What Do You Know About Layaway?

KMart has layaway. You pay a set amount over 6 weeks. You have a down payment along with a $3.00 fee and the balance is split over six weeks. I know some Wal-Mart's have layaway (or they do at Christmas time again).

I have heard that some KMarts do 8 week layaways as well.

It's great for me!!

I all know about layaway was when my mother used it at K-mart back in the day. We would pick everything out and they would "lay it away" in a big bag in the back. My mom would come in every couple of weeks and write the lady at the customer service desk a check every couple of weeks for a long time, then one day she wrote a check and got to take the bag of stuff home.

This was from the perspective of a child though. I've never used lay-away myself. I usually just save up and go shopping when I have the cash because I never really worry that they're going to run out of stuff. The stores will always have more stuff. I guess they may not have them at the same prices though so I suppose the benefit for laying away would be to get the stuff at the price it's currently at, like locking in a mortgage rate.

ETA: The 10-20% percent is the down payment you make. For example I want to put 200 worth of clothes on layaway at sears; I pay 1.00 for their fee plus 20 dollars down, the day I put it in. I then owe 180 dollars which is divided into 4 equal, bi-weekly payments, over 2 months. Sears only makes a dollar in addition to the 200 one would pay with cash or credit card. Its not 10-20 in addition to the amount of the purchase, so I am not paying 220 dollars for 200 worth of clothes. Sorry if that confused people. It's not a racket, if you tend to use cc to pay for things,but do not pay your bill off in full every month, it saves you money b/c you don't pay interest or finance charges as you would with a c.c. If you are able to at any given moment to buy, it prob would not benefit you.

I love layaway! I started doing it about a year ago, in an attempt to get rid of my credit cards and I'm hooked :P Anyway Sears, Kmart, Burlington have it year round. You pay a small fee, usually a dollar, and a percentage of your total, ranges from 10-20% depending on the store, then make bi-weekly payment til its paid off! Sears and Kmart will refund your money, after its paid off, if you change your mind. Burlington will only issue store credit. There isn't any interest, finance charges or anything like that, so its worth it. Make sure you plan in advance for how long it takes to get it out, they give you 2 months. You can always pay it off early, no penalties.
Check with smaller stores as well, a lot of them offer it.

Good Luck!!!

The only store that I know of that does layaway is K-Mart. Walmart was doing it at Christmas, but I don't know if it's still an option.

Some info....
When you put your merchandise on lawaway you are charged a small fee.
If you decide to cancel your lawaway you will be charged an additional cancelation fee, any payments you made will be returned to you.
If you are late on a payment, the merchandise gets returned to the shelves, you're charged a cancelation fee, any payments you made will be returned to you.

IMO although the fees are minimal, unless you come accross a fantastic sales it's not worth it, both financially and time wise.

I personally never have put anything on lawaway. However, I watched a small clip on the news about it awhile ago. They said to be careful because say you put a bike on lawaway and it goes on sale, you can't get the sales price because you have "locked in" the layaway price. Also, if something happens and you change your mind, there is like a cancel fee of some sort, or they keep your down payment. So there is a chance you will lose money. If it were me, I would check with the store first to see what their policy is. Good luck!

Wait...Keisha's answer is the big one "there isn't any interest, finance charges or anything like that" Just the small fee of 10-20%

Umm o.k. the perfect way to shop...

Palm to head....duh!

I used Kmart once for a layway on a Wii console, plus accessories. There was a certain $ amount that had to be put down at the beginning and then there were bi-weekly payments that had to be made. I used this method because I wanted the Wii to be a surprise for everyone, including my husband. You also have to make sure that you are not late with a payment. Kmart was really good at explaining everything up front. It wasn't a big deal for me, I knew that I could make the payments and make them on time. I just needed to a.) have somewhere else for it to be until closer to Christmas and b.) I didn't want to charge it because my husband might see it on the statement and c.) I didn't have to come up with the entire lump sum which may also have been noticed. I really wanted to do my best to keep it a surprise. :) lol It worked out great for me.

The only thing I can add is that I think if an item you have in layaway goes on sale, you can go in and get the price adjusted during the sale. Or if a competitor has the same item on sale, they would match the sale price if you brought in a current ad with the sale price. I worked briefly in the layaway dept at Kmart but that was at least 15 years ago, before Sears bought them, so the rules may have changed.