TIme For a New Refrigerator

After 18 years our refrigerator stopped refrigerating. The freezer worked but that was no help. So first thing on Monday morning I accompanied my wife on a mission to seek out a new refrigerator/freezer. The potential list of retailers was Home Depot (HD), Best Buy (BBY) and Sears (SHLD).

We recently bought a new front and storm door to our house from Home Depot who was also contracted to install the doors. We still have a credit card dispute with HD who tried to charge us more money after the installation. I have never seen anyone shopping for home appliances at HD. Also, we do not know of anyone who bought a home appliance there. We did buy our kitchen oven at Expo but alas, HD shut that concept down several years ago. Thus, HD was crossed off the list. We have had good experiences at Best Buy recently for purchases and installation of a Pioneer HDTV plasma television and a Sony (SNE) HDTV LCD television. However, we were able to take advantage of 12% coupons and zero percent financing at BBY. This time around we had no coupon. In addition, just like HD, we have never seen nor heard of people shopping for home appliances at BBY.

So, we trudged to Sears. As it turned out we had a 10% discount coupon for Sears’s home appliances. In addition, we have bought our dishwasher, clothes washer, clothes dryer and trash compactor at Sears. I also like to shop where I invest and as many people know, SHLD is one of the top holding for my clients, family and me.

Now we had to decide on a style and model. With a family of seven (six since we have one in college) plus frequent family and guest visitors, a large sized refrigerator / freezer is necessary. Our old refrigerator was 25 cubic feet. A similar size was necessary. We took measurements at home before leaving for Sears so we could make sure that a new unit would fit in the old space. There are 3 styles of refrigerator / freezer combinations. First is the side by side. We don't like that style. Actually we have one at the lake house (not our choice, it came with the house) but for our normal lifestyle it does not work. Then there is the freezer top / refrigerator bottom style which was like the unit that just died. Finally, a newer style called the trio was also available. The trio style has a freezer on the bottom and then two French style doors for the refrigerator on top. We decided on the Black Kenmore Elite 24.7 cu. ft. TRIO (see the picture above). It also comes with a water / ice dispenser on the left door. We could not use the 10% discount coupon because the unit was already on sale for about 12% off of the normal price. In addition we received a rebate for the delivery charges and were not charged for removal of the old unit.

Hopefully we won't have to deal with this situation for another 18 years. Instead now I may have to remodel the kitchen.

At the time of this blog entry, Scott Rothbort, his family and or clients of LakeView Asset Management, LLC were long shares of Sears Holdings (SHLD).