Would you judge a family with very little furntiure/belongings?

[allinsunshine]

Dh and I are in the middle of a 5 year plan to get ahead financially/career wise.

Part of this plan means we are living temporarily for around a year at a time in different locations. We hope to be in our forever home by 2016 :)

We have chosen to live very lightly and simply during this time and not collect many belongings/furniture along the way.

At present we are living in a flat which has plenty of built in shelving/cupboards.

All we have as far as furniture is 2 chairs, one desk, one large bean bag, a toddler chair and table, a toddler flip out sofa, highchair, mattresses for ds (2yr) and ourselves and a tv stand with tv.

We dont mind as even though we could get furniture cheaply (through freecycle etc) we know it would be a chore to get rid of again when we move.

I have got to know a few mothers and their children and have been to a few playdates at their very nice houses/flats of varying sizes/budgets but all nicely furnished and decorated.

Compared to their homes ours is very bare and modest. I would like to reciprocate the invitations but I would worry they would judge us about it.

We are both in our 30s so not in the student lifestyle category either.

So would you judge us if you came for a visit?

Also do you have an interesting way I could explain away/embellish our lifestyle choice without going into the details of our 5 year plan which would be very dull indeed.

Would be surprised but not bothered . But I do question the whole live For the future with no regard for the present tbh. Who knows what will be happening in your lives, relationships etc in three yrs. I'd be concentratinga bit more on the time you're living in ie now, while still saving.

well for a while one of mine had a mattress on pallets and the other had two mattresses and there was a huge fuss made about that by SW, and no it was not 'part of a bigger picture', that was the picture, plenty of food, attention etc.
so if i were you i would buy a bed for your toddler.

the problem with a mattress on the floor is there is no air circulating. i wouldnt judge you, of course not, but i would want to know if i could help you out with anything. the problem most us have is, and myself included, we think we NEED lots of "stuff" when in truth we dont. I would have to think, as someone else mentioned how this affects your child, living one existence just now (and by that i mean lack of having friends over etc), for one in the future, maybe one day. its lovely to plan ahead, but reality usually deals us a very different deck, 5 years to a child is a LONG time

Burberry, so social services came into your house and asked to see the bedrooms for no reason other than someone had reported the lack of beds?

ghoul the first flat we did rent was actually furnished but we decided against doing it again as it was not that convenient to be honest. We had to stack some of the furniture we didn't want to use and that took up space.

We havent seen any furnished flats that had only basic furniture which is what we would want ( beds sofa table chairs)

It is also more expensive as well.

I wouldn't judge but I would find it unusual.

Surely you could get a dining set and sofa from freegle/second hand and then donate it to a charity shop or freegle it before you move? Furniture charity shops round here even pick up big items you want rid of.

I can understand not wanting lots of "stuff" if you are moving overseas soon but I would want a sofa to sit comfortably on and a dining set to eat nicely at.

What's the virtue in moving every year for 5 years; and how does it benefit you financially?
I personally couldn't live without a sofa (or a table) for 5 years, and I'm struggling to see where this ties in with your plan?

Pixie, yes, it was this person in the village whose kids had been here.

We don't actually eat many meals together due to work, so we usually sit at the desk to eat alone. Or off trays.

When eating with Ds we push his high chair up to the kitchen bench and then stand opposite him or sit with him next to his little table.

you could just buy a table and a bed, it sounds really odd, and five years is a long time for a kid, to not have a bed or learn to eat at a table.

Lots of people put toddlers on mattresses for a while, to help them learn to sleep in a bed without falling out the side. As a longterm measure for five years though seems a bit unnecessary when you could a frame very cheaply.

You do sound a bit martyrish about all this OP.

Things like the hassle of getting a sofa gives you a headache just thinking about it and the inconvenience of having furniture you don't want to use.

If i were you i would worry that when my son got older and suddenly had all the things his friends have (and I'm not talking about luxuries- I mean a bed etc) and when he realises you chose for him to be so different for such a long time he might well be extremely resentful.

Invite your friends over. We've lived like you. The trick is to distract people with the superficial stuff. So buy a bunch of flowers and spread them out in bottles,jars or tin cans with the labels scrubbed off. OHH fresh flowers/ love the smell of lilies they'll say.

Look at your crockery and use it so:

Big bowl/plate of fruit on the counter.
Good cake or brilliant biscuits arranged nicely on a plate.
Do you have a teapot? Use that. Milk from a jug. Sugar in a bowl not out the bag.
That's the stuff that will actually stick in their heads.
If you've no convenient places to put tea/coffee when sat in chairs then orchestrate it so that it's served at the worktop or put on a window sill so as not to mix hot drinks/small children.

With visiting a strange house with children the more minimilist it is the easier it is, it's the knick-knack infested, technology cluttered ones that make a house call a stressful one.

If you're happy don't buy rubbish for the sake of it.

I might wonder and I personally couldn't live like that - think might be appropriate to say that you planning to move locally so don't want to buy furniture.

If it was a young person starting out in their first home I wouldn't be alarmed, but a family without proper beds would concern me.

Would your plan really be scuppered by you buying a couple of cheap bed frames? It sounds so bleak and uncomfortable. Your life is happening now, it doesn't start in five years.

In 5 years your toddler will be 7ish and all that time eating off the floor (he won't be in a highchair for long!), sitting on the floor/office chair to watch telly and sleeping on a mattress won't be great long term.
You can get all sorts of things off freecycle or very very cheap collection only on eBay.
If its purely the factor of not wanting to pay out for furniture that you will have to then pay to transport each year, why don't you get free stuff or very very cheap stuff and just pass them on again before you go?
You can very easily and quickly pass on things through freecycle when you no longer want them.
I'd hate to not have a table to eat from for that long! Do you never all have breakfast together or anything?

Oh dear I'm now feeling slightly paranoid. Will definitely not invite anyone around. And will be getting a bed for ds as worried about the ss issues.

We will be moving into the area where we will settle down when ds is 4, so he can make friends and get settled before starting reception. We didn't see the harm of him moving around before then, especially since the moves will benefit us financially.

Also is it bad to not want to tell people that we are living here temporarily? I get worried that if I do then people won't want to invest time in friendships, worry mostly for ds sake as he does love play dates and I wouldn't want people to avoid us :(

If anyone judges you on your possessions, don't invite them back. My friend has always said that friends visit her not her house. When she started saying it she lived in a bit of a shit hole (certainly looked that way on the surface) and the tut-tutters never got invited back. 20 years on, her house is STUNNING, she's the same person.

Don't worry about what other people think. Let them judge. Maybe a few people won't even give your possessions a second thought, they're the ones to invite to your forever home.

Don't stress. All you need is a bed frame for ds and perhaps one small, cheap sofa so you can sit and chat comfortably with guests. Your flat won't raise any eyebrows then. I agree with saying you are moving again soon but locally. It might not be the truth but if you say you are moving away then people will quite reasonably not be as inclined to bother investing time in forming friendships with you and ds.

You don't need to tell people anything. Just be yourself and only reveal what you are comfortable with.

And dh and I have never really eaten together at a table even when we used to have a table! We always ate separately due to work or off trays in front of tv

I don't think a table is a make or break item, tbh. If I had to chose between sofa or table I would go sofa.

I wouldn't judge. I would probably be a bit envious of your minimalist home (eyes clutter stuffed in every available space in ours). Sounds like a toddler bed might be needed though; I dunno.

You don't have to invite people over unless they are nice enough for you to bother explaining the plan to though!

property yes I would prioritise a sofa over anything but was referring to the people saying ds needed a table.