I used 3 strategies to save more than 50% on furniture for my new home

Courtesy Sarah Li Cain

The author's home in Jacksonville, Florida.

• I recently moved into my first home and needed new furniture, but I refused to pay full retail price.
• I searched for open-box items and discounts at my local overstock store to get quality furniture on the cheap.
• Waiting for sales also helped me save, as did using discounted gift cards and cash-back portals.
• Read more personal finance coverage.

My husband and I recently bought our first home, in Jacksonville, Florida. We saved some money by not hiring movers, but we needed a few pieces of new furniture and didn't want to max out our credit cards to get it.

Our dining room furniture had seen better days, and we were tired of reupholstering the dining chairs. Also, our rug ended up being too small for our living room. And because I now have a home office, I wanted to get an ergonomic chair since I sit for most of the day.

Our family is pretty frugal, and buying new furniture can cost upwards of hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars. So we had to get creative.

Instead of driving to Goodwill or digging through yard sales hoping to find what we wanted, we used three tactics to help us buy all the new furniture we needed without paying full price. Afterwards, we put the money we saved on furniture towards a few minor repairs, like replacing our kitchen faucet and weather-proofing our front door.

Here are the tricks we used to save 50% or more on our new furniture.

Look for open-box items

Open-box items are one of the best-kept secrets of the retail world. Things can become "open box" in a number of different ways. Most commonly, it happens when someone purchases a new item and then returns it. The retailer can't necessarily sell it at the regular retail price because it's not brand new, so instead, they'll sell the item at a steep discount to get rid of it.

Open-box items can also be brand-new items that have damaged packaging (think: dented soup cans that are well within their sell-by date) or are floor models. Again, some retailers will offer these items at a steep discount to clear them out.

When I was looking for an office chair, I wanted one from Herman Miller or Steelcase, but these brands can easily set you back over $1,000 for brand-new models. So I looked on eBay for open-box office furniture and nabbed a Steelcase office chair for $250, which is a 71% discount.

Check out your local overstock store or liquidator

There's a store near where I live - called Mega Liquidation Center in Jacksonville - that purchases overstock items locally and sells them at a steep discount. My husband and I love to go there because we save tons of money on perishable items.

They recently expanded their inventory to include bigger-ticket items, like furniture. When we looked, we found a rug for over 50% off the retail price.

Granted, these stores aren't as easy to navigate as retailers that sell new items, but it's worth digging and being patient to get the best deals.

Wait for sales and stack rewards

It was tempting to buy furniture right away when we moved into our house, but we decided to wait so we could time the sales. We had all the basic furniture we needed - beds, a sofa, TV, and tables - so we had time to wait for other items, like a coffee table and end tables.

Once those sales hit, we looked for the specific items we had on our list and were able to get a good discount. Also, if we saw something we liked, we tried to stack rewards on top of the discounted price. For example, we bought discounted gift cards to save a few bucks, and then used cash-back portals, like Rakuten, when shopping online to get some bonus cash.

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