Hustle #4--Saving at Ikea

Ikea cabinets are well-regarded by both Consumer Reports, and kitchen designers (if you ask honest ones. Mine, in fact, has them in his own kitchen.) And they are a lot cheaper than the high-end Pohgenpols and Snaideros, and a lot nicer than the standard Home Depot standards.

But you can always do even better. For instance, once year, they have a sale where if you spend enough (typically $2500), you can get 10-20% off your entire kitchen purchase. This year, there is a sale from mid-March to mid-May, where you get 10% off a $2500 kitchen purchase, 15% off with the purchase of two appliances, and 20% off with the purchase of three appliances.

But wait! There's more! When you make an Ikea purchase using a debit card, you get a coupon for 3% off your next purchase. So, go in and pick out your cabinets, and then buy a $1.29 box of cookies (vegan, even!) with your debit card. Come back the next weekend after thinking it all over, and buy your kitchen with a 3% off coupon! This is not chump change when you are spending thousands.

Finally, pick your store carefully. Different Ikeas don't differ much in terms of the items you can buy, but do differ in the tax rates for the counties they sit in. Here, I can choose one Ikea with a tax rate of 10.25%, or another at 7.5%. Again, in the dollars we are talking, that difference is very large.

Example: say I spend $5000 on stuff. Just by exploiting the "debit card" purchase trick, and choosing the lower-taxed store, I will save $311.25 versus what I otherwise would have paid. In other words, it's like getting my dishwasher for free.

A video tour of the deplorable state of my kitchen/dining room, what I hope to accomplish with a renovation, and how much I hope it will cost:





I just got an estimate for the pipework--undoubtedly the most expensive of the tasks--for $13,500. More than I hoped for, but less than I'd feared. I'm pretty sure I'm going to do it; it would remove the pipes throughout the apartment, which are the worst feature of the place. I priced the new cabinets (Ikea, naturally) at $900. I could install them myself (because there's really only three: the dishwasher cabinet, the tiny cabs to the left of the stove, and the tall cabinet next to the fridge.) I'd pay to have the sink installed and the new counter--I'm guessing the total price would be about $1000 for that. The dishwasher and new range are kind of a wildcard--I could spend a lot ($2000), or almost nothing (maybe $200 buying used). The price to knock out the walls would be, I'm guessing, $1000. Lighting and adding a few electrical sockets, add in another $1000. Add in miscellaneous supplies like paint and wall patch for projects I'm doing myself ($250?), and the total comes to $18,000-20,000.

There are other things I'd like to do sooner rather than later. I'd like to repair my fireplace ($2-3,000); the woodwork needs a lot of attention and there's painting to be done. Eventually, I'd like to spruce up the bathroom a bit ($2000?) and improve my lighting throughout (another $2000?) It feels weird to me that when all is said and done, I will have spent about as much fixing my place up as I spent purchasing it in the first place ($42,000), but the rational part of me remembers that that is an irrelevant consideration.

What do you guys think? Any advice for me?