How long since your last toaster died and you had to go out in a hurry to find a new one only to find that they are incredibly expensive.

In the past I have tested the idea of buying an expensive appliance on the basis that if you get a good one then you won’t have to replace it very often and in the long run it will be cheaper. This does work for some things but for many things it doesn’t, even a good electric jug may only last a year or two which will neatly fit outside it’s one year warranty. Because like most people I also don’t want to buy the $13 cheap toaster at The Warehouse but equally I don’t want to buy a $200 toaster from Farmers either.

The problem with toasters is that you need one and you need it today so the idea of waiting till it’s on special doesn’t help much. On this occasion we took a half way approach and bought the $13 Warehouse toaster until we could find a better one – short term measure if you like.

When we looked at The Warehouse the best 4 slice was about $50 and it didn’t really look much better than the $13. Then I looked at Farmers and it seemed everything was $100+, I don’t remember exact prices. Following that I looked at Noel Leeming and I found the “Novo 2 Slice Toaster Stainless Steel” for $79 so that was better but still was more than I wanted to spend.

Next I was passing Mitre10 Mega and was pleased to see they had the “BREVILLE SLIMLINE TOASTERS 4 Slice” for $56.18 – the model number is listed as “BT905″. Much better but needed to talk it over with the misses.

Next I was passing KMart and looked at their toasters and to my surprise I found the Breville “Freestyle Toaster” with model number BT905 for $39 so I bought it. Interestingly the Mitre10 website states and this is a cut and paste, “If you find a lower price on an identically stocked product locally we will beat it by 15%“.

Moral of the story

Shopping around can pay off but the exercise may just drive you insane.