Furnishing a New Home on a Budget
In June 2021, my husband (then fiancé) and I moved into my parents’ basement (it’s the ultimate Boomer sign of failure!!). We had just moved back to the United States from Ecuador, where I had lived and worked for 4 years. Now, moving back to the States, both my husband and I were unemployed and didn’t have much in the way of savings. I’m very grateful that my parents were willing to take us in for an indefinite period of time while we both looked for jobs and stabilized our lives after an intercontinental move. That being said, as soon as my husband and I had found employment and saved up for a rental deposit, it was time for us to leave the basement.
Through the arduous process of searching for a rental, we finally found a 2 bedroom, 1.5 bath, 800 square foot, 2-level condo. I loved it.
However, we were moving in with only a couple of suitcases, having left all of our furniture and large appliances in Ecuador. Finding new furniture can be difficult. The key here was patience. We needed some basic necessities immediately: a dining room table, a bed, a couch, and a TV. From there, we could afford to wait. In the meantime, we went without a lot of things until we found something that we liked and fit well in our space.
I think a common misconception many people have is that “used” means old, broken or dirty. It might take a little more shopping around, but there are tons of great items out there that are in really good shape.
With less than $1,000 we comfortably furnished our new home. This isn’t to say I haven’t bought anything since. I bought a lamp for the bedroom, some curtains for the living room, some shelves for my plants. However, all of our largest (and generally most expensive) purchases we got for free, or cheap, by browsing various used-items sites.
Living room
Couch: $350
My husband found our couch on Facebook marketplace. We paid $150 for it, but since it was used (and came from a cat home) we decided to have it professionally cleaned for another $200.
Area rugs: $0
I got the area rug on Freecycle.org while we were still living at my parents house. Freecycle is one of my favorite sites to browse on a daily basis. It’s a place where locals post things that they want to get rid of, and you can pick it up for free! The catch is that you have to browse regularly because the items available are dependent on what people in your area are getting rid of and how quickly you respond to posts. So if you’re looking for something specific, you’re better off looking elsewhere. Additionally, the quality of items also depends on what your neighbors are getting rid of. Some of the things can be a little dusty, but I’ve seen plenty of high-quality “we’re moving and must get rid of this immediately” things go up on Freecycle too. It’s worth the time to browse for 2 minutes a day.
TV & soundbar: $50
We found a 62” TV while browsing Nextdoor.com. Nextdoor is another great site for finding gently used furnishings. It’s essentially a social media site for your neighborhood. People post local news and announcements, and often household items they want to sell or give away. The TV we found was a few years old, but still very good quality. I found the soundbar about 6 months later, on Freecycle. The woman who posted it said the remote didn’t work, but within 10 minutes my husband fixed it and we now have a fully functional soundbar and subwoofer that we paid $0 for.
Additional furnishings: we got a TV stand from my brother’s college apartment, a standing lamp as a Christmas gift from my father, and paintings from my personal collection that I purchased while living abroad.
Bonus furnishing: This cabinet we got from a Buy Nothing group on Facebook, and it perfectly fits my babies 🙂. Join your local Buy Nothing group where you can pick up & post household items, all for free.
Bathroom
The bathroom is one place where we splurged a bit. We paid an extra $10-15 and got a nice fabric shower curtain, a pretty glass soap dispenser, and the extra squishy bath mat. None of these were incredibly extravagant purchases, but we needed a shower curtain immediately and I knew that I would enjoy a fabric one more than a plastic one. I still walk into the bathroom and think how nice it looks, which makes it a worthwhile purchase for me.
Bedroom
Bed: $0
Now, I admit here, I’m lucky that my mom gifted us a really nice mattress and metal bed frame, that we also used for a year while living in the basement. Mattresses can get expensive, so that was a big cost savings for us. That being said, we spent a long time searching for a headboard and a footboard that worked for us. We actually picked up a lovely, handcrafted sleigh bed frame from Freecycle, but it was too large for our space, so we ended up selling it online for $50! Shortly after, we found another headboard on Freecycle that fit our space better.
Dresser & side tables: $0
We took the dresser and side tables from my childhood bedroom. They are an old set from my great-tante Helen’s home. The handles are a bit outdated, but otherwise the set is in very good shape.
Additional furnishings: small bookshelf ($25), paintings (a combination of paintings I bought while traveling and photos I took for a photography class in college).
Office
The office is one of my favorite spaces in our home. It gets bright afternoon light and I love spending time in there working, reading, and taking care of my plant babies.
Loveseat: $40
This loveseat is old. I believe it's one of the furniture sets that my mom bought when she moved into her first apartment. I also had it in my childhood bedroom for many years. My intention was to put it in the office temporarily, and replace it as soon as I could. While browsing some sofas online, I saw this deep teal one that I fell in love with…and it was $600. Yikes. So instead of spending hundreds of dollars on this (admittedly, very nice) loveseat, I hopped onto Amazon and searched for deep teal couch covers. I found one for $40 and it fit my loveseat perfectly! I love the color, and the fabric is so soft. Voila - I have a whole new couch!
Bookshelves: $40
I had been looking for bookshelves for a while on my regular sites - Freecycle, Buy Nothing, Nextdoor - but hadn’t found much I liked and had just about resigned myself to buying one at Target, when someone posted one on Freecycle. My husband and I went to pick it up and I instantly recognized it as the exact same one I was looking at from Target. However, when we got it into the office, the space still seemed a bit empty, so I ended up going to Target and getting the second bookshelf for $40. But, hey, that’s still 2 for the price of 1!
Additional furnishings: I can’t talk about my office without talking about my favorite plant purchase - a 3-tier, clear shelf that hangs in the window. We have vents on the floor that prevent me from putting a table in front of the window, so this $30 shelf works perfectly and it looks so lovely!
Kitchen
Finally, the kitchen. The space already came with most of the essentials - fridge & freezer, stove & oven. The most expensive thing in our kitchen is the portable island. Although our kitchen is fairly spacious for a rental, it’s got some weird cabinets that made storing things hard and the counter space wasn’t great. I bought a kitchen island for $150 and it was definitely a great purchase. It’s got space for the blender, some more pots and plastic bags/aluminum foil and my husband's beloved air fryer.
The key to success for furnishing your place cheaply is patience. I was able to find a lot of really great stuff for free, but I also was willing to wait and do-without until I did. Once I found something I liked, I jumped on the opportunity to pick it up as quickly as I could. My books sat in boxes in the office for several months before I found a bookshelf on Freecycle. We didn’t have a headboard for the bed for over a year until we found one that worked perfectly. Especially if you live in an urban area, there are a lot of great things that you can find for free or cheap as your neighbors are getting rid of things. You just need to be patient and keep looking for them.
Action Items
Check out Freecycle.org to see what people in your area are getting rid of.
Take a look at your new home and be intentional about what you want to bring into it. Moving can be a great time to get a fresh perspective on the things we hang onto.
Your life may not be perfect, but it is imperfectly yours. The only way to live it is your way.
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