Get Furniture and Household Items?
From Rutgers GSA Wiki
Where Can I get Furniture?
- You will see advertisements for furniture on the GSA_MARKET email list, and you can post a request yourself. Graduate Students trade a lot using this email list and often you will get really good deals for furniture, books, electronics etc.
- Rutgers Surplus Store (Surplus & Material Services) offers surplus items for sale such as used office furniture, computer equipment, electronics, lab equipment, etc at relatively cheap prices. The store is located on Livingston Campus (for directions click here and for a map click here)
- Many students purchase items from IKEA. You will need a car to get to the store (it is in Elizabeth, NJ, near Newark International Airport). An alternative is to catch a shuttle bus from NYC. You can get items delivered for a fee, or simply shop online, however the delivery fees are quite expensive for furniture. It is usually much cheaper to hire a van or truck and get the items yourself, especially if you can go with other people and split the cost.
- There are also plenty of furniture stores in the “strip malls” lining all the main roads. However these are not within walking distance from any campus. Again, it may be worth to rent a small truck or trailer for a day.
- Often people put broken and unwanted furniture and other items beside the road, for garbage collection. It is perfectly acceptable (and common) to look through what people have put out, and take anything you want. Remember, many people move on 1st Aug and 1st Sep every year, and also at the end of the school year in early - mid May, so these are good times to look for unwanted furniture.
- You may even get a good bargain by buying furniture from people who may be moving out and need to sell them before.
- Other market lists that can be helpful: Craigs List, FreeCycle and Froggle.
Where Can I Get Household Items?
The campus center stores offer a small range of household items if you need something straight away. Most grocery stores such as Target, Walmart, K-Mart, Sears also offer a fairly wide range of household items. There is one department store (Sears) behind Cook Campus which is an easy walk from the bus stop outside the Women’s Studies building on the EE route.
Why am I charged more than the advertised price for many items? NJ adds 7% sales tax to most goods and services. Often this is additional to the price advertised. Items that are exempt from this tax include most clothing, food and other items intended for home consumption (e.g. groceries). Students do not have to pay sales tax on food bought on campus.
