An ebayer, hand-me-down, used-merchandise gal buys something new!

So Sam and I are total eBay-ers. Or KSL-ers. Or "oh you're getting rid of that? We'll take it." -ers. Aside from the presents we got for our wedding, we haven't bought anything of value, new...from a store...out of the box. Everything from our bed frame and mattress, couches, tv, entertainment center, car, motorcycle (and countless motorcycle parts), oven, computer, printer, nail polish (and countless nail art supplies), play stations...basically everything we have is used. We either got it as a hand-me-down, from KSL, or eBay. And I have to say that I am pretty dang good at finding deals on those sites. (Also a side note, some of the things we've gotten off eBay are new, but they're from China, so it's definitely not the same as buying something brand new from a store).

And not only that, but anything we own that we're getting rid of that has any type of value, we sell on KSL or eBay. We've sold cars, motorcycles...and again countless motorcycle parts, LifeProof cases, iphones, jewelry, cosmetics, shoes, you name it, we've probably tried to sell it.

When either of us need to buy something, we automatically go to those sites. It doesn't even cross our minds to go shop for it at a store.

BUT. We just barely bought a brand-new, from an ACTUAL STORE, flat screen TV! That is literally unheard of for us. It all started because Sam is obsessed with car simulators lately and he's been wanting to get one, but he needed a playstation to do it. So he found a used ps3 on KSL thinking he could hook it up to our hand-me-down old box TV we have. But after doing a little more research we figured out we'd have to spend like 30$+ buying converters and cords to be able to make it work on our ancient tv. So Sam said instead of buying all the cords, he'd rather just put the money towards a new tv. and that same day we happened to get a cash back reward from one of our credit cards, which would cover about half the cost of a new tv. And Sam had some plasma money saved up to spend on whatever hobby he chooses, so we decided to buy a new-to-us tv. so naturally we get on KSL and start looking for used flat screens.

But we also realized that a flat screen would not fit in the hand-me-down entertainment center we have, because it's made for a big square box tv. So now I'm like..."great. All because Sam found a good deal on a ps3, now we have to get a new tv AND an new tv console, neither of which are in our budget!" (I'm also a psycho budget-er)

We started looking for used consoles and tvs, and we found a few good deals, and one tv in particular that we set up a time to go look at, and were basically planning on buying. But then I started looking up the reviews (I also thoroughly read reviews for any product before I buy it), and it turns out the tv was manufactured like 6 years ago, and people had just recently started posting that their tvs were going bad, so we decided even if the particular tv on KSL is still good, it will probably start to have problems soon. So then I started looking online at new tvs from different places and we found a pretty good deal for a tv at Best Buy. I read the reviews from any place I could find that sold that particular tv and compared prices at all those stores, and the reviews seemed to be good, and Best Buy happened to be having a one day sale on that tv, so they had the best price. The brands isn't like a big name brand, but everyone said it was a good starter tv, and we're total newbs when it comes to tv stuff. Plus it was comforting to know it was a new tv and if we do have problems, there is a warranty. So we were totally sold on this tv.

But the problem was that the closest Best Buy that had the tv in stock was in Park City, and Sam wanted to see the tv in person before buying it and also didn't want to have to wait for it to get shipped to us (cuz he was anxious to play his car racing game).

So off we were up to Park City and we walked out with a NEW tv in our hands! Not new-to-us, not new-from-China, but NEW! We were pretty stoked. AND it came with a Roku TV. Which at the time we had no idea what that was, but now that we do, we're pretty stoked about it.

Now back to the entertainment center problem...

So Sam convinced me to let him try to jimmy rig our entertainment center to make a flat tv console instead. So he woke up super early on Saturday morning and started sawing away. I wish we would have taken some before and after pictures, but we didn't. Just so you get an idea, our entertainment center looked something like this with a much smaller tv square...

And I woke up on Saturday with it looking like this! I was so proud of him!

 

You would never be able to tell that it was pieced together from a big entertainment center. And not only that, but when I was trying to find a picture similar to what ours used to look like and a stumbled across the "before" picture I just used, it was a step-by-step blog post of how to do exactly what we had just done! 

And Sam thought it up all by himself. I was so proud of him :) 

So if you're wondering how we turned it into this, here's a link to her blog. She paints her new and improved tv console (which I kinda want to do to mine now), so the transformation is bigger than ours, but still...I was impressed with Sam's ingenuity. Also he used screws instead of gorilla glue. 

But look at us! All fancy and buying our first brand new purchase!

Also our entertainment center had a bunch of shelves on the sides where I was keeping all my books and candles and a bunch of other knick-knacks on, so know I need find a book shelf to replace those shelves. I've already started looking on KSL, but who knows, maybe I'll buy a new one!