge only suited for the first anniversary. When you think about what this anniversary COULD have cost us (in gifts we didn’t buy for each other) I think we got by on a dime.

Ok, so it was about 400 dimes, but that’s still not bad! :-)

Don’t Get Me Anything = You Better Get Me A Gift?

That’s IT? This weekend is our first wedding anniversary. I guess we can no longer call ourselves newlyweds. Eric says I’ll be an old married hag after the weekend. Well, at least officially now. :-)

An interesting thing happened when Eric was traveling for work recently. He had dinner with several co-workers that he doesn’t see very often and they remembered that about this time last year he was getting married. Eric confirmed that our anniversary was approaching.

“So, what are you getting her?”

Eric said “Nothing, we decided not to give gifts for this anniversary”.

“You’re kidding, right? Did she say it was ok not to get her a gift?”

“Yes, we both discussed it and decided that we weren’t going to exchange gifts”.

They couldn’t believe it and refused to accept that I didn’t want anything for our anniversary. All four of them promptly informed Eric that he better get me gift and that it better be a good one. “Jewelry is a clear winner” one of them said with the others nodding in agreement. Another talked about how he had to get his wife something really nice for their first anniversary. They even called over the waitress to ask her what she thought (for a woman’s perspective) and she said “That’s code”. They all felt Eric was making a grave mistake.

Eric, feeling pressured, said that we were going to go out to a nice dinner instead. That seemed to placate the group as they responded that nice dinners are good and that should help. But they still stressed that he better also get me something nice.

When Eric told me this story a few days ago I felt a little insulted. They assumed that I would say one thing while meaning the opposite and that I would be disappointed when he actually did what we agreed on. And they implied that Eric was naive and didn’t understand what I really wanted if he didn’t get me a fancy gift.

Surely not all of these guys got into marriages with women that expect gifts despite saying the contrary. I have to hope that this conversation was some sort of guys-against-girls bonding episode using the stereotype that women always want (and expect) sparkly things. Eric says they were dead serious, though.

I told Eric that he should’ve replied “For our anniversary we are buying a home”. I think that is a damn good gift!

I think the best gift he could give me is working together as a team to buy this new home. Not buying me a present is exactly what I want. It shows his level of commitment to our goal and his ability to avoid social pressure.

If Eric had bought me jewelry I would have been mortified. That may be hard for some people to believe but it is the honest truth. I would have felt betrayed because buying me something like that goes against everything we have been working so hard for this year.

What we are doing to celebrate our anniversary is using some gift certificates we got from cashing in some credit card points to go to dinner. This will give us a nice evening out without affecting our pocket book. I think that is lovely and very appropriate. It makes me smile to think we are celebrating our first anniversary on a dime to help us meet our goal.

Besides, isn’t the first anniversary the “paper” anniversary, anyway? Shouldn’t a card be enough?

Update: Even as I prepare to post this Eric is still asking me if I really am ok with no gifts. Before going to that dinner he never questioned if he was doing the right thing by accepting my wishes at face value. Societal norms can really mess with you, huh?

Image Source: Swamibu

Who DOESN’T Have A BB&B Coupon?

I have a mountain of those 20% off Bed Bath & Beyond coupons, 25 of them to be exact. I know I can’t be the only one with a glut of these around the house. They have been sitting in a drawer gathering dust for over a year now. I don’t even remember the last time I shopped there.

Why do I have so many?

My family had been giving them to us to use with purchases after our wedding. I thought we might use the money we received as wedding gifts to get some kitchen essentials but we actually ended up using the money to help pay off our honeymoon. So there was no shopping at BB&B after the wedding and no using these coupons.

I also get them in junk mail constantly. These coupons must come in the mail every week or so. They seem to be everywhere. Last year I started saving and as soon as the wedding was over I stopped. Almost all of them are long expired but they still take them regardless.

I am shocked that people shop there without a coupon when the coupons are *everywhere*. I found out you can even go to customer service and ask for a coupon and they will sometimes give you one.

Why do I still have them?

There is that little voice in the back of my mind telling me to hang on to them “just in case”. With us moving in a few months I feel our household needs are uncertain. We could find we need something for the new home that we could get at BB&B for a good price. There is no way I’d buy anything there without a 20% off coupon though, that would be crazy. So I better keep these coupons, right?

But honestly, if I need something for the house chances are I can find that item cheaper at a variety of other stores. I would consider BB&B to be one of my last resorts. As long as I’m not brand-specific I can usually find a better deal elsewhere. Am I planning on shopping there enough to justify needing 25 coupons at my immediate disposal? Gosh, I hope not! That is definitely not in the budget!

I actually didn’t realize I had 25 of these coupons until I pulled them all out and counted. I guess it is easy to stockpile that many when they never expire, they come in the mail frequently, and they are hidden in a drawer.

I have decided to toss all but 5 of them. Who needs that clutter? I think 5 is a reasonable number considering we might actually have multiple reasons to use them soon. Here’s hoping it won’t come to that though!