Just about to get my first Mortgage - question

VJ_

Peonie wrote: »

I think you are right in what you are doing. Get everything bit by bit as and when you can afford it. We still have a couple of secondhand items from family that we still use 8 years later. Our first sofa was secondhand from a family friend, it cost £150 and was a year and a half old. When we had finished with it it went onto Freecycle.

My family is really good, we always check if anyone else wants furniture before it goes to the charity shop. Next month we're getting a free chest of drawers and a big office chair.

Yeah, we're exactly the same.

I like your art idea, I'm a bit of an art snob and won't buy a picture if every other person has it as well. That's why I've made my own in the past, plus it's cheaper.

It is cheaper, but we've got a couple local artists who regularly advertise their work at our local Friday market and some who display at our local indie coffee shop.
They all do one-off pieces, one even offered to do a commisioned piece (out of my price range!); so whilst it's expensive, it's cheaper than painting the whole place and it supports local bossinesses and artists; so I can still feel smug and superior if I buy them...

Lois_E

Peonie wrote: »

I think you are right in what you are doing. Get everything bit by bit as and when you can afford it. We still have a couple of secondhand items from family that we still use 8 years later. Our first sofa was secondhand from a family friend, it cost £150 and was a year and a half old. When we had finished with it it went onto Freecycle.

My family is really good, we always check if anyone else wants furniture before it goes to the charity shop. Next month we're getting a free chest of drawers and a big office chair.

We were moving from a flat to a house when my in-laws were downsizing. They upgraded to a new 3 piece suite, and gave us the old one (25 years old I think, in 1993). One of the armchairs has since died, but the other armchair and the sofa are still in use - although in the kids' room, not the proper living room.

When my parents were newly-weds my grandmother gave them her old saucepan set. She said they were pretty old and battered, but would keep them going until they could afford to buy decent ones. Well, they do have some newer ones now, but some of those old ones are still in use. I boiled a couple of eggs for DD in the smallest one of them last time I was visiting. Not bad for a pan that narrowly escaped being thrown out in 1956!