Champagne Tastes & Beer Budgets spin off

[serenetabbie]

I will admit freely that I love well made, quality things. I like the higher end furniture, food and clothes. I would rather do without something than buy something cheaply made, ugly or that is from a place that has business practices I dislike (hand me downs are an exception, I will and have used hand me down things I would never in a million years purchase). I get such a thrill out of wearing an outfit that cost me next to nothing when I know that retail (even bargain retail) would have cost me a small fortune!

I shop often at scratch-n-dent grocery places, Aldi's and Odd Lots... where I can usually find a lot of organic &/or gourmet foods/products I would never otherwise be able to afford. We bought our appliances at the sears scratch n dent place. Quite often I have found high quality toys, clothes and shoes at thrift and consignment shops. We are currently on the look out for a good sofa to replace the (servicable but ugly hand me down) futon. Any ideas on this one? We would like leather (I know, I know, terrible, but I understand they are the best for families with allergies).

I am sure there are lots of other people here who are the same way!

So tell me... what are your favorite places to find $$ things for less? What have been some of your best deals?

[Amys1st]

this is what I was hoping for!! I like good quality things as well. But, IMHO I will wait for it or not have it. There are many ways to have quality things but you have to be resourcefull and creative.

The TP here. I have scored diapers, clothing, slings, nursing tops, etc and when done, I sell them again to keep them going

Freecycle- dont even get me started what you can get on that.

Ebay- DH just scored a pair of mephisto shoes for $70. They are $200 - $400 at Nordstorom. This pair looks to be worn once and it didnt work out. He found a german website and bought his brand new mephisto boots for $200 instead of $450 they are in the states. They are made in France not China and worth the money since he will wear them 8-10 years.


Coops. Frontier, plus scads of others for organic stuff.

Momcycle. I have gone shopping in my friends basement while she was claearing out baby stuff and now I have a chico seat for my table in the kitchen. I just gave another Mom a huge bag of clothing Maggie grew out of- she is expecting a girl. I lent out a baby snowsuit and it was returned in better condition! My dd1 wore it, then another mom used it and now Maggie uses it. I will pass it along after this winter.

We are trying to buy things made in the states or somewhere not china! ITs very hard but it keeps us out of the bix boxes. Its also more costly so we dont get or need as many things.

We bought our oven at the scratch and dent, a kohler toilet, and bathroom fixtures on ebay. All of these items were under $300. The lowest was the toilet at Lowe's for $25.

[bendmom]

I find that if I wait long enough for the right thing it always shows itself. I will want or need something and instead of going right out and buying it I give it some time to shop around at resale shops, thrift stores, craigslist, etc. One big thing I have is my children have to be well dressed. Not anything fance, but comfortable and clean. I would totally spend $400 at Hanna, but have found so many peices in perfect condition at resale shops, ebay, etc for a fraction of the cost. I wanted a new couch and dh told me to get a good one, not just the first one I saw and then regretted it later. I waited for a bit and found a really nice couch in the paper for $100! It had a slip cover on it always and was in pristine condition. THe lady who owned it bought a new chair for the dining room, and decided to get rid off all her furniture to buy new based on this chair! I have found really expensive high end wool sweaters at Goodwill for $8 because the owner didn't know how to take care of the small amount of pilling, saving me literally hundreds on a couple of sweaters. Anyway, yah, I've always felt there is no reason to spend money on new things that are poorly made, etc when you could just wait a bit and get a nicer version for equal or less.

Oh yeah, and I go to Grocery Outlet and get organic shave creams, shampoos, conditioners, lotions, etc and groceries that are organic for a fraction of the cost. Right now they have the Alba hawiian line for $3-5 since it's not summer and the stores don't want them. I spent $12 on the pinapple enzyme scrub, and there they had it for $5!

[Redifer]

I'm big on Burlington Coat Factory and TJ Maxx. I love finely-made things, but I can't justify spending $600 on a coat.... sooooooo, I wait until april, when everything goes on clearance, and find the one with a missing button, and get a further discount... voila, $600 coat marked down to $47.

I also scavange in the "rich" sides of town: I'l cruise around on garbage nights, and pick up some of the REALLY nice furniture. Or I'll hit up the thrift stores in those neighborhoods.

[Sharlla]

We are electronics junkies. I don't care about jewelery or what I wear, what kind or car I drive etc.

[iamama]

I do upholstery and dh is a carpenter sometimes we use our mad skilz to make with our own hands something we can't afford. Like my beautiful tv armoire. We spent a couple hundred on wood but have a beautiful piece that will last our lifetimes. It was worth the work for sure. I make all kinds of things from costumes to chairs so I can have something I like within my budget thats beautiful, functional and MINE!

[mightymoo]

I agree about high quality stuff. I don't think that high-quality necessarily equals name brand or designer, especially when you are mostly paying for the label. However, I think you need to match the quality to the use and expected lifespan. For example, I have found the more expensive name brand kids clothing is much better made, like Gap, Gymboree, etc. However, my son grows out of his clothes in a few months and so I don't need the higher quality clothes because he won't wear the store brand clothes long enough to wear them out.

I do a lot of the previous posters things, craigslist, ebay, thrift and consignment stores. Where we used to live DH and I worked for a big company with 30K local employees all of whom made really good money - the company classified ad site was such a great place to get stuff. I'd decide what I want and if I waited long enough inevitably someone was selling one nearly new for cheap. My best example of this was my MacLaren Twin Traveller - retails for $350 or something, I got one for $175 brand new. The mom told me she bought two, one for the car, one for the garage and never used th one in the garage. So it was ridden in twice. Loved it. I really miss that site.

For gifts, which I feel it is really important to get better / name brand stuff to avoid looking cheap, I try to combine good coupons (15%+ off) with good sales and clearance. I went up to the outlet malls in New Hampshire with my mom for a ladies weekend and I printed tons of coupons online - then I would go to those stores and look for something significantly on sale which I could apply the coupon to, I did pretty well at this. We also looked for clearance. My brother loves Polo shirts, we found out of season (short sleeved, summer colors) polo shirts for $10 since he lives in Texas he can use them practically year round anyway.

[MaddieMay]

We are like this! Patience is key-we've been looking for a good quality office desk for a year now. I'm confident we'll find the right one (we're pretty specific) that's not a ridiculous price.

We do many of the things mentioned here, so I won't repeat all of them. The one thing we do somewhat differently is stay out of the stores! We shop at one grocery store and that's about it-they have good produce and some organic offerings, so it kills two birds with one stone. They even carry organic body products at pretty decent prices!

If we go somewhere else, we go there for a specific reason, not to "just look." For example, last night we went to Bed, Bath, and Beyond to get a wedding gift from a registry there. We walked in, obtained the registry, chose the gift, used the coupon we got in the mail, got it wrapped (free!), and walked out. Dwadling in stores promotes impulse purchases! We shop online a lot for this reason-it's easy to compare prices and it's nice to have it shipped to you! (Often, for free.)

The only thing that bugs me is sometimes people see the nice, quality things we have and assume we are rich. (We are not.) Like Amy said, you have to just be resourceful and creative-but I think a lot of people just don't know how to do that.

[Belleweather]

Our local university has a SWAP shop (I have no idea what that stands for...) where the university sells off things they can no longer use for cheap, including furniture and personal effects that are left when people move out of the dorms. It's a great place to buy lamps, sheets, desks, dressers, bicycles, and computers. We get so much stuff there that it's unreal.

We do a lot of shopping online. Generally, my feeling is that if I like something I'll look at what it costs new and think about how much I want it and then decide what I'm willing to pay for it. Then I'll haunt ebay and frugal and freecycle and the local craigslist and for sale listings until I find it at the price I want, or decide we don't need it anymore.

[Godaime]

I also admit while always surfing the frugal forums, and how to save more money, I don't like to shop at discount places where the quality of the items are low and ugly. However I almost never pay full price for retail items like clothes. Printable coupons off of the internet are a lifesaver. Recently I went shopping at gymboree and the children's place. I printed a coupon for gymboree for 30% off of entire purchase, and a coupon for the children's place for 10 dollars off of 30 dollar purchase. When I got to the mall I looked in the sale and clearance racks so the discounts can stack up. The prices of these nice brand new clothes were cheaper than consignment stores.

I can't afford higher end furniture right now so I don't have any. I live in an apartment anyways. However I bought really nice brand new dressers at target for 25 bucks each (not cardboard ones, these are real), a really nice desk for 37 dollars. They were all 75% from discontinued lines.

I think most things I can wait until I can afford a quality item thats onsale. Like I want a really nice lcd tv thats 1080p. We can't afford one right now so we have a crappy second hand 20 inch regular tv.

[mightymoo]

Originally Posted by Godaime

I think most things I can wait until I can afford a quality item thats onsale. Like I want a really nice lcd tv thats 1080p. We can't afford one right now so we have a crappy second hand 20 inch regular tv.

That's our goal, a nice LCD HDTV. I told DH we will make that our savings goal after christmas, we're going to put all our christmas money in there (his parents usually give us a nice check) and then I'll start selling off the stuff we don't need anymore until we have enough - then we'll do some research and wait for a really good deal.

[Amys1st]

DH builds furniture for fun. We furnished our whole house w solid wood furniture. It would have cost us at leaast 100K. We could splurge on the 2 sofas and a chair plus our mattresses since he made everything else. He has also made stuff for our preschool. He is extremely handy as well so we are big time DIYers.

We also love good coffee. So we buy beans green and roast ourselves. We have several hundred dollars of coffee making stuff but if you look over time, its very cheap.

I agree, name brand dosent equal excellent. I see so many brands that are now Made in China and low quality its a shame. We are not big "I want it now!" or "Have it all" type people. We are more than happy to wait for things.

We are also in zerpo debt except for our house which is some people's car payments. When we buy a new car in the next year, my goal is to do a trade and pay cash for the rest. I am also trying to build our savings acct that is just cash. We have retirement accts etc that is already building.

As far as Champagne and Beer. My favorite one is Dom. Went on the tour in France etc. Bought it there for about $75 instead of the $100 here. Its smooth. It will be a while before we indulge in it Sooo, we just splurge on the more expensive beer and drink it over a longer course of time.

[Amys1st]

LMK mighymoo when you are selling stuff! I always love your TP stuff!!

As far as that goes, whenever a huge coop is going on, within days of the shipment, someone is unloading the stuff already. I really made out after the blue canoe coop. 2 mamas stuff didnt fit and all of it fit me fine!

[snuggly mama]

Well, we have more like inexpensive wine tastes on a tap water budget . . .
Still, I am learning that paying a little more for something often means it will last longer, work better, or just make me appreciate it more. Last year we bought a cheap TV armoire at Target. It's now sitting in my trash pile because the drawers fell apart, the back fell off, and it was swaying so much I was worried it would fall on dd. Should have just spent the good money on solid wood the first time. We also have cheap living room furniture that needs to be replaced because the fabric faded and pillow stuffing was poor quality. I'm now looking at consignment shops, thrift stores and going-out-of-business furniture stores for the pieces we need. We're slow, but we're learning!