This Is The Hands-Down Best Time To Buy Your Big Kitchen Appliances

Last minute big ticket home purchases can pop up more often in life than one might like. Skip some self-cleaning oven safety steps, for example, and you may find yourself shopping for a new cooker way sooner than you'd planned. Other expensive items can conk out even without human error. But, when the appliance stars align, you have plenty of time to plan and compare those major spends for a nice little bit of savings, and a lot of holiday weekends are typically the optimal time to buy your big kitchen appliances.

Those three-day weekends are common sense moments for retailers to try to attract more customers. Barring all the time, money, and home renovation interest in the world, plenty of folks would rather spend their precious Saturdays and Sundays pursuing more relaxing activities than mulling the merits of in-door ice makers. An extra Friday or Monday to allocate to refrigerator shopping instead feels a little less like it's cutting into true leisure time. Holiday weekend appliance sales have also become so ubiquitous that retailers would lose their competitive edge were they to skip, say, a Labor Day dishwasher blowout while the other guys were cleaning up. So, when the time does come to replace your refrigerator or other behemoth machine, look to the next holiday weekend on the calendar to plan your shopping strategy.

Sticker price alone is not the only marker of large appliance affordability. Think about how you're going to get the thing home and in working order. Delivery and installation fees can vary by hundreds of dollars between retailers. These fees can even whittle down what at first seemed like holiday weekend savings to more comparable prices between sellers when all is said and done. This matters not only to keep you from feeling like you're getting ripped off, but it could also rob you of credit card points that you might have otherwise accrued when choosing one retailer over another.

Take a close look at warranties, too. They can make the difference between having to pay full price for a replacement if something does go awry right away, or having some of those unwelcome mishaps covered. Somewhat related, cheap can cost you, as they say. The absolute lowest-priced item might have a terrible reputation for reliability. Peruse some trusted publications for reviews before buying to sort out the actual best option for your money, regardless of the time of year. Speaking of the calendar, you can always negotiate for better appliance prices, regardless of the season. Worst case scenario is it still won't cost you any extra.