Today’s post is from our regular Wednesday contributor, Cat.
It was a dark and stormy night. Okay, okay it was just dark. I was in a new city about to score an awesome sofa. I live close to Manhattan now, and I was trying to use a GPS to pick up a Craigslist find.
Unfortunately, the GPS had a mind of its own and almost sent me over the George Washington bridge straight into Manhattan with a huge U-Haul trailer attached to my SUV.
Luckily I saw what was happening and was able to safely navigate my way away from the bridge and towards the home of a young couple who were practically throwing away a perfectly good couch.
For $100 I got an extremely comfortable, tan microfiber sectional sofa. I’ve wanted an “L shaped sofa” for quite some time, but they usually run anywhere from $1,000 – $2,000. I feel like I got lucky to find mine, but the truth is, it was a little bit of strategy too:
1) Get an Idea of Price
Before you can get high end furniture for cheap, you have to know what “cheap” is. Do your research and look at the ads in the paper, furniture prices online, and prices in various showrooms. I saw numerous sofas on Craigslist for $400-$500 but I knew I could get one new for that, even if it wasn’t a sectional. If I was going to spend that much, I wanted it to be new. When you know average prices, you know if a previously owned sofa is a good deal or not.
2) Be the First to Respond
Whether you find your nice furniture on Craigslist, at a garage sale, or in the newspaper classified ads, you want to the first person to respond. When I saw my sofa, the ad had been up for 30 minutes already, and I thought for sure I wouldn’t get it. As it turned out, I was first and the seller was nice enough to honor that even though it took me a day or two to go out and get it.
3) Be Okay With Imperfections
One of the reasons my sofa was so cheap is because the ad said a dog lived there and slept on the sofa. As you can see from the picture of my dog in this post, that wasn’t exactly a concern for us. You can also get good deals if you buy sofas as floor samples or ones that have a small tear in the sofa cushion (that can just be flipped over.)
Basically, if you don’t mind scouring Craigslist, negotiating with a salesman at a furniture store, or living with a piece of furniture that has a few flaws, you can absolutely get a high end sofa or bed or table for about half (or less!) of the retail price. In my experience, furniture is one of those things that tends to go on sale pretty regularly so even if you don’t use these tips, at least try to avoid paying the full retail price!
Have you ever bought nice furniture on the cheap?
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Getting cheap furniture is the way to go! Before our current set, almost everything we had was from Craigslist. Not only is being the first to respond good, but let the seller know that you will actually show up now. The early bird gets the worm!
This gives me hope I can sell our sofa and love seat that the dogs have, um, loved. We normally keep a cover on them, but not always. We never sit on them (they are in the formal living room, not the den where the TV is) and even $100 for the set would be something toward our bills and a couple of things we don’t have to move if we can manage to sell our house (fingers crossed and lots of prayers).
And good reminders for me. I posted a while back about never buying furniture new again. It’s so expensive and with kids and dogs, it’s going to look trashed in six months. Not exactly a good investment.
We bought a floor model couch and armchair for about one-third the retail sales price. The couch had a tear in the back- but was so small (and with small children, I could be less concerned) but fit our budgetary needs. You are right to shop around a lot to see what you get where, for how much at a variety of places. We strictly bought for price, not style. The pieces look cute enough but aren’t my favorite. I’m okay with that too- they are a decent manufacturer and will hold up through the kids bouncing and antics, and when they were smudged with green acrylic paint, I didn’t go through the roof. Flip cushion over!
I know one of my friends was able to get a great deal on a leather couch from Costco because they purchased the floor model. These are great tips, Cat.
Great tips Cat! CL is definitely the way to go. We bought a really nice recliner for my wife when she was pregnant with our first for $20. It was the only way she could sleep comfortably the last few months and lasted us something like seven more years. Not too bad in my book. :)
I use Craigslist to get furniture, but I don’t think it’s ever been that nice. I do have fabulous couches, however, that I got for babysitting for three times (probably worth $300 if I were to be paid, whereas the couches are at least worth a few grand). The family I was babysitting for was moving into a ginormous house and didn’t think these couches fit the “look” of the new house, so I offered to buy them, and they suggested I just babysit a few times and that would cover it. What a win for me!
Good tips, Cat! I’m a big fan of Ikea furniture, although their stuff certainly isn’t high end.
Good tips, Cat!!! We’ll have to keep this in mind for when we start furniture shopping. Our stuff is getting pretty old. :-)
For #2, there’s a tool that makes it SUPER easy to be first to respond. IFTTT.com let’s you set up an alert, so when a new item with your search term appears on craigslist, you can have it email you, text you, or a number of other ways of communicating with you.
Great tips! I have never purchased furniture on Craigslist because I always have this fear of bed bugs or something, but I have sat on your sofa and agree that it is amazing and you got a killer deal.
Nice! I would be willing to buy furniture on Craigslist, but we’re currently on the third floor of our building, and getting everything up here was not an easy task at all! Maybe next time. We did get our couch for free, though – one of my grandma’s friends was moving and willing to give it away, and it’s pretty darn comfy.
My wife is an expert at this.
She finds old furniture and repaints it and makes it look modern and beautiful.
She then either flips the furniture on Craigslist, or keeps it around the house.
seedebtrun Sounds like we would get along!!
JourneytoSaving Oh yeah free sofas are the best!
blonde_finance Ew so true. Well they seemed like nice people haha and so far bed bug free. ;)
The New York Budget Dude, my husband will not thank you for that tip haha.
Laurie TheFrugalFarmer Yeah mine has taken quite a beating already lol!
TheWriteBudget I pretty much bought IKEA when we moved lol!
theFinancegirl Score!!!
FrugalRules Um that is an awesome find!!!
BudgetforMore I like that tip!!
mlifeordebt I keep flipping my cushions and now there’s puke on both sides from the babies lol!
indebtedmom So true! Someone will def buy for $100!
Greg at Travel Blue Book So true!
I’m so proud of you for driving a U-haul trailer close to Manhattan. I haven’t bought used furniture in a long time, but we haven’t really bought any furniture for a while. I am certainly going to check Craig’s list before our next purchase.
If you know specifically what you are looking for, you can use IFTTT (If This Then That) to set up messages to let you know when stuff is posted on Craigslist the second it gets posted so you can respond faster.
https://ifttt.com