to wonder how people afford to decorate their houses?

[Blelibo]

Me and DH both in late 20s, both on 30k a year, own our own house, we have one child together and DH has a daughter from previous relationship... we hang NO money to decorate our house with. We've lived here a year and it's completely empty!!

Anyone else in same boat?

Baycrazy.com.
You can search for furniture within 5, 10 or 15 miles. It links to eBay.
Had some great collection only bargains through it.

You did! You announced 'I'm out.'

Boot sales. I am on very low income and have managed to find some absolutely beautiful ornaments, canvases, soft furnishings etc for a pittance at car boots.

As for paint and wallpaper, if I'm that desperate to redecorate I'll save up. I spend the extra on washable, scrubbable paint so it lasts forever. Wallpaper can be picked up cheaply in Home Bargains, Wilko etc.

My ex and I were similar many, many years ago.

Very expensive area in relation to our wages. We bought a bed - everyone needs sleep. A fridge. A washing machine. Everything else we bought when we'd saved for it. We sat on cushions for over a year.

People his family thought we lived in a shell. We did. They sneered openly. But we were happy then.

Appreciate what you have my lovely. You have all the time in the world.

It's the having 2 children that make it harder. Essentially your money is reduced not only due to providing for the children, but the extra cost of childcare (obviously childless people don't have) plus reduced salary due to maternity leave (and possible future part time working).

Most people I know had bought a house (or at least rented an unfurnished place) before they had DC so they had at least gradually built up a basic selection of furniture, fixtures and fittings etc.

Sounds like you are massively prioritising mortgage payment over all else as well - another thing that will leave you with very little disposable income. If you've just had a baby and would like another child, paying off a lot of your mortgage in the next few years is a big financial commitment - pre-school age is probably the most expensive time for children if you have to pay for childcare (until they become teenagers :))

£60k a year and you don't have money spare? Is that a joke?

We're living on £20k atm with a £600pm mortgage (Trapped in NRAM HELL!!), a toddler and a car, and have still managed to budget for decent frames, prints, paint etc.

Wtaf are you spending your cash on?

We have an Argos card so pay it off before interest is applied that’s for furniture I can’t find secondhand.

We moved into our home 3 years ago & still just doing a bit at a time.

I’ve found a table on amazon I like so I will do surveys when the kids are in bed to pay for that.
Paint I’ve gotten reduced in B&Q & just done both bathrooms.

When I next get paid I’ve budgeted for Annie Sloan paint to update the secondhand furniture in the living room.

We’re on a third of your income & it is doable. Just a small bit at a time.

OP, my love, I'm typing this whilst parked on an IKEA Klippan sofa which I bought 20 years ago to put in the au pair room. Probably cost about £120 then (they cost around £180 now). The cushions and blankets which festoon it came from SCP, purchased at a point when I was earning more and feeling flush, and cost probably 3 times the price of the sofa. The sofa I really want will cost about £2k, and I need two of them. But before I buy new sofas, I want a new bathroom, and carpet and tiling on the fireplace in the games room, and so on, and so on. Houses always need decorating, and redecorating, and furnishing, and replacing what is worn out. I think the trick is to find your style, and not be a slave to fashion, and then have a plan. Save, and use interest-free credit strategically for big ticket items that will add value or be used for decades. If you come from a family that like to give presents for Christmas and birthdays, share your plans and ask for money towards the next item of furniture or room to be decorated. Enjoy it, it's a lovely thing to be doing.

We are in the process of moving and have a very limited budget for furniture. I have bought lots of second hand items from Facebook selling sites and gumtree. So far I have bought a solid pine table and 6 chairs for £20, solid pine chest of drawers for £30 and a matching wardrobe for £40. All if this would have cost well over £500/£600 and it cost me less than £100.

I can afford new but love used/vintage things. I go to a lot of garage (boot) and estate sales and flea markets. Except for mattresses, linens and sofas, almost everything I have is inherited or vintage or just plain used. And so cheap! Today I wore a $5 vintage suit to church & breakfast and got lots of compliments. Got it at an estate sale. I have a flower arrangement in my dining room that my neighbor had put in the trash! A lot of my framed art is postcards that I had matted and framed and also framed pages from books I got at garage sales. You can do it, you just have to be patient and buy what you love. Don't try to do your whole house at once...have a list of things you're looking for. I promise if you do that, you'll find them!

@pinkginxx

ignore them. I love these threads as it gives me ideas, your personal finances are your concern.

What a supremely silly comment.

The OP POSTED about her issue with finances. So of COURSE people are going to comment.

FFS, if you don't want people discussing your finances, (or commenting on them) then don't post about them on a public message forum!

The OP needs to get her priorities right. Not everything has to be new.

If she and her partner can't afford to even buy a can of paint, or a roll of wallpaper, or a second hand piece of furniture, when she and her DH have a joint income of £60K a year, then they have clearly maxed themselves out on their mortgage, and should think about selling and buying somewhere cheaper.

I am struggling to have any sympathy to be honest.

My tip is to check local selling groups and gumtree daily for the bargains. Spend 10-15 mins doing some searches for your highest priority items every day.

I know someone who has kitted out their house with lots of cheap and free stuff although has taken time to get there.

Helps if you have easy access to a van though a lot of things are buyer to collect only.

If you do you can easily 'increment' too. Might find a free rug to replace your current one and in the future find one you like more or fits your decor better. Then sell the old one for similar to what you got it for.

YANBU. We are in our 40s and only just starting to do our house up now, one room at a time.

Local sales pages for second hand furniture. You can find some great bargains on them, my best was 18 Waterford wine glasses for $25!

Are you crafty? You could try your hand at "upcycling". Also, I believe it's on Pinterest, there's an IKEA hacks page with quite clever ideas how to make their furniture much better.

Throws, cushions, rugs can warm the place up.

I've got a two-bed flat and can count the number of pieces of furniture bought new on one hand: my bed (£80, self-assembly, replaces second-hand bed that finally fell apart after 20 years and two repairs), my DS's bed (IKEA), a sofa (bought cheap ex-display 16 years ago and is finally becoming a bit worse for wear), and a Billy bookcase in my DS's room.

Everything else I've got - dining table, dining chairs (non-matching but look great), coffee table, bedside cabinets, desk, etc etc - I've acquired gradually as other people have thrown it out, or got from freecycle or freegle. The tall set of deep shelves I keep my folded clothes in I got from the bin area at the back of my flats - scrubbed inside and out, it looks good and fits in my bedroom beautifully. The small shelves next to my desk were from a dismantled desk a neighbour was throwing out - they were horrible laminate "birch", but painted white they are just what I needed.

AHH OP you have children.

Children trash everything.

So the typical landlord white or magnolia paint until they work out walls aren't for drawing on and marking with some random stuff is the best to use as you can repaint part of a room when it's too dirty.

Then get a second hand sofa and chairs until they are old enough to sit on them properly.

Most of my furniture has come from the local auction, I like the old its well made & has character (often people paint it & sell on for £££), but they also sell new too. Gumtree, ebay & Facebook markets, Freecycle/freegle. Local charity shops tend to be bit more expensive but often offer delivery.

A Trade decorators shop was good, they mixed all paints in store so was lot more colour options & it covered better than those I bought from other stores. Some refuse dumps collect paint to redistribute to those that need it.

There's a lot of people saying OP made her bed so to speak buying a house that would accommodate three children. Now you have to do this, it is not like in years gone by where you climbed a ladder, chances are anything you buy is a forever home that you'll never sell (see property crash/recession)

Gosh. Me and DH saved to buy a house by the age of 25, just had a baby, have saved for that and now have no money to do anything else because we have high outgoings and his job means we need to live in an expensive area. I was just feeling a bit down that I'm 6 weeks in to maternity leave and wish I had a nice homely home to spend it in.

Gosh. Someone forced you do have a baby right now? Held a gun to your head and said "no, you can't wait a year or two and decorate your house, get pregnant NOW"?

I think what's people are posting is because the op and her dh made choices. Financially they chose to get a bigger house, now. They are choosing to save for nursery now. They knew there was another child they were financially responsible for.

I am sorry op is feeling low. But she is asking a finance related question, people will question her finances. The decisions they made aren't wrong. But they are their decisions.

Tbh I find it very difficult to believe that they have no spare cash at all, that they couldn't even put £10 away a month to save towards some second hand furniture.

If they can't, they must have known that when making the decisions about the mortgage, having a baby, saving towards future nursery fees etc.

If getting stuff for the house is a priority for the op, they need to review their finances. They, may, need to lower their expectations on what quality they can get, or get second hand. It may take time to save. But it's definitely not a situation where they can't afford it or can't even understand how other people can afford it.

I bought a sofa with my exh. It was the first new proper sofa we had. I was 34 when we got it. It didn't fit in my new house after the split. My Dp has it in his house. He is moving in with me and it's going to his sister's. It's just what people do.

@tildaMa for all you know the OP or her husband may have a condition where delaying having children means they won't have children at all.

Yes there is a lot of drip feeding on this thread and personally I wouldn't moan about how I haven't decorated my house while on maternity leave as it isn't important. Then again I grew up around people who decorated when they realised the children were old enough not to wreck the house.

If you have only just bought your house, you will have no money. The early days of paying a mortgage are so hard. I'm ten years down the line, and only just starting to decorate now, one piece at a time. It's a hard slog. It's only very recently that there was an expectation of all new, all now, and all matching.

A fair bit of our stuff is secondhand- eBay or Facebook marketplace are brilliant. You see the occasional thing being given away for free if you're quick enough.

I've been selling things on ebay the last couple of weeks to save money to decorate dd's room.

I also put aside a small amount a month (25 pounds) to save up for bigger things. It used to be much more before i had dd but it's the same idea. I don't really notice it going but it soon adds up.

My bed and mattress were bought in about 1986 and I hope they last another 30 years. I am not really into material things very much.

Mix and match with second hand, free and new - buy new in the sales and always use cashback sites if possible. Buy the essentials first - beds, tables etc and the rest can follow when you can afford it.
Do all the diy yourself but one room at a time so that it is manageable. Consider a paint colour that can do a couple of rooms so that you can buy in bulk.
Fitting a carpet to an easy shape room is really not that difficult especially if you have the old carpet to use as a template. We fitted 3 of our bedrooms with a beautiful, expensive neutral carpet which we found on ebay local - 100m2 (in pieces) for £60. Underlay was going for £10 roll. Honestly, get hunting, you'll get some great bargains.