You may have heard the motto, “Buy used and save the
difference.” It’s simple advice. Whenever possible, avoid buying brand new items
and instead put the difference between the used and the retail price into the
bank.
You need a lawn mower. Mid-range retail price is $300 for a push mower. You pick up a
good used mower at a yard sale for $80.
You have a difference of $220 in
your pocket. Yay! Now, the hard part. Instead of using that extra money to
splurge on 15 pounds of dark chocolate (What? Don’t judge me), you stick that
chunk of change into your savings account.
Since we have a specific goal of paying off our loan early,
we’ve tweaked this motto slightly to fit our situation: “Pray. Buy smart. Pay
the difference.” As much as possible, everything we save by buying used or
discounted will go toward our loan.
Our first opportunity to live by this motto came by mistake.
When we did our final walk-through (the night before we were supposed to close
on the house), we noticed one glaring problem: The washer and dryer were gone! The
seller had agreed to include all appliances with the purchase of the house, and
I was super excited about the high capacity washer in the laundry room. We’d
been using a compact set in our rental and I was always behind on laundry
(especially during puking marathons… *shudder*). So the prospect of a giant
machine that could actually wash a whole laundry hamper’s worth of clothes was
thrilling.
Alas, no one knew where the promised set had disappeared to,
so the seller agreed to give us money to buy another. Our realtor and the
seller did some quick research and found that the cost of a brand new, comparable
set would cost roughly $1600. At closing the next morning, the seller cut us a
check for that amount.
As we gazed over a sea of shiny washing machines in the
middle of Menards it was oh, so tempting to fork over that entire sum for the
benefit of having a brand new set.
“The seller is paying for it,” we reasoned.
“We’ll probably never have a chance to buy a brand new,
matching set again.”
“Plus, we’re supposed to be moving in next week. We don’t
have time to scour Craigslist for a used machine. We need one right away.”
“These are guaranteed to last for years.”
And the justifying went on and on until we looked at each
other and burst out laughing. Who were we kidding?! There was no way we were
spending $1600 on a washer and dryer set! Not when there were other options. It
was nice to dream for two seconds, though.
The sellers had made it clear that they didn’t care whether
we spent the whole thing on a set from Menards, or used only part of it to buy
a used set. They just wanted to give us enough to cover a washer and dryer
comparable to the ones that had been in the purchase agreement. Very nice of
them.
We decided to buy used and put the difference back into the
loan.
In the midst of the craziness of trying to move in the
middle of a blizzard (welcome to April in Wisconsin), Joshua working extra
hours with the bus, and settling a family of 7 into a new home, we began our
search… on Craigslist. I didn’t find a whole lot. Discouraged, overwhelmed, and
more than a tad stressed, we began to pray that God would give us wisdom and
what He knew to be best.
Finally I came across an ad for a used appliance store
advertising refurbished high capacity washers. We headed over there and found a
gorgeous Samsung Smart Care 4.5 cu ft washer. From my research, it was exactly
the machine I had been hoping to buy. Unfortunately, it had “SOLD” plastered on
it. The sales lady offered to call a sister store in Minneapolis to see if they
happened to have another one. When she got off the phone she said, “Great news!
This one was actually being held for a woman who never picked it up. The lady never
paid and it’s been here over the “holding time,” so it is available if you want
it. In fact, it’s been here so long, I’ll give you 20% off.” The listed price was
$400. With the discount she was offering, the sale price came down to $320. Oh,
yeah!!
Even better, they had the matching dryer and she offered it
for the same price. So, after taxes, we ended up paying a total of $686 for my
dream washer and dryer set! Yes, they are used, but only barely. It was one of
those things where the original buyer decided they didn’t like the set for
whatever reason, so they returned it to the store. It was an outdated model, so
the store sold it to this appliance place to clear it out of their showroom.
The only thing wrong with the set is that the washer has a few small dings on
the side.
What a blessing God gave us!
The Numbers:
Out of curiosity I looked up our machines to find the retail
value. If we’d bought these slightly outdated models brand new the cost would
have been….
Washer: $550
Dryer: $700
Difference between
retail and used (before tax): $610
If we were just spending our own money and were going to “buy
smart and pay the difference” we would pay $610 extra on our loan this month.
Since we were given a check to buy a new set, we actually got to save more than
that.
What we could have
spent: $1600
What we actually
spent: $686
Difference to add to
first payment: $914
Fun Fact: I
plugged the numbers into Payoff Track. If the only extra money we ever paid on
our loan was that $914, we could pay off our mortgage five months early and reduce
our total interest by whopping $2,690.57!
Brand new washer and dryer set for $1600? Or slightly used
set for $686, knocking almost $2700 off our loan?
Now I can wash this whole pile of laundry at one time.
The only downside is that I no longer have a kid tall enough to move it all to the dryer.
Pray. Buy smart. Pay the difference.
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