A testimony from Leah of Simple. Home. Blessings.
It is kind of strange to have a serious attachment to a home appliance, but my husband and I did. We just didn’t know what we had until it was gone.
We had a beautiful stainless steel side by side refrigerator at our first home. It was lovely and worked wonderfully well. Apparently it was rather attractive for a refrigerator because when we sold our home the buyers specifically requested it. We didn’t want to lose the sale of the house over a beloved refrigerator; so, we took a deep breath, decided to part with it and promised ourselves we would find another one just like it.
But the one we had must have been one of a kind, because the one we got just didn’t fit our needs and work as well as our old one. Something would have to be done. So, we started dreaming big and dreaming long.
The dream: a French door refrigerator that would meet all of our needs.
But after a little while of dreaming, we decided that dreaming just wouldn’t make it appear. So we made a plan and figured out how long we would need to save up and came up with ideas to get extra money.
We came up with these ideas:
1. We set aside a specific amount of money from our budget each month. The money would have likely been spent on stuff we couldn’t remember after the month was over. So we gave our money a direction and put it aside in view of our goal.
2. We saved all our five dollar bills. We made a commitment (sometimes hard to keep) to put aside EVERY $5 bill that passed through our hands. When we got ready to buy the refrigerator we had a LOT of $5 bills (instead of frustrating the sales clerk, we cashed them in for larger bills).
3. We had a garage sale and put aside most of the proceeds from the sale for our goal. We turned what we no longer wanted or used into something we had been dreaming of.
4. We sold our most recent fridge to a friend who had just purchased her first home. We didn’t get a large amount of money for it, but every little bit helps.
After a little over a year of saving, we finally had almost all the money to purchase our new French door fridge. So we started shopping around and were blessed and pleasantly surprised to find one in our price range with extra options and FREE delivery!
We did it! We paid cash for something we really wanted and were rewarded with a great deal AND the satisfaction of a paid-for appliance. Somehow I think it keeps the ice just a tad bit colder and the veggies just a tad bit fresher than if we had put it on credit!
Leah is a wife to her wonderful husband and mother to 2 girls under 2. She loves homemaking and believes God has called her to be an at-home wife and mother. She tries to find the joy in the everyday and writes about it over at Simple. Home. Blessings.
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I liked your comment, “When we got ready to buy the refrigerator we had a LOT of $5 bills (instead of frustrating the sales clerk, we cashed them in for larger bills).” Several years ago, we did something similar, and saved $15 a week for an electric piano (not a Clavinova–but something just a little less pricey). We went to buy it on a Saturday, and we got too late of a start, and the banks were closed. We had close to $200 in $1 bills when we paid. (The actual price was more than that, but it took awhile for them to get the singles all counted out, in addition to the other money we paid.) It was memorable, and a wonderful feeling to pay for something that has been saved for, not just an impulse buy on the spot and leaving you feeling like “How am I going to pay for this.”
My hubby and I just purchased a washer/dryer with cash. It hurt to put out that kind of money but the incentive is not paying 19-27% interest. And to say I would put it on a credit card and then turn around and pay it off. Well I just don’t have that kind of will power. I would say oh whats one more month. I really just don’t trust myself. Congrats on the new fridge.
Our fridge just died last week 🙁 But, we were able to pay cash for a new one thanks to our emergency fund. Of course, we didn’t know we would spend the emergency fund money on a fridge, but it was so nice not to have to charge it like we would have years ago!
I went through this in January, my son was checking for french fries in the freezer and commented on some ground beef that we had just put in there 2 days before, saying that it looked funny. When he carried it to me to show me it wasn’t even froze so I knew that the freezer was out, after quickly moving what could be salvaged over to our chest freezer I checked the fridge side and sure enough it was out as well. Lucky for us we had just gotten a bunch of snow so we piled it all in a cooler and packed snow around it to keep it until we could get a new fridge. Since we are currently saving up for a down payment on a new home, we had that money to dip into to get a new fridge and it was delivered the next morning. Now we are back on track saving up that down payment and thanks to a refund on our taxes we are over what we needed to have 🙂
Funny thing is, my son never found the french fries in that freezer, they were in the chest freezer, he actually gave up looking for them in making sure that we didn’t lose any more food, but it was meant for him to check that one, if he hadn’t of we could have lost more than we did.
“It is kind of strange to have a serious attachment to a home appliance, but my husband and I did.”
For me it’s my 5 qt Kitchenaid standing mixer. Twenty-odd years later using it still makes me smile. And only because twenty-odd years later it’s never needed to be fixed.
I am starting to have a similar attachment to my Kitchen Aid stand mixer as well. I named her Nellie, after my Granny (who loved to bake and would have loved to have one of these). She brings me joy when I look into her eye…got a great deal, too!
That should be “And _not_only because twenty-odd years later it’s never needed to be fixed.”
Um, where’s the picture?! Haha, sorry don’t tell me about a beautiful fridge and then not show me what it looks like. 😉 Glad you got your dream fridge!
I know, what a tease right? I didn’t have one to include in the post. Maybe I should get it all clean and shiny and put it on display on my blog.
I was wondering the same thing. Where’s the picture?
I was thinking the exact same thing…..where is the picture! 🙂
Leah, I share with you a distinct fondness for a french door refrigerator and also paid cash. I DO enjoy our purchases knowing that no bill will be appearing in the mail. Congratulations.
I know how good that feels. A year ago I bought our new stove with cash. After putting up with a lousy stove for almost 20 years I finally got my “dream stove”. It is a smoothtop stove and I just love it and an even in love with it! It feels even better knowing it’s paid for.
hahaha, cute that you said, “it keeps the ice just a tad bit colder and the veggies just a tad bit fresher than if we had put it on credit!”
We just bought a new french door refrigerator last weekend, and so are are loving it! Although we had enough saved up to purchase with cash, we broke the cardinal rule….and bought it on credit. GASP! I know! But Sears was offering a 15% discount on 1st purchase when opening a credit card (on top of an already in-store 30% sale). And for a high ticket item such as a refrigerator, this was no chump change….so we did it. The purchase came with 6 months same as cash…but we have the funds to pay it off sooner.
I’ve done the same thing to get a better price, then paid off the card with the first bill. I find the inflexible “NO CREDIT” rule to be too inflexible.