Bargain Buys

My husband and I rarely shop spontaneously anymore. We do lists. Lots of lists. A common phrase in our home, before buying something is: "is it on a list?" He has a list for what he needs/wants. I have a list for what I need/want. We have a list for things we need/want for the house. There are lists for each child - clothing, christmas ideas etc.. But just because it's on a list doesn't mean we end up buying it. The things we really need get priority and then we look at the wants. Here are a few purchases we made this week:

Dining Setting - I really only needed eight dining chairs but chairs alone are approx. $90-125 each. The prices could have ranged from 8 x $90 = $720 or 8 x $125 = $1000! Way more than I would have been comfortable spending.

This is my budget friendly option - an ebay complete dining setting 8 chairs and a table for $560! I liked the new table so much we have decided to use it instead of our original table and re-purpose our old table. By the way - new chairs have been on the list for nearly 7 years.

Bunk Beds - We decided recently that we wanted to have two of our children share a room, but to make the space work we needed a set of bunks. These were another ebay buy for $120. I had bid and been unsuccessful 3 times before getting these ones. But I am happy with the price and the condition of them. And so far they are sharing the space well!

Portable Fridge - We have been setting ourselves up with quality camp gear over the last few years and this is one of the purchases that will make our camping trips so much easier. We won't need to have to pay extra for powered sites anymore. I will also be able to take it grocery shopping with each fortnight, and now I won't need to rush traight home with all the cold stuff. I source it through ebay - brand new, still in box and with a cover - for approx. $300 less than in any of the stores we had looked at. It still gave me palpatations to hand over the cash - but I know that the value for us is there.