I'm never going to buy a new appliance again

Mike got the idea to source old broken appliances on eBay, trying to get them as cheaply as possible, just to see what we could get.

Here’s what we bought…

Electrolux Velocity 1700 Watt Bagless Cyclonic Vacuum Cleaner – We spent £9.99 purchasing it on eBay and £3.99 on a new set of Electrolux vacuum belts. We now have a perfectly working vacuum for just £13.98. Google shopping says that you can currently purchase this cleaner for £89.99 new.

Mow n Vac Flymo Lawn Mower – We spent £7.99 purchasing it on eBay, admittedly the clip that holds the power cord in place was broken and can’t be replaced, but that’s not terribly important. We spent £3.99 on new Flymo plastic blades and the mower worked perfectly well. That’s a working lawnmower for just £11.98. Google shopping says that you can currently purchase this lawnmower for £53.99 new.

Black & Decker GL687-GB Electric Strimmer – Spent just £14.99 purchasing it from eBay and then another £6.99 for the Black & Decker Spool and Line. That’s £21.98 for a strimmer that works like new. This strimmer is no longer being manufactured, however, Google shopping says that you can purchase one similar to this for £29.99.

Flymo Contour 300 Watt 23 Cm Trimmer – We bought this for the bargain price of £16.99 on eBay and spent a further £7.49 on a Flymo strimmer spool head. It works like new and we only spent £24.48. Google shopping says that you can purchase this for £32.99 new.

We saved £134.54 by buying appliances that just needed a bit of love and care. We fixed them up, they fulfilled their requirements, and now they’re worth a lot more as working machines. Yesterday Mike exclaimed, “I’m never going to buy a new appliance again”. eBay and Freecycle have loads of appliances available for sale that just need a bit of TLC to make them work like new.

You’d be exceptionally fortunate to have never been in the situation where an appliance becomes ‘un-fixable’ and you can’t quite afford a brand new one. If you know anyone who needs a new washing machine or lawnmower but can’t quite manage the expense of a brand new one, make sure you point them to the eBay/eSpares route. You really can get a nice ‘new-to-you’ appliance without spending a fortune.

Once we’ve finished shooting the videos our plan is to put these appliances back up on eBay and donate the money that we’ve made to eSpares Twitter followers who are running in the London Marathon.

EDIT: We’ve got a late start on the auctions! They will proceed but we will be distributing the winnings to a later charity event. We’ll post about it, we promise.

Tags: money saving tip, save money buying 'new to you' appliances, save money with make do and mend