How to get a Kitchenaid for 20 Bucks

Kitchen Aid. Even those who don't really cook dream of owning one. But the price can be hard to justify if you know you won't use it more than a handful of times in a year.

Here's how I got mine for 20 bucks.

I bake most of my own bread and have off and on for years.  Two years ago, just before Christmas when they came on sale at Costco, I finally justified the purchase of a Kitchenaid to help me with the task.

Many stores offer great discounts on these appliances around Christmas but I opted to purchase at Costco for two reasons: it was the larger professional size which is better for bread making and you can't beat Costco's return policy should something go wrong.
(As a side note, the professional one is the 'bowl lift' style and doesn't have a tilt-head. This is bit of a pain in the arse if you ask me, but I traded that feature for the larger size. I believe you can order the smaller tilt-head style on Costco.ca)

The Costco shelf price was $379 and the sale in 2016 offered $100 off. So I paid $279 AND through the Kitchenaid website there was an additional $100 rebate during December that year. So basically, I paid $179, which I found rather easy to justify.

About 8 months later after faithfully making all our bread in the machine, I was making another batch and I may or may not have left the room for a little too long while it was kneading. I returned to find blue smoke billowing from the machine that had come to a grinding halt.  I returned it to Costco and got my $279 back. So now I have essentially been paid $100 for my troubles.

But I missed the machine and a couple of months later when they came on sale at Costco again just before Christmas I purchased another one for $299. (Damn inflation) And low and behold if Kitchenaid didn't have another $100 rebate offer to coincide.

So to keep you up with the math, I paid $279 was returned that amount, then I paid $299  but have received $100 back twice, so total paid so far was $99.

The second machine I purchased always had a bit of a wonky switch and I had to turn the machine off and on twice to get it to come on. Totally a manufacturer's defect but I limped along with it for a year. Until this past week. And Costco had their annual Christmas sale on. However, this time the sale is only an $80 savings. So I paid $319 for a new machine, but received $299 back for the one I returned. And guess what! Kitchenaid has their annual Christmas rebate online. So yes, I get another $100 back.
Are you keeping up with the math??

Total paid to Costco: $897
Total returned from Costco: $578
Total rebates back from Kitchenaid: $300
$897-578-300= $19  Plus tax of course.

Of course I also need to factor in my Costco Executive card rebate as well as the MasterCard rebates so in reality I say it was 20 bucks, but it was probably more like free.

Feelin' sorta smug with my new machine hoping the 3rd one's the charm.

Hopefully 3rd time's the charm