Hot deals: The best ways to score nice furniture for cheap in Tucson

On any given weekend in Tucson, signs for garage, carport and yard sales line the city's main thoroughfares (Broadway, Speedway, 22nd), beckoning bargain hunters to stop through for lamps, desks, beds, tables and tchotchkes at "gotta-get-rid-of-it" prices. 

It's not terribly difficult to find sales without formal guidance (the signs, remember?), but true hunters turn to the garage sale section on Craigslist to get a more complete rundown. Sales posted on the site will often provide a general description and photos of what you can expect to find. 

Expect most sales to take place on Friday and Saturday mornings in Tucson. 

Estate sales differ from your typical garage sale in that they often offer the entire contents of a house, usually due to a death in the family or other extenuating circumstances. 

Several professional estate sale companies, such at The Girls, The Browns are Selling and Caring Transitions, hold 1-2 sales every weekend. Other, more high-end companies, such as Carchedi Estate Sales, hold sales about once a month. The Girls even have an estate sale store at 3728 E. Grant Road that is open daily and sells from several rotating estates at once.

On-site sales will often go half-off on prices about halfway through the sale.  

Family-run estate sales that don't utilize professional companies will usually post their sales on Craigslist. 

Swap meets have long been a solid way in Tucson for locals to unload their worldly possessions without having to hold garage sale at their homes. 

Tucson has two swap meets, each bursting at the seams with good deals on the weekends. 

The Tanque Verde Swap Meet at 4100 S. Palo Verde Road gets busiest on Friday and Saturday nights, especially in the summer time, offering row after row of regulars and first-time sellers pitching everything from couches to comics to fine antiques. It's also open during the day on Saturdays and Sundays.

The Tohono O'odham Swap Meet at 5737 S. Westover Ave. is the dominant swap meet in the mornings on Saturdays and Sundays. It's a little dustier, but a great way to spend your early hours if you are on the hunt for unique ways to decorate your house (think taxidermy deer heads, midcentury modern chairs, Mexican folk art and other funky finds). 

A quick drive down East Speedway in midtown Tucson will give you a good idea on what a thrift store town Tucson has become. 

Second-hand stores, chains and independents, dot the landscape and can be found across the region from Oro Valley to Sahuarita.

When it comes to thrifting, it pays to do your research.  

Shops like the Miracle Center, with two locations at 5527 E. Pima St. and 3029 N. Stone Ave., receive much of their inventory from the estate sales held by The Girls estate sale company after the sales are over.

Other stores can be found in clusters. 

The previously mentioned stretch of East Speedway from North Wilmot to North Swan, for example, has no less than five thrift stores, including the 1st Rate, Second Hand Thrift Store, and the Humane Society of Southern Arizona Thrift Store. 

If you are looking for that truly unique piece of furniture or artwork to decorate your home, Tucson's antique fairs are for you. 

Several monthly events, such as the antique fair at Brandi Fenton Memorial Park, 3482 E. River Road, and the fair held downtown at the Mercado San Agustin, 100 South Avenida del Convento, are seasonal, running from the fall through the spring.  

The city's biggest antique fair, which takes place at Medella Vina Ranch, 4450 S. Houghton Road, every first Sunday of the month, happens year-round. During its busy season (fall/winter/spring), the event can feature hundreds of dealers selling everything from wagon wheels to Herman Miller chairs. 

Prices can vary at antique fairs, but most dealers are open to a good haggle and will almost always be willing to negotiate.