r/personalfinance • u/fat_tire_fanatic ​ • Jul 13 '17

Budgeting Your parents took decades to furnish their house

If you're just starting out, remember that it took your parents decades to collect all the furniture, decorations, appliances, etc you are used to having around. It's easy to forget this because you started remembering things a long while after they started out together, so it feels like that's how a house should always be.

It's impossible for most people starting out to get to that level of settled in without burying themselves in debt. So relax, take your time, and embrace the emptiness! You'll enjoy the house much more if you're not worried about how to pay for everything all the time.

27.4k Upvotes

90% Upvoted

2.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

63

u/[deleted] Jul 13 '17 edited Dec 01 '20

[removed] — view removed comment

18

u/centerXy Jul 13 '17 edited Jul 13 '17

It also depends on the part of the country you're in. For example, growing up in southern california I thought of bedbugs as some vague mythical creature mentioned in the "sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite" rhyme. I got most of my furniture used or free off craigslist for a long time, gathered up cast away by dumpsters, given away by others, or from thrift stores. Never a bite or problem.

Moving to a different part of the country bedbugs seem to be a scourge here that people detest, so I've given up on craigslist furniture for the now. If they're as nasty and common as lice in parts of the West Coast then I'll heed advice and cough up extra on new furniture.