Building a Kitchen from Ikea As-Is

Shorter post as I literally could write pages on this topic!

Hubby and I bought a new house that had a functional, although ugly kitchen. We always had a dream to have an Ikea kitchen, and thanks to Christmas presents from our families were able to make that happen last year.

There are lots of ways to start with an Ikea kitchen, but we did with an in-Ikea appointment and room builder. Then came the fun of playing on the computers (home and Ikea) to tweak the designs to perfection.

Eventually we settled on a couple options that maximized space, took advantage of the Kitchen event promotion (get up to 20% of your purchase back in Ikea gift cards) and snuck in some new built-in appliances. We were super excited!

We put all of the items on order right near the end of the event, and then printed out the itemized list you get which became our “Bible” for the next month. Free shipping included (which was worth its weight in gold!)

Then cue the car-rides! We basically spent 3-4 times a week driving to Ikea to shop in the As-Is section. As people were buying kitchen items all the previous month, the returns to this section grew daily too! For us, this meant we could shop the already-built pieces against our checklist, buy them for 50-75% off, and return the same untouched piece still sitting in our living room for full price next trip! We made Ikea trips a ritual and honestly found 1-2 pieces every time we went. Over the course of a month, we found nearly half of our kitchen in the as-is section.. a considerable savings!

Some tips:

1. Double and triple check dimensions! Don’t trust the As-Is sticker label. Once bought, you own it!
2. Obviously, check for damage. In some cases we came across marker or marks on the outside, but if we were sandwiching that piece against another, the marks wouldn’t be seen
3. Door fronts and panel pieces are here too! We saved a boatload on frosted glass door fronts and the long fridge side panel that were silly expensive at full price.
4. Bring a big car. This sounds basic, but even we had some struggles with a SantaFe when we found some of the big cabinets at As-Is.
5. Sign up for the IKEA Family. If you have a Family card, IKEA will honor a past sale up to 90 days after.  This means you have 90 days after buying your kitchen to buy all those extra pieces you forgot about later.
6. Ask for free extra pieces when you’re returning the “new” pieces... We ended up needing more L brackets, screws and small bits while installing, which you can get for free from the Returns dept. 
7. Don’t just stop at the cabinets! We found our sink here in the as-is section because it was missing an “accessories” box. Well, we walked over to Returns and requested the exact box for free, which was delivered to our home a week later. Half price on a sink for.. no reason!
8. Ask the staff.. We became regulars for that month and bugged the people in the side/receiving room each visit if we could see cabinets that hadn’t yet been priced (we found two cabinets this way).
9. When returning the new item, they will ask if you got the Kitchen Event discount, and for how much, as they will take it off of the refund amount for each piece you bring back. If they don’t ask.. don’t tell! 
10. Taking a month to buy As-Is kitchen pieces mean you will need to have SPACE somewhere to store them all! We ended up with one room just for the as-is built pieces, and the whole living room for the “to be built/building” pieces.

Playing the “I’m Broke!” Card

Roughly once a year, I challenge you to try and save some money everywhere you can. Make a dedicated effort for a week and see what you can change with expenses you would normally call “fixed” (excluding groceries and shopping).

Here’s some examples from my attempt this year:

1. We were paying $165 a month for 2 phone plans. Called my phone company’s Customer Care and Loyalty Team to explain that I’ve been a loyal Telus  subscriber for many years, but what we are paying for our phones is too much. I explained that I shopped around in my local mall and found plans in the $50 each range, and since my hubby and I were both out of contract (on month-to-month), we were considering making the change to “the other guys”. At first, she offered me a great deal on more data (for more money) but I pushed back explaining that I wanted to make our bill cheaper. She put me on hold for 10-15 minutes and came back with exactly what I asked for, plus a little a month for some data. Overall, our bill each month will now be in the $135 range. It took 20 minutes of my day to save us $360 a year in our phone bills.
2. Called our insurance company and spoke to a really nice lady who I played the “we’ve run into some financial difficulties and could really use your help” card with. She went through line by line for us in our car insurance and found a 5% discount we weren’t using. She told us she had more wiggle in the house policy, so we took a look at that line by line too and she found a bit extra we could save on, and applied a loyalty discount on top for us. This short phone call was able to save us $150 more a year on our policies.
3. Found out Netflix has different subscriber plans… I did not know this. While their rates are going up next month (again), I dropped us down to the 9.99 tier (instead of staying on the 13.99 tier). Next step to save money would be to cancel it entirely…
4. My husband and I each have our own bank account, and then a join account we share. For each account we were paying more than $11 a month in fee.. that adds up!  I went in and whined and they helped me out in understanding the different account tiers and we dropped down to the lowest tier without any change to how we use the accounts (how many transactions a month you’re allowed). Now we will be paying $4 a month instead! 

In total, I probably spent a half hour on everything above and in one year, it will save us $810.

Cineplex Family Favourites

Long time without an entry.. trying to get back into the groove of couponing/saving/sharing again!

Suggested from a co-worker, Cineplex has a great little deal on if you’re looking for something to do with the kiddos to kill some time on a Saturday; They call it Family Favourites.

It’s a movie on the big screen playing at 11am for only $2.99 a person. Usually it’s cheesy childhood favourites like The Land Before Time, but my hubby and I went on a little date the other day to see the new Smallfoot movie.

We spent a grand total of less than $6 to get in, smuggled in some drinks and sweets, and killed some time together.

One week it was the new Jumanji movie, and this weeks’ is The House with A Clock in its Walls.. so it seems to be a neat little mix of new and old movies.

And a bit of a feel-good ending? A portion of proceeds go toward supporting WE Charity, a youth empowerment movement that “brings people together and gives them the tools to change the world”.

Signs to watch for: Get $ off when you..

Just a super quick post about something we saw while shopping.. try on and get $ off. 

 

Interesting concept and if you were buying anything at all in the store, in my opinion it would be a no-brainer! I'm all about free money! 

So just a note that while you're out shopping, watch for signs like this. This sign was only on a couple tables of pants in one corner and not throughout the whole store. 

Sharing Great Deals: A Moore’s Sale!

Just sharing a great “start the car!” deal we got during a recent shopping trip, highlighting Moore’s. Moore’s normally has some great deals when they’ve got a BOGO event on, usually alternating between suits and shirts and pants.

 

 

We were on the hunt for a pair of new dress pants for my hubby. My husband is a tall guy and pants can sometimes be a pain to find and more expensive when you find them, as they’re typically not in the normal stores like the Bay, Sears, etc. We checked those places first and ended up at a Moore’s near our house. They had a big sale going on, with little signs throughout the store. One of the sales was buy one get one on dress pants… Bonus! My smarty-pants husband started in the clearance section and found a pair of pants that fit him, marked down to an incredible $24.99 (and get this.. they didn’t feel like curtains!) We matched the numbers and found a second pair of pants in a different colour for the same $24.99 price. We asked at the counter and indeed clearance pants counted in the BOGO Free deal! 

 

While I was waiting for him to try on the pants I found a nice pair of dressy black shoes in his size, also on clearance. Shoes again are usually expensive as he’s a size 13. They were $50 which we thought was a great price and we were in the market for a new pair for him anyways. Then he had been coveting a pair of flip flops in other stores, and found one that had another clearance sticker on them here. They fit and got added to the pile. At the checkout we found out one of the other little signs said 30% off select clearance, which applied to these two pairs of shoes and took another $27 off!

We walked out of the store with two brand new dress pants that fit and didn’t need to be hemmed, one pair of dress shoes and one pair of leather flip flops, all for just under $100. I was happy and proud of my husband and I think he was happy to expand the wardrobe!

 

Free So Delicious Ice Cream from Social Nature - Review

Received an offer from Social Nature to try some Dairy-Free Ice Cream. It was good! I have previously tried “Happy Water” through them (you can see my review in a previous blog post) and now I got the opportunity to try ice cream!

A  recap of Social Nature is it’s a site that encourages people to flag items they would like to try that are new, healthy, Made in Canada/USA and all the good things.

You go through a list of available offers and flag items as “Want It”, then answer a few questions relating to what else like it you have tried or regularly buy. Then they will choose a pool of people to accept and send free product coupons to take to a store to purchase. You need to do a review of the product after to increase your chances of getting more “want it” items, plus the more people you have on your lists the better an influencer you are and again the better chances you have at being selected.

Only downside is occasionally where the products are sold.. Happy Water was a tough one for me to find as only certain stores carried certain versions. Luckily, this ice cream was at the grocery store we normally shop at.

So we were looking for this ice cream and found a big cooler of it near all the organic foods. All of the bigger tubs were on clearance, which still made them within the coupon max price limit, so we opted to go big or go home! Lots of flavours to choose from, but I had to go with the all chocolate Soy version!

The other night, I was craving ice cream and so I pulled this out for a few spoonfuls. It tastes like ice cream, all good, did the trick. While I am not lactose-intolerant, it was great to try this and see that healthier foods can actually taste good. I recommend it to anyone needing the dairy-free route.

As I’ve said in my review, the only thing that would make me hesitate from buying it in the future was the price. The size of a “normal” ice cream tub was normally $7, but was on clearance for $5.99. The smaller tubs, similar to a Ben&Jerry’s small size, was around $5. When you can watch for the Chapman’s ice cream sales, you can get the big box for $2 (or free if you request your yearly free product coupon).

Don't do long term gym contracts

Okay. Rant time. 

 

I had been piggy-backing on my roommate's Gym Membership by paying him $20 a month and being able to go to the gym with him (it’s like a rider to his contract that allows you to bring up to two friends each time you go). “We” signed up with the gym when it first opened and were happy with its size and amenities. I didn’t go all that often.. Maybe once or twice a week. Working up to my wedding, I flipped between going as much as I could to not going at all. All in all it reminded me of our high school gym, nothing special, but lots of space meant you weren’t ever right next to a heavy breather or awkward gym jock.

 

Then my hubby came over to Canada and we got married and started signing up for the couple-y stuff like bank accounts and Costco memberships. Next on the list was a gym membership. Our roommate had nothing but good things to say about the current gym and I didn’t really have an opinion other than staff seemed lazy. My husband and I checked out a couple other gyms and their pricing and went in for an appt with the Manager at the current gym.

 

We asked for the best deal after a while, and he worked out some sort of thing that basically gave us free gym hopping to any facility and a slight discount on the monthly rate. My husband and I liked that the gym had a pool and a lot of machines. We asked some questions related to classes (why weren’t there many) and the manager assured us that he was working on that and there would be a bunch more added. We signed up and paid the lump sum for a year-long membership. Did not get any swag for free, did not get a safety tour, just gimme your money and go. 

 

Fast forward a couple months and my husband and I were both basically spitting mad about the gym. The staff stopped caring and everything immediately hit the dirt floor. Showers never washed, broken machines, inattentive and inappropriate staff and horrible advice from their “fitness” manager (they told me to lose weight I should only eat fish and use just my body weight.. no machines). We could go to the gym as long as we didn’t use the bathrooms, showers or lockers. 

 

After complaining numerous times we were met with excuses and answers that never made sense (the janitor quit the day before… SO.. you as the manager just don’t clean or tidy yourself then?). After two separate issues came up for me (one involving a shower that wouldn’t drain (pictured) with flies stuck to the wall and another with the fitness manager making me feel like I would never lose weight because I wasn’t willing to do her a, b or c) I basically refused to go back to the gym.

 

It was a weird feeling getting emotional about it. My husband and I cared, but no one else at the gym did, and the reviews we saw on social media must have been posted by staff as they continually said the opposite of what we saw each week. And we felt like we (should have) held some sort of importance as we had paid for a whole year.. we weren’t about to end the contract and head off like other monthly members. Yet this didn’t matter and there was nothing you could do about it. Getting out of a year commitment is tricky and in our case would have required some deceit to end.

 

We haven’t been in months and in amongst that we have moved cities. My husband found the same gym name close to our new home and went and had a look at it. What a difference! Small, but clean. So we will be able to at least finish out our year-long commitment at a gym that is actually maintained. 

 

It’s been a disappointing learning experience for us. There are a couple benefits to staying month to month:

·         Negotiating power if you see they have a cheaper rate on, or if you are unhappy with stuff. Threatening to leave can often give you the cheaper price or a promise to clean up their act

·         You can leave

·         Paying all at once can hurt the bank account

Compare that to only having the one benefit of saving a little money if you sign on yearly, and in this situation I believe month to month for the little bit more makes more sense.