Spending on the Needs not the Wants

The other day I blogged about how my company gave me a year-end bonus, and that I was considering spending some on one of my needs. Well, today I did!

I bought a new bed!

I can’t tell you how excited I am about this. My current bed is about 10 years old, so it’s definitely time to change it anyways, however I’ve never been happy with it. I bought it a little firmer than I anticipated, and it’s been the most uncomfortable thing in the world. While I don’t wake up with aches and pains from it, I just don’t sleep deeply on it, so that I’m always a little tired in the mornings. I essentially wake up to roll over, which totally sucks, because that means I rarely get into REM sleep, which is the deepest and best kind of sleep. But not anymore.

I went to Sleep Country Canada, which only sells mattresses, to check out what they had. They actually had a good sale on right now where you could buy certain sets for pretty cheap. But I wanted to see which bed would be best for me, and then look at the price, to see what I’d get. I know that could be dangerous, especially since I’m known for finding the most expensive thing in a store in about 2 seconds, but I thought I’d give it a shot. I met with a nice salesman, explained what type of bed I was looking for and my price range, and off we went!

He advised me to take off my coat and just start lying down on the beds he indicated. “Leave your shoes on, don’t worry about them,” he said. I spent the next 45 minutes lying down on about 4 or 5 different beds, trying them out, seeing what was different about them. Alan (the salesman) was nice, in that he left me alone for a few minutes with each bed so that  I could get a feel for it myself, and then he would come over and explain what the bed was about. “This one has individually wrapped springs, that one has interlocked springs, this one has memory foam in the pillow top, that one might be cooler in the summer because the covering is made of cotton,” and on he went.

I found him to be very knowledgeable and nice, and not at all pressuring, which I know some salesmen can be. Finally once I’d decided I asked him what the price was on the bed I liked. He was smooth about it though, as he said it wasn’t part of their current sale (boo!), BUT, while I was lying down he went to check and found that he had it available as part of their mix n’ match promotion, so I could get it for the same price as the sale one. (Mix n’ match is where the fabric on the mattress doesn’t match the fabric on the box spring. Usually this isn’t a big deal since you’re covering up the mattress and / or box spring anyways.) I am one of those that doesn’t care about the matching colours, so I asked what the price would be (before tax). “$1099,” Alan replied. Which is a lot of money for a mattress, but think of this:

• that mattress normally sells for $1800.
• delivery is free.
• I’ll be using the thing for about 10 years or so, which means it would cost me $100 a year for it.

“Giddy up,” I said. Okay, maybe not exactly like that, but I told him I’d take it.

Woo!

I’m getting a new bed.

I’m getting a new bed.

(Can you see how excited I am?)

And it’ll be delivered a week today, just in time for my birthday. Happy Birthday to me.

I get my bonus cheque with my next regular paycheque, which is next Friday, so I’ll be able to put the money down onto my credit card right away so that the money’s already paid off before the bed comes. Nice.

Cross one thing off my Needs list.