During the January sales, you have the opportunity to make purchases at discount prices. If you’re looking for items for your home, dreaming of a package holiday or even looking to upgrade your car, January is a pretty good time to search for a bargain!
Bigger home buys like furniture and appliances can be picked up for a song if you are prepared to do your research and set the right goals. Furniture, for instance, can be difficult to sell at this time of year and often companies have the end of range products as they prepare for the new season.
Set Your Budget
The first thing you will need to do is set an appropriate budget. It can be easy to get carried away with all the bargains on offer and you may end up spending far more than you intended. Even if you really want a particular item, if it’s way beyond your means and stretching you too far financially, you may want consider whether now is the right time or if in fact you need that item at all.
Have a Clear Idea What You Are Looking For
You will need to focus on is what you are looking for. It might be a nice, comfortable sofa or a bed. Perhaps you’ve been dying to get a brand-new double oven or think it’s time to install a new shower. Decide what you want and develop your plan of attack based on this.
Give Yourself Time
The key with anything in the January sales is to shop around. Once you’ve decided on what you want, you should be able to make a list of shops to visit (either on or offline) so that you maximise your efforts and minimise the hassle.
While you may be eager to snap up a bargain, be prepared to give yourself a cooling off period, particularly if you are making a sizeable purchase. You can put up with a “what were you thinking jumper” that you bought on a whim, but a sofa? That’s a different matter entirely.
Is the Offer Genuine?
Which? did some interesting research in this area and found that items offered in sales are not necessarily the great bargains that all the advertising would lead us to believe. In fact, they found that over three quarters of products on sale could be found for the same price or less six months later.
That’s why it can be important to settle on what you want well before the sale takes place. You can then note the price and see how it varies from what is being asked for in the January sale. This goes double for technical devices such as TVs, phones, laptops etc. as they release regular upgrades and are continuously discounting previous versions. You might like to check the manufacturer’s website direct, for example, and see what the recommended retail price is. Our advice is to be savvy with your sale shopping.
Paying For Your Purchases
Many of us find things a little tight after Christmas and businesses know this. They’ll make offers of finance that you may be tempted by. One of these is buy now pay in X number of months, with an interest free period if you settle the account during the time frame. There’s nothing wrong with this as long as you intend to pay before you become potentially trapped into a high interest repayment scheme that could cost you twice as much. As far as possible, however, try to ensure that you have the money to pay for the item if you want to get the full benefit of the sale price.
Savvy January sales shopping can be fun, and the feeling you get when you purchase a bargain is most satisfying. Happy hunting!
