Oven Quest: how I bought an $1,100 stove for $70 (or $165 with tax and extras)

Let me just start off by confessing that the title of this post is misleading.  A little. I actually did buy an $1,100 oven for $70 out-of-pocket, but as you'll see below, the bulk of the savings was not won by my own guile.

The only good reason for me to blog about my appliance purchases is to be instructive-by-example, meaning, I want you to save money on your appliance purchases by doing the same things that I do.  But in this case, there is virtually no chance that you'll get the same $900 windfall that we got (see below).  That was just our good fortune.  But, you still can reduce the price of your major appliances significantly with some easy shopping strategies, so let's also talk about those.  Here we go:  join me on my quest for a new stove/oven.

Back in 2010, I wrote a post about How I replaced nearly every major appliance in my kitchen for less than $400 total.  It's one of my most often-read posts.  In it, I mention the model number of each appliance that I bought, its price, and then the actual price that we paid.

About a month ago, something a little unusual happened to me.  I was contacted by a private investigator who had read the post and asked me if I still owned this model GE stove.   I did.  This investigator asked me if I would be willing to sell it, as it was needed in a lawsuit.

It was a timely request, as last Passover, some soup had spilled on the hot cooktop, and the glass had started to split.  The crack in the cooktop had slowly grown and spread out, (like a windshield crack,) and I had just mentioned to Joshua that we were going to have to replace it soon, as it was probably going to break all the way through the glass soon.  Already I had stopped using the burner near the crack in the cooktop.

I told the investigator about the crack in the cooktop glass.  He said his client didn't care about the cooktop and asked me to name my price.  I asked for $2,000.  He countered with $900.  Since the oven originally cost around $500, I took  the offer.

Of course, I checked the investigator out very thoroughly first before I made a move.  I wanted to be sure that I wasn't being scammed, that he didn't live in Nigeria, etc.  I insisted on his sending me a $900 certified check, before I would release the stove to him.  If he wasn't willing to do this, I would not be selling my stove.

The following week, we received a certified check for $900, and then the oven was crated up and sent across the country.  Goodbye older cracked stove. And now we had $900 in our home improvement account to spend on a new stove.

We were out of town all last month, so we didn't worry about the replacement oven too much, because there wasn't too much we could do about it remotely.  When we got home to Denver this week, the race was on.  I needed a new stove/oven before Rosh Hashana and I didn't have the luxury of careful, timed, planned shopping.  Luckily, we returned before Labor Day, so I was able to take advantage of some great appliance sales.  But first, I did a little work.

Step One was making a list of everything I wanted in a new stove/oven:

• I have a smallish kitchen, so a built-in wall oven was out of the question.  I needed a 30" freestanding oven.
• We don't have a gas hookup in our kitchen and putting one in (which I'd love to do someday) would have cost too much money.  So we needed an electric oven.
• I wanted the new oven to have "Sabbath mode," which enables me to use the oven on Jewish holidays with ease.  My old oven had it, and it was a great feature.
• I wanted a high-end brand name.  No Uniden or some off-brand Asian appliance.
• I wanted a double oven.  This is a somewhat newish feature in freestanding ovens.  My husband and I keep kosher, so we cannot use one oven simultaneously for both meat and dairy dishes.  We need to run the self-clean process when we switch from baking items containing meat to items containing dairy.  It's a royal pain in the neck sometimes.  With a double oven, since the ovens are completely separate, we can use one for dairy and one for meat.  If I need them both for meat, say, I can just run the self-clean process for that oven before using it.
• A normal sized oven on a 30" freestanding model is 5.6 cubic feet.  I wanted one that was larger than that.
• I wanted a smoothtop stove.  I think electric coils are UGLY.  U-G-L-Y.
• I wanted a free delivery and installation deal, especially when installation basically means plugging the thing in.
• I wanted a self-cleaning oven. Non-negotiable.
• I wanted either black, stainless steel or a combination of the two.  No bisque, white, or any other colors.  I still think stainless steel is kind of trendy and stupid (our generation's Harvest Gold), and I refuse to pay more for it.  Most of my major appliances are black, and I'm very happy with them.  But my smaller appliances (microwave, toaster oven, stand mixer, SodaStream, etc.) are all stainless steel, and if I could score a stainless steel oven with a black cooktop, that would fit nicely design-wise into my kitchen.  
• I didn't want a convection oven.  Baking is confusing enough for me here in Denver's Rocky Mountain high altitude.

One big decision that we needed to make was this:  did we want to get the same kind of oven that we had before, which would enable us to pocket some of that $900, or did we want to use the whole amount to upgrade to a really nice oven? After some discussion with my husband, we decided this:  if we could upgrade to something with a feature (like a double oven) that we didn't have before and get a really good deal on it, then we'd blow the whole $900 and possibly then some.  We'd consider it an investment in the kitchen and house. If we couldn't do that, we'd just get ourselves something similar to what we had before and put the rest of the money into our house fund.

We had our wishlist.

Step 2 was going online and seeing what was out there and available.  I looked at Home Depot's and Lowe's website.  I decided to limit my hunt to these two stores, as both were nearby, and I had a serious time constraint.  Also, I wanted my husband to come with me to shop, at least initially, and Joshua absolutely hates shopping; I'd be able to drag him to two stores, but three was pushing it.  Also, Home Depot and Lowe's promised free shipping.

I discovered two things.

1. Like everything else, ovens were much, much more expensive than they were when we last shopped for one in 2009.  Like 30-50% more.  A simple, featureless, smoothtop black electric range/oven model similar to the one we were replacing, which cost around $500 in 2009, now started at $650.  
2. The freestanding double ovens that I coveted started at around $1,200.

Not good.  My first thought was that we wouldn't be able to upgrade at all and we would spend the whole $900 or close to it, and end up with the same type of oven that we replaced.  Oh well.  At least it wouldn't have a crack in the cooktop.

I printed out the item pages for these three ovens:

1. GE "plain old" oven in black, $649
2. LG "plain old" oven in stainless steel, $764
3. LG double oven in stainless steel for $1,047

 If you'll notice, I printed out these pages only from the Home Depot website.  That's because the Lowe's website is awful.  On the Lowe's site, you've got to put an appliance in your cart in order to see the price.  How awkward and time-wasting is that?  (Lowe's, are you listening?)  

That last item sheet that I printed, the LG double oven, seemed very promising because it was the lowest priced freestanding double oven I could find on the Home Depot website.  Now if I could just get that price down a little more.  I didn't see the LG oven on the Lowe's website though (I later found out that Lowe's does not carry LG ovens).

I also realized that the tax was going to be a huge amount, and undoubtedly, there would be some other "oh-by-the-way" charge built in, like a separate charge for the electrical cord.  I hate it when there are separate mandatory charges for parts that you need for installing an appliance.  Why not include it in the cost of the appliance itself?  I'm convinced that it's just another way of squeezing out extra money from consumers.  When we bought our French-door fridge, we had an "oh-by-the-way" $30 charge for the icemaker hose.  Did they not know that the fridge would be needing an icemaker hose?  Why the separate charge and why so much?  Grrrr.

Step 3 was thinking about my purchasing strategy. I was hoping to connect to a salesperson who would be eager to make a deal.  I knew one of the managers at our local Home Depot, Brian, who worked with me when we bought our refrigerator.  I hoped he would work with me again.  I really wanted to buy the appliance at Home Depot because I had $125 in gift cards there from recent credit card reward redemptions  that would lower the out-of-pocket amount even further for us.

Both stores, Home Depot and Lowe's, have identical competitor price match policies.  If I can find the same in-stock item at another store for less money, they will beat the competitor's price by 10%.  I was hoping to find a stove like that, get the 10% plus price match discount, and then use a 10% coupon on top of that.  I had a 10% off Lowe's coupon (from a free change of address kit at the post office) that both Home Depot and Lowe's would accept.  So to sum up, my buying strategy involved stacking these discounts:

1. Find a stove that fit my wishlist, that was on sale.
2. Find the stove cheaper at the competing store and take advantage of the 10% price match competitor discount on top of the sale price.
3. Use the 10% coupon after that. 

Step 4 was getting over to the actual store for a first look.  Since I was pretty sure we were going to buy from Home Depot, we went to Lowe's first, and immediately saw this stove out on the floor.  Oooo. Love at first sight.  A Whirlpool freestanding double-oven, with a smoothtop stove, Sabbath mode, a huge 6.7 total cubic foot oven, and it was super-purty.  The helpful Lowe's salesperson showed me the Consumer Report on it, and it was well-rated, and recommended by past purchasers, with no red flags.  It was priced at $1,092.60 on sale, the cheapest freestanding, name-brand, double oven that we had seen at Lowe's.  And, it had a feature that I did not expect:  a fifth area on the stovetop that served as a "warming burner."  Nice little unexpected perk.  And happily, Home Depot had the identical oven for $1,078.20, a little cheaper, which would activate the price match competitor policy.  I smelled blood on the water. 

Would Lowe's match and exceed Home Depot's price by 10%?  And could I then use a 10% Lowe's coupon after that?

Well, I discovered that the price match competitor policy was a very flexible and discretionary one.  Because the stove was already on sale, Lowe's would only match the Home Depot price, but not exceed it by 10%.  I thought that was a little crummy, but ok.  But, then they would allow me to use the 10% coupon on top of that reduced price.  

So they would meet Home Depot's price of $1,078.20, and then drop it by 10% with my coupon, for a final total of $970.38.  Now we were talking turkey. 

Next stop was Home Depot.  We went to a Home Depot store that was close to the Lowe's store, but it wasn't my usual Home Depot location.  I asked the salesperson if he would beat the Lowe's deal on the Whirlpool stove, and he said that he couldn't take a 10% coupon on an already reduced stove.  Again, I thought that was sort of crummy.  I didn't feel like this salesperson was really interested in working with us.  I did see and like the LG double oven in stainless steel for $1,047, but again, the salesman refused to take the 10% coupon for it.  And it didn't have that nice little "warming burner" perk, though the design was very nice, with a bright blue interior and no manual knobs on the controls, which were all electronic and would make for very easy cleaning. 

At this point, I think my husband and I decided that we definitely wanted the double-oven and were willing to blow the whole $900 for it.  We barely looked at the lower-end ovens. The choice was going to be between buying the LG double oven in stainless steel for $1,047 at Home Depot or the Whirlpool double-oven in stainless steel (after price match and coupon) for $970 at Lowe's.  

I still really wanted to make the purchase from Home Depot.  I had had a very good experience with them on the refrigerator purchase, and I liked their customer service.  Plus, we had that $125 in Home Depot gift cards. I decided to wait until the next day to go to my usual Home Depot store and talk to the manager that I knew there. 

Step 5 was going home that night and doing my research online on the two models that I was considering.  I spent an hour or two searching and researching, and found only positive reviews and great ratings.  The worst thing anyone had to say about either of these ovens was that, because there was no movable storage drawer in the oven, the plug-in aspect prevented the ovens from fitting flush up against the wall.  I could live with that.  

Step 6 was going to my local Home Depot store the next day. I was very disappointed to discover that Brian, my manager pal, no longer worked there. But, I did find a salesperson with whom I could really work. He saw I was ready to buy and I guess that commission check loomed in front of him.  I told him if he could match the Lowe's deal on the Whirlpool stove for $970, or, if he could take a 10% coupon on the LG stove, I'd buy either one on the spot. 

He was willing to come through on the deals that I proposed, but he needed to run it past his manager first, who very reluctantly and begrudgingly agreed, but treated me as though I were trying to shoplift the ovens.  I don't get that kind of attitude coming from a sales manager.  If you have a repeat consumer who walks in to your store and is ready to fork over a thousand dollars for a stove (especially with today's economy), wouldn't you want to treat her well and give her a (legitimate) break on the stove?   I was ready to buy, that moment, on the spot.  Isn't a bird in the hand worth two in the bush, especially in the world of appliance sales?  

After about 45 minutes of struggling to figure out how to run the discount on the Home Depot computerized cash register, the whole thing fell through.  It seemed that their cash register system would not allow them to double-discount me.  I couldn't for the life of me understand why they wouldn't just override it.  I was standing there with a credit card in my hand, for Pete's sake!  But no, Home Depot was not going to make it work.  They lost a sale on a thousand dollar oven because they couldn't make their computer give me a $100 discount.  Ok.

I headed back to Lowe's.  The salesperson who helped us the previous day was out, but another one was there, and he too seemed eager to work with me.  He futzed around with his computer, and somehow overrode the price on the oven and marked it down to $970.38, giving me the double discount of a price match and a 10% coupon.  Of course, there was an extra "oh-by-the-way" $21 charge for the electrical cord (ridiculous and cheesy, IMHO), and I asked him to mark that down by 10% too.  Without flinching, he dropped it to $19.  The tax came to a miserable $75.   

So, in summary:

We got the Whirlpool double-oven in stainless steel, on sale for $1,092.60 at Lowe's for $970.38.  We had the $900 from the sale of the previous oven, so this oven cost us $70.38 plus the $19 for the cord plus the $75 tax, or $164.38 out-of-pocket.  

So now that you've finished reading my way-too-long post, what can you take away from this?

Obviously, when you shop for an oven, you're not going to get that $900 windfall.  So for me to "brag" about getting an $1,100 oven for $70 is a little ridiculous. After all, that $900 just kind of fell in our laps, though I do credit myself for asking for much more than the old, cracked oven was worth.  

But you can still employ other methods of saving money on major appliances.  Find a salesperson who is agreeable, eager and who will work with you, price match, ask the appliance stores to fulfill their competitor policy, and use coupons.  I still saved over $120 pushing my discount strategy as far as it could go.  I wish I had had a little more time to buy the oven.  I'm convinced that I could have cut an even better deal if I had the luxury of time to watch the sales and shop more strategically. Still, I felt we did well.  

Thanks for coming shopping on my Oven Quest with me.  My beautiful new double oven arrives next Wednesday.  :)

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