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Appliance Shopping? How to find the best deals…


    There is nothing more exciting and frustrating at the same time then trying to purchase new appliances.  What brand should I buy? Who should I buy from? What’s the difference between this model and that?  Who has the best warranty?      If you try to do research on any given brand, you are going to find out bad news on all of them.  No one writes good posts anymore.  If you’re happy with a product the likelihood of you going to the web and writing, “Oh I love this stove, it’s the best around”, isn’t not going to happen.  You only turn to the customer comments when you’re pissed about a product or a store.  I found this to be true when I was purchasing my complete appliance package.  It’s hard enough buying one piece but trying to buy a four piece package it’s just daunting.  Keep in mind that most appliances are made by the same company; they just have a different name and logo on it.  Company’s do this to trick the consumer.  If someone hates Frigidaire so they go buy Electrolux instead; well- unknown to the customer, Electrolux and Frigidaire are made by the same manufacture.        The first thing you should do is look at each store and what they offer.  I recommend starting at Lowes, Home Depot, Sears and Best Buy.   Once you narrow down the style and brand you want, get bid packages from each store.  Ask an appliance representative to write down the set you want to purchase and he will send it to corporate to see what kind of deal they can give to you. (this usually takes a couple days to get it back) Start playing them against each other.  These stores want your business and are in competition with each other.  Most of these stores will match the competitions price and beat it by 10%.  Hey, that just saved you the tax. That’s somewhere to start.     If you are close to a major holiday coming up, try to wait.  Watch the ads.  Many stores on some weeks will have sales that all their appliances are 10% or 20% off.   Don’t forget that Lowes and Home Depot give military personnel an extra 10% off if you show military ID. Also, the ads will have certain appliance packages for sale; “Buy all four of these for $1,999!”  Sometimes these could be a good deal, but other times not.  Most of these appliances are base models and just for a little extra money you can get a better model.     Lowes and Home Depot always offer free delivery and haul away.  Which is good, this could save you $100. Sears may offer free delivery but you have to pay for it upfront, and then submit a form to get your money back in credit card form.  Best Buy has deals on and off.        Here’s what I did… I shopped around to all these stores and narrowed my search to the Frigidaire Gallery selection (I ignored bad comments on-line). Got an appliance bid from Lowes and then took it to Sears and Best Buy; Home Depot doesn’t carry Frigidaire.  Both stores could not beat the bottom line price so I felt like I was getting a good deal.  I looked on-line at the prices at Lowes.  They seemed to be better deals. Hmm… this was strange, since I got a bid package from corporate.  It was in my best interest to buy these items separately, going with in store prices which had sales, and then on-line sales prices.  This saved me about $200 and I was also able to upgrade my stove and still save money.  Yeah!!!  We also used our military discount and the delivery was free.  In my case, we were purchasing a house that hadn’t closed yet so we were a couple weeks out.  I continued to watch the ad’s and whenever one went on sale cheaper, I’d bring in my receipt and get it for that price.  I’m sure everyone at Lowes knew my face by the time I had my appliances in my house but they always gave me the sale price and laughed when they saw me coming with my sale ad.  It may have taken a little bit of effort but I got the best deal around and you can’t touch my prices to this day.     Lowes also offers a great extended home warranty which is for $250 you get an extra four year warranty on three major appliances.  We chose the fridge, stove and dishwasher.  This includes everything to a food loss in a major power outage. Sears wanted about $250 for one appliance for one year!  Can you say, “Savings”!?!

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