once you get your house...how do you afford new furniture and everything?

Re: once you get your house...how do you afford new furniture and everything?

i bought a few pieces but im waiting untill i can afford some nicer pieces like for my bedroom set before i buy for certain rooms. im lucky enough to have had furniture from my old apartment that i can use for now and then next year im going to start spending

Re: once you get your house...how do you afford new furniture and everything?

We took advantage of the 0% financing that was offered at the furniture store and made payments each month and by the time the year was up, we had almost paid off the furniture so we did not have to pay the finace charge. It worked out pretty well for us.

Re: once you get your house...how do you afford new furniture and everything?

we are keeping 30K aside for anything we want to fix up immediately or have to buy

Re: once you get your house...how do you afford new furniture and everything?

Do one room at a time. Hopefully you will not spend ALL of your money on down payment/closing costs, etc...

Re: once you get your house...how do you afford new furniture and everything?

For us, one word: SLOWLY.

It's taken us five years, and we're almost at the point of completion - and we don't ahve a single credit bill to show for it. We went room-by-room, and on a priority basis, and did it all slowly so we could pay cash rather than incur debt.

I should also add that while working on our primary residence, we are also drastically renovating two rental properties that he's owned for a while - so that's tied up our cash flow a bit. Oh yeah, and a wedding too!

Re: once you get your house...how do you afford new furniture and everything?

We took a trip to Furniture Land South in North Carolina. We saved SOOO much money by going down there, since everything is factory price. We furnished our entire house for about $9,000 with the same furniture that I saw in Ethan Allen.

Re: once you get your house...how do you afford new furniture and everything?

We won't be able to afford anything new (except a couch) for a looooong time.

Re: once you get your house...how do you afford new furniture and everything?

We used our old stuff for a while...even still use some of it now! Then we bought it a little at a time. We bought our coffee table and end tables at Seaman's clearence center (in Seamans on Rt 110 in Farmingdale) and got the set for $235!! We bought our bedroom set from Overstock.com at a good deal and bought our LR couch and loveseat from Levitz on sale for $748 for both pieces (www.furniture.com) also, in the beginning we bought a lot from Ikea because they have great prices. Let me see if I have some pics on the LR couches and table (DH made our entertainment center so that saved a lot of $)...

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Re: once you get your house...how do you afford new furniture and everything?

Here is a pic of our old dark brown couches that I got at Cort (they rent furniture to hotels and corporate apartments and then when the lease is up they sell it really cheap) I got these couches when I lived alone and paid $600 for the set.

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Re: once you get your house...how do you afford new furniture and everything?

Wow, Kathy, it's amazing what a difference the couch color and area rug make in that room!!

Really nice!

Re: once you get your house...how do you afford new furniture and everything?

Thank you!! Yeah I couldn't believe how different it looked too - plus the daylight makes things look 'softer'

Re: once you get your house...how do you afford new furniture and everything?

We are going to be furnishing one room at a time. We're in no hurry to furnish the house. The one thing I promised hubby is the big screen tv, so that will be our first purchase for our house

Re: once you get your house...how do you afford new furniture and everything?

We bought a coffee table- but other than that we have hand me downs from granparents! We went to Amish country and bought little accents for decorating- but other than that we are going to put our money into new windows, gates, painting, etc- and baby savings money!

I think we'll have hand-me down furniture for a while!

Re: once you get your house...how do you afford new furniture and everything?

I can't even tell you how horribleour furniture is right now. We are desperately in need of a new couch. We need so many other things though that we keep putting it off. I have 3 kids though so I keep saying i'm better off waiting until they get older so they don't destroy the new stuff but it's so embarassing when people come over...

Re: once you get your house...how do you afford new furniture and everything?

We bought all of ours in one shot. However, I would wait for your first big Tax return.

Re: once you get your house...how do you afford new furniture and everything?

After our down payment and closing costs, we only had about 8K left over to start with, so the first thing we spent money on was window treatments (the seller left us horrible ugly shades) and a new couch. We were also planning a wedding at the time, so we did everything very slowly as well. We had a lot of furniture already, and my dad gave us an old dining room table set and matching china cabinet to replace the folding table and chairs we were using for the first few months. We bought a new desk and chair for the computer room, then we had the bedroom and Craig's studio carpeted. It's been almost four years now, and we are just starting to paint the walls now. We also had trees cleared in teh backyard and PVC fencing installed last year, as well as putting a flowerbed/shrubs in the front yard. It all takes time though, we've only had the money to do things little by little - and STILL have a ton of things left to do yet! My advice, try to get the basic necessities out of the way first if you can. then just make do with what you have until you can start on all the other things. Garage sales/flea markets even Salvation Army are GREAT places to pick up some cheap and temporary furniture too.

Re: once you get your house...how do you afford new furniture and everything?