how to buy furniture on a budget

How to Buy Furniture on a Budget.

High-quality furniture is possible to find on a budget. You just need to know where to look. There are many options available for you to find affordable furniture without sacrificing comfort or quality. While retail stores often have holiday sales and clearance discounts, you can also look through the inventories of thrift stores, salvage/recycled stores, local vendors with garage sales, and online trading sites.

Method 1 Buying Used Furniture.

1. Seek out yard sales. If you are on the hunt for furniture and see a yard sale sign, stop by! They may have what you are looking for. Furniture that is sold at yard sales is cheaper than what you could find anywhere else, either because they do not know its worth, or they just want to get rid of it regardless of price.

Do not be afraid to haggle. You will often be able to talk the seller into offering you a lower price.

2. Go to thrift stores regularly. There are trustworthy thrift store chains like Goodwill, but there are also many smaller local thrift stores that may have what you are looking for. Thrift store inventories change regularly depending on what is donated each day, so make a habit out of stopping by to find hidden treasures. When you go to browse their inventories, be prepared to haul the item away yourself.

3. Consider salvaged items. Stores like Habitat for Humanity accept gently used donated furniture and sell it for a fraction of what you could find elsewhere. Salvaged items are used by definition, but some effort has been put into refurbishing them. These pieces typically have a more traditional and rustic aesthetic.

Know what you’re looking for when you go to a salvage store, and don’t be afraid to put in a little effort to spruce up a piece of furniture. Cleaning it and adding a new coat of paint can transform the furniture into the perfect piece for your home.

4. Sign up for estate sales. There are several sites you can use to sign up for alerts when there is an estate sale in your general vicinity. Estate sales are the ideal place to find matching furniture sets at reduced prices. These furniture items are usually of a higher quality and were taken care of by their previous owners.

Method 2 Shopping Online.

1. Check local advertisements. There are a variety of sites at your disposal to find individuals in your area who are looking to sell their used furniture. Sites like Craigslist or Freecycle organize vendors by location and let you see what items are available near you. To purchase something from these sites, just contact the vendor and agree on a time, place, and payment method. Bring a vehicle that can transport the furniture.

Don’t forget to check social media sites, as many people advertise garage sales on sites like Facebook.

2. Browse Internet-based retailers. Sites like Amazon or eBay receive their inventories from many different vendors, meaning they have a variety of styles and prices to choose from. While you will not be able to inspect the item in person, you can rely off of user reviews left by people who have bought and used it before.

Sites like eBay often have furniture for sale from companies that have liquidated their offices.

3. Check retailer sites to compare prices. Shopping online is a great way to find cheaper deals, but take some time to compare prices with the furniture that you could buy directly from a retailer in your area. By sampling the prices at a few stores, you can figure out how much something is worth and how much would save by purchasing it elsewhere.

Method 3 Buying Directly from Stores.

1. Shop seasonally. Sales happen all the time at retailers, especially around the holidays. While major holidays have their own sales, furniture retailers have especially large sales around President’s Day, Labor Day, and Memorial Day. Take advantage of these sales to score larger furniture items and matching sets.

January and July are also good times to shop for furniture because retail stores rotate their inventories at this time, greatly reducing prices to get rid of excess stock.

You can usually find discounts at the end of the season. For instance, patio furniture is often on sale at the end of August.

2. Check retail store websites. Here you can check specific product information like size and user reviews and figure out if you want it as well. You can also find many discounted deals by looking at the online site than you would by walking around the physical store. Websites will often have a page dedicated to featuring their current sales and limited time offers.

3. Use coupons. Furniture coupons can be acquired in a variety of ways. You can pay a subscription service to either newspapers or magazines that could potentially have them. You can also find them for free online on the store’s website.[10] Certain websites like RetailMeNot will hunt down coupons and offers for you and let you know when your items are on sale.

You can find extra coupons during holidays, such as for “Back to School” sales.

4. Search for clearance sales. Clearance sales are different from standard discounted sales because they mean the vendor is looking to get rid of the entirety of particular stocks to make room for newer products. These products will be sold at greatly discounted prices, knowing that the low prices will attract more buyers.

Tips.

Take a truck or van if you buy furniture from a rental storage company, as it is up to the customer to haul the furniture. If you shop for furniture at garage sales or thrift stores, make arrangements with someone to load and haul your purchases.

Buy only used and discount furniture you really like. If you buy a piece of furniture that you dislike, you may end up replacing the piece in only weeks or months.

If you buy furniture online or if it gets shipped to you, keep a record of the sale, payment, and any communication with the seller to ensure you receive the item as it was advertised.

Warnings.

Buyer beware! You get what you pay for, which means that if you pay very little, there is a decent chance that the quality of your furniture will be unsatisfactory.

If an advertisement is too good to be true, it just might be. Before going to pick up a piece of furniture, take some precautions to ensure you are not getting scammed. Call ahead, ask for a different picture, anything that will prove your vendor has that object.

Be skeptical of furniture that is left by the curb with a “Free” sign. The item may be broken, moldy, or have bugs. If the item has been there for a while, chances are it has also been rained on as well.