Great Deals You Can Find in the Classified Ads

by Larissa & Scott Bilker
Many people run directly to the store to buy brand new items at full price when there are many other options. In fact, one of the best options we've found is shopping for items through classified ads.

You have probably used classified ads in the past for numerous reasons however, we want to tell you about one of our best experiences and remind everyone that you can save BIG money by shopping for "pre-owned" merchandise rather than running out to buy new all the time.

One of the best deals we found using classified ads is sitting beautifully in our dining room right now!

As newlyweds, we wanted brand new furniture for our apartment. For some reason we thought if it were new it would be of better quality. But nearly a decade later not only did our taste in style change, but the furniture was looking quite shabby.

We decided to replace the dining room set, and this time we knew better than to go to the store first. We searched through the classified ad sections of all our local newspapers for used dining room tables.

There were certain requirements for the new table such as: (1) solid wood, (2) no upholstered chairs, too easily stained by children, (3) seat at least six people, (4) be in good condition, (5) high quality, and (6) must be a great deal, financially.

We searched and searched. We visited many people and looked at their tables, but they weren't exactly what we had in mind. Discouraged, we went looking in the furniture stores. The closest we found to match our criteria was a Broyhill that seated six and was about $1,200 with the chairs. Yikes! We did want a high quality table, but that just seemed like too high a price. We looked in numerous furniture stores and noticed that the prices and quality were not getting better.

After about two weeks of looking in the stores, we decided to give the classifieds another try before giving up and buying a new table. Well, as you have guessed, we found someone selling a great table at a great price. They were moving to Florida and didn't want to haul everything with them during the move.

The table was everything we had hoped to find. It's an Ethan Allen, solid oak, two leaves, with eight chairs! It was in such great condition that many people thought it was new. The price for this set--$700! What a deal! After doing some research we found that similar chairs, brand new, from the same manufacturer, retail around $349 each. So for eight new chairs only, the cost would be about $2,800!

Searching the classified ads turned out to be well worth the time and effort in this case. By the way, we financed the $700 table by using a no fee, cash advance, from one of our credit cards at a rate of 2.99%.

In the past we've also turned to the classifieds to buy and sell cars, find jobs, buy other furniture, and learn about other sales. At a recent church sale that we learned about through the classifieds, we purchased a sleeper sofa (seats three), love seat, twin-size cot, entertainment center, five-drawer dresser, and storage end table, for only $195 which included delivery to a second-floor apartment!