AIBU to feel disheartened by the cost of furnishing my first home?

[binocularsgranda]

I am single and live alone. I moved into my house about a year ago and it's my first home so I've had to get everything from scratch. My furniture is a mixture of freebies and things I bought over the months before I bought my house.
Once I have paid regular bills, mortgage etc I have £400 left each month for petrol, food, toiletries, clothes, shoes and parking.
I went for a walk around a home furnishings shop this evening to window shop essentially, not because I was planning to buy anything, just for a look. Even though I hadn't intended to buy anything, I left feeling disheartened. I can't see how I will ever be able to afford even the floor lamp for the living room, bed for the spare room or shelving for the dining room that I need. Yes I can - and will - look online for people giving things away but I think that should be my choice, not my only option because any other route to furnishing my home is simply out of reach. I have very little left over to save each month (and I am frugal - my outgoings are as little as they can be via comparison sites etc). It made me wonder how people afford to go into, for example, Next and buy a sofa. AIBU to feel down about the gap between everyday finances and the prices of necessities? I just want to make my home my own, nothing extravagant.

Ignore the people saying never buy on credit, that's unrealistic for most people. That said, with only 400 left over monthly, don't buy on credit now as you'll struggle to service it.

That aside, all matching furniture is a bit samesy. A curated look uses similar, not identical, pieces and takes time and careful selection. You can achieve that with second hand furniture. People dispose of perfectly good pieces when they upgrade. I've got lots of lovely, unique pieces that way.

I got most of my artwork second hand. People always comment on it.

Enjoy your home and don't worry about what other people have. Keep an eye out for things you like and slowly style it.

@binocularsgranda congratulations on buying your first home

Nobody can buy the new stuff for their first home. To be honest, I could buy some now and I don't because I think there's better things to spend the money on. There's lamps from Argos in my flat.

It's one thing to be optimistic and plan your dream stuff but honestly, nobody can do it unless they're really rich.

also, you have a spare room and a dining room? That's amazing.

I’m on my 4th house. Currently have a large 5 bed. All decorated using stuff we get off fbmp. When we find something to replace an item we sell the original usually for a profit. We have vintage pieces everywhere and I’m happy to say the house looks amazing! Can’t currently afford carpets so painted floors and huge (second hand) rugs. To furnish this house new would cost ££££. We did recently buy new sofas as needed big ones and new curtains for the main lounge as needed a matching pair of huge curtains. Pretty much everything else is second hand and far better quality than what you can get from next etc.

Agree with this and everyone else who has said that you just get bits at a time. We were so grateful for friends and family giving away any little bits. A cousin gave me some plates and other crockery and even that saved us a few pounds.

Try to enjoy the process of buying bits as you go along, as you find your own style. The only people I know who kitted out an entire flat in one fell swoop did it on credit and they were still paying that off years later!

I think social media has normalised the 'before' and 'after' aesthetic, and I don't think that's most people's experience at all.

You've bought your own home, that's an enormous achievement 👏👏 🙌

When we bought our first house we mostly bought second hand furniture.

Thirty years on, we still buy a lot of stuff via FB marketplace. Our living room sofas are from M&S but we got them from the BHF charity shop.

Our dining table is a wonderful 200 year old handmade piece of furniture . We got it from a guy on FB marketplace. The chairs came from.someone who was moving house, we got them for £5 each. A lot of the other furniture and appliances in our house are second hand. Including our fridge freezer, sideboard, range cooker, bureau, 3 mahogany Victorian chest of drawers, dishwasher, desk, bookcases etc etc.

There's nothing wrong with second hand or freebies.

I’m 70 and have lived in this house for half my life. The carpets are all 35-40 years old, only one room has ever been decorated because I’m so rubbish at painting I never dared try again (and that was only the walls, the woodwork hasn’t been done since I’ve lived here).

My oven, fridge, washing machine and kettle were bought new, cheapest I could find. Mattresses were new, though they’re quite old now. Apart from that, there’s nothing new in the house. Sofas, desk, pine bed frames, pine table and chairs, bedside tables and drawers were all cheap from eBay at least 20 years ago, mirrors from junk shops, oak side table from my late ex MIL, my small TV was a hand-me-down when DD upgraded, even my curtains, cushions, crockery and cutlery are from charity shops. Ironing board was handed down from MIL to my ex in 1978. They do the job, I don’t need to be precious about dogs or grandchildren, why bother replacing them?

I agree, it used to be really good value. Not anymore!

Freebies, gumtree and Facebook market place. 2nd hand all the way. Still have lots of 2nd hand bits in my house. They have stood the test box time.

In my first house, my bedside table was a cardboard box covered in wrapping paper

Don't be hard on yourself. Take your time

Piecemeal furnishings your first home is a right of passage. Our first table, free. Our forever table, £1k. Our first curtains were books to block the sunlight. We had a few spare plates from family, the cheapest lamp you could find, a reduced sofa once we could afford to stop sitting on the floor on cushions.

Honestly, it's gets easier but you have to sort of suck it up and consider it a life lesson that you didn't see coming. When we bought our house we had to move an hour away and hadn't really thought about the fact that all we had was a bedrooms worth of stuff between us. It's just learning. It's not fun, but noone said it would be.

I'm almost 67 and much of my furnishings are second hand. I just prefer them, and the furniture is better made than many modern items. I've had new sofas in the past, but the one I have now is second hand and I love it. It would have cost a fortune brand new, but should last me for many years. When I was young most people started out with second hand stuff, they didn't expect to be able to buy new.

This. Why would you even buy anything? Also there’s always beggy scammers asking for freebies and this flushes out people saying “ I have x - you just need to collect” so just message those people and go get the free stuff!!!

Hang in there, it all takes time.

Make sure you tell all your friends, relatives, work colleagues etc you're in the market for second hand stuff as it's amazing how many folk are willing to offload for free when they're revamping rooms.

I am quite concerned you have new mortgage and that little left over after basic bills? While there are no set rules, I though mortgages were concious of high % of income going on that. That's assuming the biggest bill is mortgage

This??

I just want to make my home my own, nothing extravagant.

DD is single and bought her flat 3 years ago. She got lots of really good stuff from charity shops - her sofa (£100), a lovely solid wood dining table with chairs (£60) and various rugs and so on. She took all her bedroom furniture from home. Since then she has been able to add bits and pieces as she finds them. Definitely not extravagant but I think she has made it lovely and homely, definitely "her own".

When I bought my first house in the mid-1980s I was on a very tight budget. After buying the house I had very little left to furnish it and most of my furniture was hand me downs from family.

However, shortly after I got together with DH and within 3 or 4 years we were married and buying somewhere together and our joint finances were such that we could go out and buy nice new stuff.

Forty years on we obviously have all the furniture we need, some of it the stuff we bought back then!. However, these days if we need to replace anything or fancy another item we do often buy secondhand. That's not because we can't afford new, and some stuff, e.g. beds I would only consider new. However, we often find that we can get really good quality second hand stuff that we like much better than new.

It sounds like you have a very small budget to be left with for your essentials including food, instead of worrying about interior design I would be trying to up your income or really crack down on spending to try and be able to save even a small amount incase a fridge/boiler needs repair, unless I’ve misunderstood your post and you’ve moved into your first home which you are renting?
I love our local thrift/trading hub, market place and car boot sales, even now and we’ve had the house for 18 years we don’t tend to splurge on brand new things very often as we’ve got kids and pets, I’d be panicking if I brought brand new sofas etc that they would get wrecked.
You’ll gradually make your space your home, it takes time to pull things together properly. My mum loves to tell us that when she first brought her house they only had orange crates to sit on and a mattress on the floor. 🥴

We've lived in two houses over nearly 40 years. The only new thing we started out with was a bed. It does get easier. Charity shops are great for knick knacks, lamps, vases, mirrors etc. Also see if there's a local giveaway facebook page, I've had and given away lots of stuff on our local one. Just tonight there's an ad on ours for a whole house of furniture.
Congratulations on your new home.

In our first flat the only thing we had at first was a cheap ikea bed. We sat on garden chairs & ate off boxes for two months thwn bought a small ikea sofa, one of the cheaper ones.

It was another few months until we both got a bit more money at work then it suddenly got easier, every year salaries went up but the mortgage was fixed.

I do think its odd to have been allowed to take on a mortgage that only leaves you £400 a month for food etc. Ours was quite strict, had to show bank statements etc

There’s a vast range of prices for furniture, all the way down to Freecycle, where it’s completely free. Yes it can be disheartening to look at higher-end furniture but you don’t need to start there.

Get some of the basics from Ikea, some from eBay, and some from Freecycle.

We’ve just given away a £2,500 desk on there and last year gave away a custom-built 14-seater sofa; it’s not all junk.

I had a £100 futon in my first house, and we ate food off trays on our knees.

The bed was a mattress on the floor, we bought offcuts of wood-effect Lino for the floor and had one plate each.

It was fine.

My first owned flat in 1986 was 100% second hand/charity shop/loans. I didn't have a cooker, a dishwasher, a washing machine, a wardrobe, microwave or a phone. And obviously not a video because they were for posh people then.

I had a 3rd or 4th hand Baby Belling cooker (2 rings + an oven/grill combo) . They are still available and I'm sure they are still great. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/298308633011?var=0&mkevt=1&mkcid=1&mkrid=710-53481-19255-0&toolid=20006&ul=GB&campid=5339144080&customid=Cj0KCQjwofQBhCgARIsADaMzOcM1-uki1zjoHW9k3UnxcoX1JwtOf14lD01S8hDDgihKsK8rItMBYwaAnBfEALwwcB&gbraid=0AAAAA-MzEzcZl1dzuwAkgvNrm1uWyIvGM&wbraid=CkAKCAjwvnQBhA9EjAAHYelddjHMZWIhmAg4HbWFIaa7VDBObn7mgXapPGfuVdd2vmoSH9Z3plTHWdFVwQaAikM&gadsource=1&gadcampaignid=23622446606&gbraid=0AAAAA-MzEzcZl1dzuwAkgvNrm1uWyIvGM&gclid=Cj0KCQjwofQBhCgARIsADaMzOcM1-uki1zjoHW9k3UnxcoX1JwtOf14lD01S8hDDgihKsK8rItMBYwaAnBfEALwwcB

I could cook a meal for for 8 on that although obviously we had to eat off our knees because I couldn't afford a table. I also had a second hand fridge freezer plus a bed and sofa passed down from family. I worked in electrical retail so I had the phenomenal luxury of a 14" colour tv and a Sanyo Walkman style tape player . I got cassette tapes out of the local library every week and thought I was living the dream.

A lot of what we now think of as essential really isn't, although I think it would be nigh on impossible to survive now without a smartphone. I was absolutely determined to get by on my own and although it took a lot of effort I managed it. It's made me extra grateful for the many luxuries I can now enjoy.

Single and a mortgage is great. Why monthly amount including clothes and shoes? I don’t get that. Not sure why they would need to be bought monthly. Spend whatever you calculated that for on home furnishings or put it away to save and then pay for them.

YABU.

You are lucky, and in quite a small % of people, to be able to buy your first home on your own. Even more unusual that it is so spacious / you have so many rooms.
It is incredibly normal to furnish your first property with 'hand-me-downs'.
I am actually still using the dining table that I brought here after my parents had both died, which, in turn, they bought 2nd hand from an advert in the local paper in about 1975. It is an excellent table. Why would I want to pay out to replace it with an inferior one ?

The standard lamp behind me is also from their house, and in front of me is a coffee table I was given, 2nd hand, when I moved into my first home that I bought nearly 40 years ago.
Both my dc now have their own homes and have filled them with things they were given for free, or bought at knockdown prices off marketplace.
There is so much given away for free now, it is wonderful. No need for you to be disheartened at all.

DH and I are in our second home and we’ve furnished both our houses using Facebook Marketplace, second hand furniture stores and Wayfair. Our income is £85k a year… Nothing looks particularly horrible and we’ve saved a fortune. I’d recommend it. Furniture is expensive.

I don't know if others have said this but check out your local Facebook pages for Reuse groups. My town one has some incredible things being given away - you could furnish a house for free if you're patient for the right things to come up.