Furnishing a house on a budget

[gunting]

I'm moving house from furnished to unfurnished and we have absolutely no furniture. Does anyone know any places to find bargains?

British Heart Foundation shops sell furniture - it's often pretty decent.

Do you have any family or close friends who could donate any? (My own family are always handing around furniture and household goods.)

Community furniture projects; Oxfam, other charity shops. You'll end up with odds and ends forever more though!

We got most of ours from Ikea, b and m bargains and the range.

Before spending anything ask around. I work in a biggish office and we set up our own version of free cycle. You'd be amazed are the number of sofas, fridges and decent beds that are put up. Next look at freecyle, especially if you know anyone with a van. Then look at charity shops, the can deliver pretty frequently.

find a local auction, there are often much better quality items there than you will find in cheap furniture stores, and at good prices.

eBay. Search by distance, nearest first. Auction, not buy it now. Used, not new.

Large items will be collection only so not many people go for them unless they're local. We've snapped up some real bargains like this.

eBay - people often sell furniture etc really cheaply to get rid of it (select 'nearest ' under 'Best match' drop down menu to find stuff in your area

Freebay

Charity furniture shops

Facebook local selling sites

IKEA

Gumtree

Check out the charity shops; round here some are dire nut others have lovely stuff in them.

eBay and Freegle and Facebook selling pages, small ads in newsagent windows.

If you want new, some IKEA is fabulously cheap, others is ridiculously expensive and often looks the same. The Range and Dunelm Mill too. Homebase has some cheap stuff sometimes.

You could go to an auction. Often there are beautifully made things for no more than the price of the most ordinary, basic, IKEA item. Many cost less, depending on the quality pr period you are interested in.

You can view the catalogues on the internet first but your should go to view the items before the sale. Always measure your house spaces first and go to view the furniture with a tape measure. Look for broken parts.

Free cycle - people giving away furniture. Use Facebook - ask- use staff net pages ,check in post offices. Look on eBay clearance stores. Only get what you really need- which actually is not really that much when it boils down to it. If u need to know what is essential think about camping holiday and that's about all u need! Good luck making a home - it's nice to have your own stuff around you and doesn't take much for a place to have a homely feel

freecycle - our local groups come often up with furniture esp sofas, beds and tables/chairs.

Ikea

We moved into our first unfurnished property a few months ago and it was a struggle so I feel you. We bought ourselves a sofa bed from Ikea for the living room as we thought it was super practical because not only a sofa but somewhere for guests to sleep. We bought the same one our friends have that we've stayed on a few times before so we knew it was comfy and good quality. My parents lent us the money for it and we are yet to be able to pay them it back .

Argos is great. We got deep-set bookcases from there that are great, important for us as I'm a student so have lots of books and folders and things. We also have a lovely big lamp from there.

Wilkinson's is also great for household bits. We bought cheap plastic foldy chairs from there that we use as dining chairs.

British Heart Foundation is amazing. We got a wooden double bed from there (brand new), a matching wooden bedside chest of drawers (also brand new), and a tv stand unit (used but fine apart from a few scratches).

Look on Ebay too. We have a little glass side-table from there that was very cheap, and a huge shoe rack.

We got a Beko washer-dryer as we live in a flat so it makes it much easier for us to do our laundry as we wouldn't have space for two units and this means we can dry our clothes much easier, we got it from Curry's in the sale.

John Lewis is often pricey but do great long warranties on things and often have offers/sales on. Our telly is from there and so is our mattress.

Ask friends/relatives if anyone has anything they don't need. We have loads of stuff from my parents. They have a large house and are quite well-off so they had lots of things they didn't really need or use anymore and gave to us. Our dining table is from them - it's only a little round table from Ikea and was just sat in their garden shed. We also got a chest of drawers from them that was in their box room with hardly anything in, and a little foldy desk that again was folded up and in the box room. And we've had tons of little bits and bobs for the house from them too.

Asda is also good for cheap bits for the house, and sometimes Lidl and Aldi but it depends what they've got in. We have a little plastic chest of drawers for the bathroom from Aldi.