Somethings you Need Eventually...

And some you need right now. When we first moved into our flat, we made a list of the immediate needs and those that could probably wait. The idea was that we'd buy the immediate new and buy the rest on trademe or in second hand stores. The list looked something like this:

Immediate:

• Mattress
• Desk x 2
• Chairs x2
• Everything needed for the kitchen
  

... and that was pretty much it. Everything else, bed frame, couches, dining table, chairs even sets of dresser drawers was on the later list. We wanted to live more reasonably (and recycle whenever possible) and it didn't seem like a big deal to wait on all of those.

Fast forward 3 weeks and certain things have been moved to the Immediate list. Surprisingly, the couch was at the top of the list. We'd originally figured we'd buy some one's second hand Ikea sofa for 100-300$. No Ikea in New Zealand and no equivalents means that not only is the second hand market for couches quite cut throat but the prices are quite a bit more than we expected as well. Example: We were bidding on a one or two year old couch. We found the EXACT couch new for 999$ (remember, taxes are included in prices here). The auction ended with the couch being sold for 650$!! And this is far from the only example of this.

Looking at our situation, we quickly came to the realization that buying used wasn't going to work. Back home, we spent a LOT of downtime on our comfy couches and not having a place other then the office to hang out was straining. So, today we went out and bought a couch that will last us our entire say in New Zealand. What's better, with a little luck we'll end up being able to sell it for a good chunk of change.

I'm not giving up on buying off Trademe and from second hand stores... yet. It appears that many of the buyers on Trademe are in fact owners of second hand stores. There was one buyer with 18 couches in his recent transaction list. How am I supposed to compete with that?