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An Upgrade

January 20th, 2015 at 03:11 am

We finally took the plunge and bought a new fridge today. I think I mentioned the possibility of purchasing a stainless steel one in the past to match our current appliances, and possibly include it in our home sale.

We bought one that nearly matches our current one in size, just 20.5 cubic feet of volume. It is still a top freezer model too. Odd considering how so many of them are the french door style, right?

The sale price was $808 at Lowe's. We got 10% off with our military discount and then added another 7% back on for sales tax. Final price was $778.10.

We actually bought Lowe's gift cards for about 8.5% off the face value. We purchased them at

Text is Raise and Link is https://www.raise.com/raise-rewards/MzoyNCAtMMjgxNDg4
Raise and the printable vouchers were instantly emailed to me! In the end we bought too much because the ice maker that we were told was $50 was discounted to $25.72, but then rung up free since we bought it with a qualifying refrigerator! We still have $50.43 on gift cards.

The gift cards we purchased were valued at $828.53, but cost us $757.64 out of pocket. Definitely worth it! I really need to buy discounted gift cards for things more often.

The new refrigerator will be here Sunday. Our current one still works great, but the plastic handles smell awful in warm weather or if you get too close. I think the time the fridge spent on the moving truck for three weeks in July baked all of our hand oils and other grime right in. And we have tried numerous things to clean them. (Sorry kind of gross I know). We also realized it is probably more than 10 years old!! It could be sold for cash. However, the plan right now is to keep things simple and let Lowe's haul our old one away. As I write this though it is tempting to post it on Craigslist to pick up on Saturday. If not picked up that day then it could still be hauled away on Sunday.

How old are your appliances? Have you sold your old appliances for cash or let them get hauled away?

7 Responses to “An Upgrade”

  1. snafu Says:
    1421736989

    If you've a white, plastic handle, the guy on You Tube uses Clorox cleaner on a scrubbie type sponge, applies some 'elbow' grease scrubbing hard to clean, rinse with a damp cloth & dry to shine.

    We've sold working appliances dirt cheap just to have them gone when the new item arrives as we have to pay for hauling and 'recycle' type fee for freon [fridge], and making arrangements with the scrap metal dealers is frustrating as they are so unreliable. I'd certainly post a photo ad on CraigsList...what's to lose?

    I sold my apartment sized, stackable W/D for $90. in about an hour after posting, sight unseen, buyer transferred money into my account. The young couple picked it up the following day and were delighted to find it looked better than my lousy photo. I was pleased to be able to hand over the never used mounting clips for stacking as I couldn't remember where they were when I posted the ad.

  2. scfr Says:
    1421762033

    We were so relieved when the couple who bought our house in the Seattle area wanted us to buy our fridge, washer & dryer! Since we were moving to an apartment in Texas, we would have had to sell on Craigslist if they didn't want them. We had good success selling furniture, but I'm not sure how selling appliances would have been.

    Good job working the GC discounts!

  3. MonkeyMama Says:
    1421764999

    We sold our last fridge with our condo (it was a super teeny tiny fridge to fit the space - very hard to find -and we were so annoyed that the old owners did not leave the fridge. ??? We certainly did not want that fridge when we upgraded to more space). When our 35yo dryer died we freecycled the washer that came with it. Did not try to sell or freecycle the dead dryer though I guess we could have freecycled it.

    I've certainly bought a lot of used appliances for cheap, in my teens and 20s. I guess in those days we just bought them from ads in the paper? Pre-internet days...

    All of our appliances our 10+ years old. We've only replaced the washer/dryer and it was because those were very old. (All my other used appliances were left in the home I Rented - just gave them to my roommates since my share had been a whopping $16 per appliance and I had gotten 5 years out of them. There was already a washer from an old roommate and we had bought a dryer and a second fridge together?). Our current house was bought new in 2001 and we bought a fridge at that time. I figure the fridge and microwave will need to be replaced in the next few years. Who knows... (Most our neighbors have replaced their microwaves once or twice already. ??).

    (In our condo we just bought the fridge, but had no space for a washer/dryer).

  4. MonkeyMama Says:
    1421765289

    P.S. On the fridge front, I don't really have a sense how long it will last. Too many people toss fridges when they are perfectly fine, so then everyone says they don't last very long. The first time our fridge broke we learned that it just needed a good cleaning (underneath and behind?). Our freezer had some issues a couple of years ago and a small plastic tube just needed to be defrosted. It was fixed by pouring some hot water into it. We figured that out on Youtube. The ice maker was broken for years and one day we jiggled it and now it works again. That's how this fridge has been. Big Grin I am prepared financially to replace it but since it's perfectly fine I would also gladly repair it.

  5. CB in the City Says:
    1421767938

    My fridge has the freezer on top, too! It's a modestly-sized refrigerator for my small kitchen.

    I have mostly sold old fridges in garage sales, since the only time I've wanted to get rid of a working fridge was when I was moving. No problem selling them, but I've always priced them low.

  6. doingitallwrong Says:
    1421771720

    The energy companies here will pick up old working refrigerators to recycle, they pay $50 for them. No doubt you could sell it for more on Craigslist or wherever, but if you don't want the hassle, it's $50 more than Lowe's would give you. Smile

  7. creditcardfree Says:
    1421773348

    Our utility company will offer $35 for working old appliances and they can be picked up by a store, so even if we let Lowe's take it away we should still be eligible for at least that amount.

    This will be our third fridge in 18 years of marriage! I don't like to think I change fridges that often, but apparently I do. Both times we changed was for color primarily. I have had a lot of other piece of furniture and washer/dryer for much longer. I am proud we didn't get pulled in by all the bells and whistles on new fridges these days...could have easily spent another $2K! Yikes.

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