The Unofficial IKEA Web Journal

It’s on all our minds, right? Saving money? Times are tight, and we’re all looking for ways to pinch a penny. Here are some great articles on saving money with IKEA:

From IKEAFANS.com:
Why Choosing IKEA is Smart - “Walking into an IKEA is like walking into a whole new world – it’s a wildly different experience, and it pays to know ahead of time why you should choose IKEA. Forget everything you think you know and read on to find out the top reasons choosing IKEA is the smartest move you’ll make….”

10 Keys to IKEA’s Low Prices “Just how does IKEA manage to offer such consistently low prices? Many people think that it’s because the furniture is made cheaply, which isn’t exactly true. Read on to find out about some of IKEA’s less obvious cost-saving strategies…”

By Kelly Whitaker @IKEAFANS.com:
DIY IKEA – How to MAKE Money in a Soft Housing Market “I spend a lot of time thinking about my finances- it’s true. Regardless if you do or not, I’d like to share my thoughts about why the current housing market makes an IKEA kitchen a better move than ever before. Everyone contemplating a remodel is or should be familiar with the resale value of typical home renovations…”

From Becky at Eco-Modernism:
Advantage: IKEA Kitchen over Custom It gets pummeled into our brains daily now: HOUSING MARKET IN THE CRAPPER! Yes. Yes it is. I just updated the budget calculation page & thought it worth a post, especially highlighting Kelly’s excellent summary on the IKEAFANS site….

So, there you go. Some good reading for you, less writing for me! Thanks for those most excellent articles, ladies!

Opinions @ecomod, budget, Budget REmodel, eco-modernism.com, IKEAFANS, IKEAFANS.com, Kelly Whitaker, Save Money

Affordable dreams in tough economic times call for IKEA!
-by Kelly

Why do people love IKEA? Not everyone, of course, but certainly a great number of people all over the world do truly LOVE IKEA.

I can tell you what IKEA does for me…

It’s about accessibility of dreams. I’m a person who has lots of little plans and dreams about my surroundings from clothes to gardens, and like lots of people I’m influenced by television and magazines on what those things can look like. I want to be individual within a cultural context and to express myself through the physical attributes of my surroundings.

Like nearly everyone, my money and my mind are not in synch. I want more than I can afford or have. My eyes are bigger than my wallet. At times, I live firmly in an unbalanced state of desire. I have Plans without Wherewithal.

And then, there is IKEA. There are interesting, even beautiful things at IKEA- lots of them- that are within the realm of my financial possibility. These things are geared toward people who live in small spaces, who need places to put things away, who need a new bed or couch or kitchen or desk, but who cannot or don’t choose to spend a lot of money, but have a desire to purposefully choose the things they live with rather than take things others are done with.

I lived for too long with other people’s hand me downs, and I suspect that these were hand me downs prior to that. Who actually chose these things? Who desired them? In what home did they make sense, and where were they part of an integrated whole? I am not talking about heirlooms, I am talking about a round dining table when you need square, a light wood when everything else is dark, where nothing really matches or is the right size for the space you inhabit. It is always making do.

So, for me, IKEA is about the freedom to pick things I want to live with.

Why do you like IKEA?
Image by Zeuss via IKEAFANS.com Galleries

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