Love that Scratch and Dent section!

I'm a big fan of the "clearance" and "scratch and dent" areas of stores. If you're just starting out in a home or if you're just conscious of your spending, then checking these little gems frequently can give great savings. 

Here are a few examples of some favourite scratch and dent finds I've done.. long post, kinda turned into a brag post haha:

I've spoken about Rosehill Liquidation before (here: http://couponwithsam.blogspot.ca/2015/09/sharing-great-sales-rosehill-liquidation.html), but this place basically furnished my whole house. They are a end of the line place for many name brands from places like Sears and The Bay. As soon as I knew my offer on a house was accepted, we started shopping and filling a trailer for move in day 

• Bought a beautiful huge and comfortable leather couch. It was "scratch and dent" because one of the back cushions wouldn't zipper totally on. Never in the three years of using this couch have we even noticed! I think it was normally priced $2500 in the store and we paid $475
• Matching colour to couch, huge ottoman, fake leather. Love this thing (and so does the dog) and it was here because the fabric on the underside was ripping off. Again, have never seen the problem. We got it for $125 
• Big beautiful rug. This huge thing was exactly what we wanted to bring colours together in the living room. While standing in the store I googled it and found it for over $2000. We got it for $135
• Washer and dryer set. HE, decent capacity for both (can do our comforter) and haven't needed major repairs yet (and we've abused these things). They were both here because of dents in the sides. Got the pair for $472
• Pedestals for the washer and dryer. These were here again because of dents but they were perfectly priced when we compared to buying new. Yes they don't match, but they serve the purpose! Pair for $105
  
• We bought a pretty cool little fridge that held a lot for $600. After only being home a little while the freezer broke and we suddenly had A LOT of meat we had to cook up and eat. We were still under warranty with Rosehill and took it back, and upgraded to a really stunning fridge for $200 more. This one has been chugging along perfectly since.   
  
• Moving out to my own place, I wanted a new bigger-than-single bed. I got a really great, brand new mattress normally $2300 for $560. They threw in a boxspring free and I bought the rails base for $58. My roommates at the time both also bought new mattresses, getting some "once used" mattresses for steals. I still tell anyone looking for a mattress to go to Rosehill 
• Headboard for my bed.. was a nice white wooden thing. The lamination on a top corner was starting to peel so the whole thing was cheap and came home with us for $100
• Small home appliances came from here too, with no complaints as everything still works fine, including a coffee maker and blender for $20 each 
• Decor items like beautiful dividing screens (that had some sort of paint blotches on the backside no one sees anyways), metal leaves for outside hanging, candle holders and a bunch of other little bits. 
  
• A big backyard porch umbrella that uncannily perfectly matched some really random colored cushions I just bought on sale somewhere else. Never in a million years would I have thought I would find a matching umbrella to them! I think the umbrella was $30, and was totally worth it!
• Our Christmas tree! Seriously love this little tree, multicolor lights, nice shape and decent height. We paid $23 for him  
  

On top of all the above deals, we added on their newsletter discount coupon which gave another 10-20% off each time we went. 

I also know that my grandma found a cow painting she absolutely needed to have for my cousin (her other granddaughter). In the normal store this thing was over $200. I found it by fluke at Rosehill and told her about it and she went and got it for something around $60

• Fish tanks can usually be found "open box" or missing pieces for a discount. Display models can also score a good deal. My first tank is absolutely beautiful, and I bought it as an open box missing the light piece. It was too pretty to pass up at the price they were offering so I took it home (with the understanding I could bring it back within a month) and called the company to see about a replacement light. They sent me one free of charge and I have the prettiest little 30 gallon tank.  
• Our big fish tank was a discount as it was the display model with again, no light. The stand was already assembled so we had to take the whole thing as is. Thanks to our roommate with the big car, we got it all home and I called the company to get replacement lights. Again these were free of charge and I think the tank looks awesome!   Read more: http://couponwithsam.blogspot.ca/2016/05/another-it-doesn-hurt-to-ask-missing.html

• I was coveting my parents new bed that they got for a small bedroom at their beach house. It was one where you could lift the whole bed up for tons of storage underneath. They bought theirs from Ikea and my roommate and I set off to get one. IKEA has a corner for scratch and dent, just before checkouts. I know this is supposed to be your last stop, but it's always my first. Much to my surprise, there was the bed!! All boxed and the labels saying there was nothing wrong with it. It was almost too good to be true. I talked to the guys there and they verified it was brand new, just here for some reason. It was the "wrong" colour as I wanted white but for more than half price it was perfect. It came home and seriously, everyone should have this bed haha. 
  

• Maybe it's not quite scratch and dent but I really like popping by The Beat Goes On store from time to time to look at their discount previously used DVDs. For less than $4 I can usually have a movie I've been wanting to watch, that is priced at HMV for over $15. They provide an exchange warranty if the disc won't play so you really can't go wrong. Just yesterday I picked up Disney's Frozen for $15.99, priced at HMV for $35

• While looking for stuff for my new bathroom after renovations, we found a scratch and dent vanity store. They had all kinds and I really liked this dark red wood set that had the vanity with white sink, over sink medicine cabinet and a little shelf with hooks thing. The vanity was $175 and the shelf and cabinet were $20 and $30
  
  
  
  Love to hear everyone's brag buys from the discount stores... Share if you have them! 

Living without Cable or Satellite - a growing trend

I'm hearing about it more and more, frustrations with the rising and unreasonable costs of cable and satellite television. People abandoning these "traditional" forms of tv in favour of the new "normal" Netflix and Shomi accounts only.  

I've been living in my house for 3 years now and we only just got some (free for us) satellite set up. But for 3 years we happily lived without!

In the beginning, my roommate and I invested in the unlimited gb internet package instead of getting cable set up. Best decision ever I think! We could stream, watch, play, download and Google to our hearts content without paying anything more than our set monthly Internet charge. We bought Netflix, which satisfies our movie and series cravings for the most part as well. 

Anything else we wanted to watch, we hopped onto the good old Internet to find. Besides YouTube which seems to have all the awful tv shows I like (judge shows, Maury and Steve Wilkos.. hah!) there are a bunch of free movie apps we used too like Crackle, A&E, City, Viewster, Snag Films, or PopcornFlix. 

Or how about Smart Tvs, that come preloaded with all kinds of different apps for show watching too, like Vimeo, . If there was something we craved that we couldn't find, we went to our "The Beat Goes On" store to buy it for less than $5 (and then it was permanently ours) or asked to borrow it from a friend. My roommate would go to his parents house for any big things like the Super Bowl. 

Or, though I promote nothing as I don't know anything about them, there are things that kind of act like cable boxes - android boxes I think they are. Had we not got satellite we might have looked into this option. 

The only reason we got satellite was for the sports games. We found these a little difficult to find streaming online for free. Even now with the satellite, we aren't technically paying for it as its an add-on to my parents account with a second box and portable dish for no extra money. Rather than sit in their basement, we said yes to hooking it up here. I still watch the majority of my shows on my iPad and phone, while "the boys" watch their sports on the tv.