Ways we saved thousands when buying a new kitchen

Those of you that are regular readers of my blog will know I've spent the last nine years we've lived here DIY-ing and quick-fixing our very rundown kitchen, whilst saving for a new one. 

We were finally ready to go for it this year, and over the past couple of months we've had our twenty-year-old, damaged kitchen ripped out, and a lovely brand new one installed.

I’ve shared all the details and lots more photos over on this post here, but more importantly there was a number of ways we managed to save money on the new kitchen, which I hope will be helpful to anyone in a similar situation. 

Without doing these things I don’t think the entire project would have been possible, so I would definitely recommend looking into all the options available to you when going with a kitchen supplier. 

Read on for exactly we saved over £10,000 on the new kitchen - yes, we really did save that much! 

Kitchen saving 1 - Choose the flat pack option 

First up, the big one. We went for the budget option when choosing our kitchen, opting to have it arrive flat packed. This meant that, rather than have our units arrive fully assembled, our kitchen fitter put the units together for us on-site during installation. 

In total this saved us nearly £2,500 - a huge saving, especially seeing as our fitter actually mentioned flat pack makes things easier when working in small spaces like our room!

Kitchen saving 2 - Worktop 

This one we gave the most consideration, as initially I had my heart set on a quartz or marble worktop. I’ll admit I didn’t do very much research to be honest, but I didn’t realise quartz would come in SO expensive in such a small kitchen! 

We’ve always had plastic-y feeling laminate worktops before, and I was adamant I didn’t want one again. So I’ll admit I was disappointed when the quartz quote came in. However, our kitchen supplier recommended their mid-price range of luxury laminates which I’m so impressed with. 

I’ve gone for a marble-effect style, with a gloss finish and a thinner 22mm thickness to emulate the quartz look as much as possible. I’m not exaggerating when I say I’m over the moon with it - it’s absolutely beautiful in real life and is easily my favourite part of the kitchen. 

So I guess the moral of the story here is if you’re on a budget don’t rule something out, and fully consider all the options available to you as you might be surprised!

By choosing this laminate rather than quartz we saved over £4,000, so definitely a no-brainer seeing as this isn’t our forever home.

Kitchen saving 3 - Keep old appliances 
Our old kitchen had all exposed, free-standing appliances which I’ve always hated the look of. So to be honest, integrating appliances was my one non-negotiable (however if you’re not as fussy you can save some more money here, as you won’t need as many cupboards!) 

Because of this we needed new slimline appliances that could be integrated, however kept all of our existing appliances that we could - the fridge/freezer, oven and sink and tap all stayed. This saved us £650. 

Kitchen saving 4 - Bin
One thing we were really looking to add to a new kitchen was a bin cupboard- you know you’re getting old when bins excite you! But with floor space being such a premium, a free standing bin has always got in the way. 

So we definitely wanted to add a pull-out bin inside one of the cupboards. However, the one made by our kitchen supplier came in as quite pricey. After some research we found a bin on runners that was the exact size of the unit at another retailer - for a fraction of the price. 

We then simply added an empty 300mm wide cupboard, and our fitter added the bin on runners himself. The beauty of this meant there was space in the cupboard to leave the top shelf in, which is where all our bin bags etc now live. By doing this we saved around £250.

Kitchen saving tip 5 - Wait for a sale!

We waited until the new year in the hope that we would be able to find some deals in the January sales. By doing this we secured discounts on a number of items such as handles, decor accessories (such as cornices and pelmets), the worktop we chose, and the installation price. In total these discounts saved us a massive £3,310. 

So it's definitely worth shopping around and waiting a few months to see how offers change seasonally.

In total by going for these options we saved over £10,000 on our kitchen - so you can see how it wouldn't have been possible without all these savings! 

Hope this has been helpful!

Thanks for reading, 

Sam Xx