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.

Not free, ones that are being sold at a hugely reduced price

We earn well and we have barely ever just bought new furniture outright, we are starting to a little now we are in our 40s, but the kids are also very expensive!

Hmm that wasn’t clear. I mean we have lots of second hand furniture! Just about all of our main furniture really.

Emmaus, BHF, Freecycle, Fcebook Marketplce, Auction rooms, charity shops, skips!

The thing is you don't need everything at once. Or you get second hand. We had an old sofa from PIL for five years before we bought our own. We had clothes racks which cost £10 each instead of wardrobes. Many of our mugs and cutlery were what we had acquired in student digs until we got married. We went from renting a furnished one bed flat to buying a three bed terrace so it would've been a lot at once. There are people giving away perfectly good stuff on local FB groups and the like.

My first house started out with knackered old a 2 seater futon and some cheap bits from ikea that paper lamp they sell. It took 3 years before I brought a half price Ex display sofa from the next sale and that sofa then lasted me 17 years. Our Facebook marketplace is teaming with cheap but most new furniture. No one can afford everything at first.

I had NOTHING new in my first home
then 5 years after buying I’d saved 1/2 towards a sofa and got it from dfs on 12 months interest free
still buy 2nd hand now
be patient and keep your eye on market place and such like
Ive got bedroom furniture a couple of years ago old like new from someone who was moving and it didn’t fit
same with dishwasher the were moving to a house that had a built in one

Don’t buy anything on zero-low interest credit that you don’t have the money to pay off already in your account. Those deals are for leaving your money in savings earning more interest, not for over extending yourself. You don’t want to be caught short if there is an interruption in income.

sometimes you just have to make due. I used a moving box as a table for a year. I made curtains with a fabric remnant and some hoop earring supplies from the clearance bin at a craft store.

Buy used. Charity shops, flea markets, boot sales, online sales. All of the stuff in my house is vintage except for the mattresses. I even bought my gorgeous down filled velvet sofas at an estate sale. Also if you buy used or vintage, the quality is usually much better-real wood not particleboard for example. And go slow so you can get what you really like/need.

I wouldn't feel so disheartened. I had this with my first place too - a couple of IKEA pieces, then not much else. Now I've got nice furniture that I chose. I think it's just life!

I've had a couple of sofas on 0% finance over the years. Or put one on a credit card and flip to a 0% card regularly.

Vinted, freecycle, enay, Olio, Facebook Marketplace, charity shops etc.

I also think you’ve done well to buy, but I never understand how people can ask how others can afford, clearly as they either saved more, earn more or borrow

I’d look on market place, charity shops and even car boot sales.

please don’t take on a monthly repayment plan if your disposable money is to tight.

Can you increase your earnings in anyway? Take in a lodger, look at a second job etc

If you want to wreck your credit rating and get into a shit ton of debt.

Given you have prove your income and provide bank accounts and payslips, how did OP fib do you think

I dont think she is left with a small amount at all

OP, there is nothing new about this, we lived with packing boxes as tables for a long time, sheets as curtains, artfully draped of course.

Freecycle/Freegle. For every person struggling to furnish like you, there's someone like me tripping over excess furniture!

Or the British Hesrt Foundation shops are good if you can get to one.

I bought my first house in my mid twenties but only waved goodbye to my final bit of second hand furniture in my forties (Sofas). That's just life. All the adverts and these days social media stuff makes it look like everyone has a lovely house with lovely new furnishings but for most people that's simply not true. Even now in my sixties I don't have everything I want and buy exclusively in sales for furniture - and to be honest most of my clothes too!

Yes, she will have proved income and provided payslips but she may have downplayed her living expenses. And if the bank weren’t too stringent in checking or caring what was left for living on then it will have been approved. Remember these are the same banks that thought 125% mortgages were a good idea not too long ago.

And so the OP has 400 quid to live on per month which is to include all food. Probably doable but only in a miserable kind of way and like I say, one unexpected bill or financial hit and she’s in big trouble. If you think £400 per month to live on isn’t a small amount, I’d shudder to think what you do consider a small amount. I mean, here is how quickly £400 can go these days and I’m being conservative:

Monthly Food shop - 200
Toiletries, cleaning items etc. - 20
Clothes - 20
Petrol - 60
Parking - 50
1 bottle of wine per week - 30
1 coffee per week - 20

This a rock bottom existence. If OP needs a new hoover, cooker or other appliance then it’s beans and toast for a month.

If she’s invited to a wedding then she has to refuse as couldn’t afford it. Same with even 1 decent night out.

Unable to afford birthday or Christmas presents for anyone beyond maybe a cheap bottle of wine.

No chance of a holiday ever, even for a wet weekend in Blackpool.

And if an unexpected bill comes in her for her car or for the house to the tune of even > £500 then it’s game over.

£400 is tight but people manage on a lot less. I think the OP has done very well buying a place by herself - how many other people can say that nowadays. How many people are trapped in unhappy marriages because they can’t afford to leave? I know which I would prefer.

People I think are assuming England house prices, you can buy a house in say the borders did 60 odd grand and your mortgage would be 300 odd quid a month

the bank won’t have been lax in stress testing. The op didn’t have to down play her expenses, she may just be a low earner in lives in a cheap part of gen country,

op, when yiu say it should be your choice to buy new or second hand, that’s not a choice anyone is entitled to, that’s a choice that sadly only earning enough csn buy,

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/87858915#/?channel=RES_BUY

Of course, the OP deserves praise for getting her own place and it will eventually pay off financially.

But it’s risky and high risk of repossession if something goes wrong as she has no buffer. One unexpected emergency and she’s in big trouble.

To say people live on much less than 400 per month looks unlikely based on my figures above. Maybe 10-20 years ago but not now with the current CoL. You will be getting into raking through bins if you go much lower.

the bank won’t have been lax in stress testing. The op didn’t have to down play her expenses, she may just be a low earner in lives in a cheap part of gen country,

NMW FT take home is about 1700. Low price and low salary areas would have less bills as well.

I think it is odd that bank approved. While they don't have officially ceiling on how much you should have after bills, the house is their asset, it's in their interest to make sure the owner is able to maintain it.
That's why they count bills and finance into the equation. Leaving someone with 400 before food after bills shouldn't happen ime and would be irresponsible lending

I do t think anyway starting out but everything new.,Why would you even want to, give how much tat is out there. Even last year I bought two gorgeous, comfortable Parker knoll style armchairs for £100 a pair. Unusual but certainly not impossible.

We were fortunate enough to get a 2nd hand sofa and the rest came from Ikea. Bloody love Ikea, was over the moon to find we were near one at long last. I don’t get this need for style when you don’t come from wealth - that was always the preserve of the fancy middle classes. My younger sister is of that mentality, I was taught how to survive!