Today’s savings: Hundreds

We’re now weeks into the school year, and it’s time to start thinking about buying band instruments for your child. Before considering any pitch from the school-affiliated instrument company, check at garage sales, this newspaper’s classified ads, or  your children’s band director who may know of a child from a previous year who doesn’t use the instrument any more. Check with a relative to see if there’s an instrument lingering somewhere in a closet. Very often, you can pick up an instrument for less than $100, spend a little for it to be professionally cleaned and install new pads or strings, and you’ve got the perfect starter instrument for any child.

You can spend as much as $800 for a new instrument from a school-affiliated company, and three months later your child decides the trombone or flute just isn’t for them, which makes the instrument a very expensive purchase. You can certainly sell the instrument, but you’ll take a tremendous loss. There are a lot of lightly-used instruments out there just waiting to be paired with a young musician.

— Tightwad Gazette

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