So $1,527.29 later and we have a new Queen bed and
admittedly splurged a bit on a couple of new pillows. Although left to my own
devices I would have probably ended up in the cheapest twin bed floor model
that I could find, my wife’s desire for comfort trumped my push for frugality.
All in all I am happy with the choice. My biggest concern as we price shopped
and bounced between four different stores was my wife’s comfort. On our current
bed there is a bit of a sinkhole that probably has kept us from getting a
proper night’s sleep over the last few years. But the main driving force behind
my approval to bend the budget, was thinking of my wife one day being pregnant
on our bed and getting a comfortable night’s rest for 9 months. Happy wife,
happy life is a mantra that I’ve been finding truer and truer as our marriage
continues.
We did end up in what I consider a win-win scenario even
though we ended up paying more than our previous limit. The price charged for
our bed was $999 which was about $600 below market price on this bed when we
did our homework online with other retailers. That $999 price also included the
box spring, frame, delivery and removal of our current mattress.
What pushed us over the top were those darn pillows! When my
wife rested on the bed we would end up purchasing and the sly salesman placed
the “specialized” cooling pillow under her head, I knew I was done for. The odd
thing was that I wasn’t die-hard resistant to the added cost. The comfort of my
wife and the imagery of her getting a consistent good night’s sleep was really all
the convincing I needed. But that didn’t stop her from using one of my favorite
lines on me for a change. In a gentle
and genuinely loving tone she told me, “We have a net worth of over $300,000 –
we can afford the mattress.”
To accommodate the extra cost that we were not planning we
actually pulled the difference from our emergency fund, which is generally
filled with 6 months of expenses for us. We have prioritized all of our
disposable income to replace the amount take out from our emergency fund, and
the emergency fund will be made whole within a few pay periods.
Although this is definitely not the way I have nor plan to
make future purchases, for just this once I gave the nod of approval to my
wife. I genuinely expect this method of purchase to be a one-time occurrence.
But knowing that we can get a good night’s rest on a mattress just a few days
earlier than expected actually trumped my anxiety from taking cash out of the
emergency fund for something that was not an emergency.
In a matter of weeks the emergency fund will be refilled,
and if push came to shove and a catastrophic event occurred in our lives, we
have health insurance and over $100,000 in non-retirement accessible funds to
draw from on top of our briefly depleted emergency fund. So in that context I
felt okay drawing from the emergency fund to make the purchase a little early.
And yes paying $1,527.29 in cash felt awesome. So awesome
that we were even taken aback by a question from the sales guy, which was, “are
you guys in the restaurant business?” We came to find out that his family had a
background history in the restaurant business, and his father was Dave Ramsey
crazy before Dave was cool. The sales guy’s father never used debt and paid
cash for everything. Just between you and me, on that note alone I would have
paid retail for the mattress and pillows just to bump up that guy’s commission!
Aside from a few medical bills this is probably one of the
biggest, if not the biggest single purchase that we have made since hopping on
the Dave Ramsey train. We had a plan in place, did our homework, shopped
around, bought an item below market value, got a few goodies like free delivery
and removal thrown in and splurged on “specialized” pillows.
Overall, I’d say it was a win-win for us as well as the
retailer. We got a great bed at an excellent price, some pillows that helped
cushion the margin for the retail establishment and we genuinely enjoyed the
buying experience.
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