I got one for free in an alley once. I shudder in retrospect.
Who pays $1,000 for a new one? Or $2,000 for the same one at Aaron’s. Or $3,000 for something with buzzwords like Sleep Number.
Me personally? I sleep on the floor.
I haven’t bought a used mattress, but I got a really nice leather sofa off Craigslist. It was $2500 new (guy still had the receipt) and we paid $80. It came from a very nice, clean home and we love it. We can afford new furniture, sure. But if we buy things used, cheap, we can afford a lot more stuff. So why not?
If you’re in a city where there’s lots of wealthy people, few people own large cars and apartments are often up flights of stairs, couches usually start at a 90% discount from new if you’re willing to move them. I got a $8000 couch set for $80 last year and a $3000 couch for $100 a few years ago.
For those sorts of prices, you bet I’m willing to sit on a used couch.
Literally:)
I’ve bought a lot of stuff from estates sales in very nice neighborhoods where they were probably more worried about poor people coming in and casing the place than the people were at bringing home bedbugs. I bought some great bedroom stuff from old people who always kept a spare room for guests that obviously never came by. My friends daughter and son are sleeping in bedrooms sets that would have cost thousands, but were had for a tenth of the cost.
I live in Los Angeles, and in my experience we have to give stuff away. It took us months to get $200 off Craigslist for a VERY nice crib that was a gift from our in laws. When we offered a pretty nice overstuffed chair for $25, no takers–gave it away because we couldn’t deal with the ongoing effort. When we got a new couch, we didn’t even bother asking for money for the old one, just posted it for free so we could get rid of it.
In the case of the couch, it was a designer-y sort of thing that we’d had for years and were sick of for a lot of reasons, but the nice young couple who came to get it were probably thrilled to have something cool even if used.
I’m in on a couple or three of those facebook groups as well. About 2500 participants in one county, over 10,000 in another. Adding new members may be a bit closed, but don’t you have some friends that have friends you wouldn’t necessarily want to eat after or bed down with? And what about their friends and the friends of those friends? Eventually all the interested locals find their way into the group due to six degrees of separation, but does that mean you’d want to share anything with any given person?
I’m not at all against buying used, but you cannot justify your willingness to deal in it or use it by saying “it came from a friend of a friend.” You never know who your friend’s friends may be.
Oh, and I almost forgot! I had an upholstered recliner when I moved into an apartment about seven years ago, it just wouldn’t fit, so it was left on the porch. It sat on a covered porch for a couple of months, and I had a roommate that liked to drink and he would go off the porch rather than to the bathroom since the front door was closer. A neighbor finally confronted me about the public urination and I told the roommate to knock it off. His response was to turn inward to a dark corner of the house and urinate in the recliner. This was November. He did it until March. The smell was so overwhelming when the spring thaw came, that I decided to get rid of the chair, and I set it out for Tuesday trash pickup on a Saturday. Sunday afternoon a young couple came by and loaded it in the trunk of their baby blue Thunderbird. I didn’t know what to do. How do you explain what they’re taking on? God knows what happened. I hope some sort of thaw didn’t occur once they got it indoors. I watched from the kitchen window and acted like I wasn’t home.
I think my mattress is the only piece of furniture I own that came new from a shop. I can’t think of a single other item.
I sold a 6 month old matress when i moved in with my SO, put another real old one up for free on freecycle, and had a really old piece of polyether foam picked up by a garage that used it to roll heavy car parts around on.
That’s just wrong. You new it had been peed on and didn’t put a warning sign on the thing? It could have said Trash Do Not Use. Watched while someone loaded it up? Shame on you.
Luxury, each day when I got home from work, at the age of 6, I had to peel up the wood and sleep under the floor.
You had a floor to sleep under? You were lucky! We dreamed of having a floor to sleep under, we lived for three months in a brown paper bag in a septic tank.
Clean freak me would shudder at the thought of a used couch, but I know plenty of people who have bought one and don’t seem concerned in the least.
Ha! we used to dream of having a brown paper bag…
Oh, I forgot about the used couch. Yes, I bought one.
The Ikea Ektorp, one of the couch models IKEA has been selling for a decade now. They bring out new zippered slipcovers every few years to renew it and bring it up to date. Very good, I think, it allows to have longer use of the couch.
Anyway, I tried out couches at the Ikea store, decided I wanted the Ektorp. Looked for used Ektorps on Ebay. Bought one from people who moved to a smaller house where the couch wouldn’t fit.
For a corner couch plus ottoman plus them bringing it to me in a van, I paid 700 USD. Plus I bought a new set of covers for 250 dollars. The same set new would have cost me 1400 dollars.
So, bargain. And cleanliness isn’t an issue, the slipcovers can be removed and washed in the washing machine. I feel much more ick about people who have uncleanable couches. Ick.
I wish people would stop saying things like this. It’s clearly not true on its face.
Plenty of people actually do not have more money for certain things, either because they simply don’t have it or they choose to spend it elsewhere.
The idea that $200 is a negligible amount indicates something about the speaker’s financial situation, but it’s not by any means universally true.
Or that the $300 used couch may actually be a better value that a new $500 couch. Generally, $500 is kind of low end for a new couch; typically a no name brand with a cheap frame and cheap cloth covering. While for $300 you can get a nice leather one with a solid frame.
I have bought used beds and couches.
In fact, if I had kids, I’d be hard pressed to justify paying for new stuff for them. Why not buy a cheap used mattress and let the rug rats jump all over it instead of paying top dollar for a new one that I have to protect? When they’re old enough to care for the condition of their own things, they’d be old enough to get a new one.