Up until last year I lived my life
without air conditioning in my homes. Some summers have been worse than
others, but I finally broke down last year and bought a whole house,
energy efficient air conditioning unit. It was wonderful! However, I did
not realize that cold AC air mixed with hot summer air can create a lot of
condensation.
I walked down into the basement and it looked like all the duct work was
crying. Lots of water was collecting on all the ductwork and falling onto
the ground. It was so bad it looked like it was raining down there. Since
I was new to air conditioning, I thought the AC unit was defective. I soon
learned that I needed a dehumidifier.
This year I shopped for an energy efficient 25 pint dehumidifier. The best
price I found was the
Frigidaire model at
Best Buy for $129.99. Although,
as we have discussed so many times before, just because the retailer’s
price tag says it is the best price, that doesn’t mean we can’t do even
better. So here is how I did better.
$129.99
best retail price ($139.09 with state tax)
-$12.99 used 10% off Best Buy coupon
$117.00
+$8.19 tax (7% Allegheny County sales tax)
$125.19
-$1.25 used discount MasterCard (pays 1% back)
$123.94
-$50.00
Duquesne Light energy rebate (expires May 31, 2010)
$73.94
-$6.00
Fuelperks gas discount earned for using
Best Buy gift cards bought
at
Giant Eagle
$67.94
My final price of $67.94 was about 49% less than the lowest retail price
with tax, but I wasn’t quite done there. The dehumidifier came with a
standard one year warranty. However, since I paid for it with my
credit card (which, of course, I will pay off as soon as I receive the
bill) the warranty was
doubled by MasterCard at no cost to me. If I would have been
interested in purchasing an additional year warranty from Best Buy it
would have cost $29.99.
You can learn more about creative ways to shop and dramatically reduce
your expenses here. Have you had similar successes? Please
tell
me about it! .
For more stories about deals visit
the
Deals and Savings Archive Page!
