Good, Cheap, Fast

Our garage is bulging with items that we have already bought for our new home.

Working on the quality triangle where you can only have two out of the three things, cheap, good, fast. We have already started researching, pricing and buying our new whiteware and large ticket items for our home.

Two new TV’s arrived yesterday, and although Dave wanted to unpack and set them up in the lounge, I was a bossy boots and ordered them into the garage next to the two new 3 seater electric recliners from Nick Scali. (This is not an invitation to burglars who are stalking this page – we have an alarm and a giant huntsman spider about the size of a dinner plate who’s taken up residence in our garage – enter at you own peril.)

In the colour Ancona Natural

 

The thing is you have to be savvy, wait for the sales, watch the pricing changes and pounce when the price is right. Never, never put it on the credit card. There is no point paying interest on something to only shelve it for months on end.

 

For instance, we were wandering around Early Settlers outlet store in Richmond and came across a small table that matched my Dining room set, even though my Dining table and chairs came from Harvey Norman. On my list of things I wanted for the new house, was a small table for a large bushy pot plant – still to be brought. No price was attached to the table and when the shop assistance went to check on the computer, Dave and I agreed to the highest price we were prepared to pay for it. Turns out it was 75% off as it was the last one and just within our budget, so it came home with us and into the garage.

I also have a place for a tall pot plant in my new home, something around 1.5m – 1.8m high. Yes, I have a floor plan of my house layout right down to the placement of pot plants. I really like the Fiddle leaf figs, but at $250+ per plant, they are expensive! So I have bought a $30 baby plant off the Facebook marketplace and now I have 9 months to keep it alive and hopefully grow it to twice the size. (This is not being kept in the garage).

We know what dishwasher we want to buy, it’s a, it’s an integrated dishwasher and the front panel is being provided by PD’s Kitchen Culture. Dave likes the cutlery tray at the top as it gives you more room in the lower drawers and that it accepts hot water, so you take advantage of the solar powered hot water rather than the dishwasher heating the water via electricity, saving money.

Over the next 9 months, it will come on sale and that’s when we will buy it. When you have the luxury of time you might as well use it. There is no point waiting till the building is at hand-over stage to start looking and then buying at full RRP.

 

Pop-up stores, factory outlets and closing down or moving sales are the best.

Koala & Co had a pop-up store for all their end of line and factory 2nds a couple of months ago at the Home Makers Shopping Centre in Springvale. Normally I can’t even afford the cushions in Koala & Co, their stuff is so expensive, but there is nothing like a good pop-up shop to cut 80% off the price.

This is the time to buy that amazing 12 seater dining table that retails at $5k and is down to $500.

The trick is to know when and where these things are going to happen. Know your favourite shops and register for their mailing list. Now mailing lists are always sending you out emails about their next sale – don’t fall in to the 20% trap – you want the 60-80% sale that happens once a year, these are typically at Easter when people are out shopping on their 4 day break or around the end of June and beginning of July for their End of Financial year clearances. You have the time, use it wisely.

I feel in love with the pendants that are on display at Porter Davis Forsyth 38 at Habitat, in the Master bedroom, I contacted PD via their Product Review question and answer page. They let me know I could buy them at Scotts Emporium.

When we went to Scotts, we found they were 60% off as they were end of line, only 8 left in Melbourne – Thank you very much and two more boxes join the others in the garage.

 

Pop-up stores are a fantastic place to pick up bargains. We found a beautiful pale pink Tiffany lamp shade to go over our square light pink and brown marble dining table, at the Burnley Street Pop-up in Richmond. We often drop pass this place, lots of different companies use this shop as their temporary outlet store. When we were last in there a week or two ago, there were 2 different shops displaying their wares.

All of these items are listed in our budget spreadsheet, even if it’s just a line saying “new rug” but if you don’t have a plan then you lay victim to impulse shopping and buying items either not in the budget or over budget.

Remeber you want to keep cheap as one of two parts of the triangle.