Author Topic: Essential list of purchases for new home (all I own is a toaster and one chair).  (Read 13829 times)

FrugalZony

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Sorry about the flat!! But once you find your place you'll probably look back and be relieved it did not happen.
Alternatively you could look into the cost of fixing the pipe and figure out what it could cost WORST CASE, as in noone (or only half the owners) chip in and you have to pay a disproportionate amount. Will that be less than 20? Maybe then it would be worth it.
OR use the information to negotiate further down....
Many options here!

That said. Now you have a lot of ideas of how to go about stuff for your new place. If you have a small corner in your current living situation
to store stuff. I would start now to collect things that are FREE. So you have a few items when the time is right.
I very much second / third /forth putting the word out that you'll be moving.
SOOO many people will be happy to hand you their extras.
I just downsized and kept offering things to folks, just so they don't go to waste!

When I got my first place, I knew a few months ahead of time. So I picked up a few things from relatives, who were going to get rid of items.
I hardly paid anything for kitchen items in my first place. Just paid for a mattress.

Good luck with your continuing search.
« Last Edit: February 18, 2016, 08:51:09 AM by FrugalZony »

RyanAtTanagra

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DON'T ASK FOR A LIST OF STUFF TO BUY! this is how you waste money and end up with useless shit. Figure out what you need yourself and don't buy what you don't NEED

Seriously.  What's necessary for one person isn't for another.  I would maybe second the tp and plunger items, but I know people that don't have and never need a plunger, so maybe not even that.

I forget who said, I think Leo from ZenHabits a long time ago, that he had a dream of next time he got a new home, to move nothing there and just sit in the middle of each room in silence for a while and start adding things one at a time when he decided it would add legitimate value to his life/the space.

Midcenturymater

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Can I just give you some advice. Avoid Victorian properties.
My husband bought a small flat as a single man 12 years ago.
We are current trying to work out how we pay 25 k sterling minimum as our share for a new roof
...there are 5 dwelling GDP in the house. It was 4 k each flat just to get scaffolding up and get estimates.
They are money pits . Avoid

We also have to find 13 k for a new lease extension to take it up to 99 years.

If toucan find something with a longer lease and newer roof or us worth paying a bit more.
I will never ever touch a Victorian house ever again.v

Midcenturymater

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But it us also very exciting buying a place. Take your dad to every home you are interested in and listen to him. Repairs in the UK.cost far more than the usa...where we will replace our house roof for 7 k sterling!!! Uk trades people charge crazy rates compared to the usa is our experience
Good luck and you will get the right home. Just be patient.
We bought all our furniture at heart foundation in London when they charged 25 for a sideboard and 50 for the closet....all cool.mid century stuff. When we needed money to move house last year we sold the 50 quid closet for $450 ...which paid most of the moving bill. Get all used stuff. Try charity shops outside the city too as the prices are lower as well as local e bay.
Good luck with your search

Oh try facebook groups too...you get people selling entire house fills when they relocate. The only things we buy new are mattresses and toiletries now we realise how.much stuff is out there second hand. I am a fan of getting used stuff free ..my husband wants the nice fancy Danish furniture...but we always get it used at charity and estate sales. I don't think they have estate sales so.much in the UK. They should!

Torran

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Wow brill, thanks so much everyone for the great advice.

I am now circling (like a bird of prey) a new property which I would like to make an offer on.

It's more money than the last one (offers over £85,000) but according to the Home Report, no great big enormous 'mysteries' which my Dad has to uncover to find a total disaster.

Re the last flat, although a leak may well be fixable for a reasonable amount of money, the other problem was that the building had no factor - sometimes this is good (factors can be a racket) but sometimes this is bad. A friend of a friend bought a property in London with no factor. Is now having to organise roof repairs, which involves tracking down all 7 other flat owners, 2 of whom have gone AWOL. The remaining owners are refusing to split the costs to miss out the missing owners. Basically, it's down to him to negotiate, organise, get court orders if required, before he can get any work done.

The leak on the last propery I looked at apparently might have been coming from bathrooms in flats above (waste water leaking). With no factor, it could have been a bit of a nightmare.

So I ran away.

Anyway, new flat now in sight, parents have agreed to go through the whole rigmarole of viewing again, finding potential disasters, etc.

It needs nothing doing inside, although, @Midcenturymater I'm sorry to say, it's 110 years old. Eep.

I'll let you guys know.

In news more realted to my original question - I've been filling my (small) bedroom with bags full of charity shop homeware. I don't have any room to store furniture (apart from that chair I found in the street) so just now I look like someone with a serious hoarding problem.

It's been AMAZING though - I aim for £1 or less per item, and will post a list of all the exciting things that I found. It feels great getting all those little irritating things out of the way now (e.g a good, bright torch (ok, that was £10); a bath mat, four dining plates). In an entirely less efficient/rational way, I've also been setting myself the personal goal of making sure everything is either:

1. beautiful
2. weird
3. Pure 1980s wonder

Everything clashes and is covered in a crazy pattern. Just the way I like it.

Midcenturymater

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Well more old housing stock in the UK.
Just check your roof and work out how many would share the cost of a new roof. How long is the lease? Sounds exciting. We paid that for 300 square feet 12 years ago in Brighton so it sounds like a deal!!! How exciting.

boy_bye

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Google image search for 'zebra stencil.' There are tons of free images that you can print out, trace, and cut out of thick plastic.

I would make the stencil in 2 parts if possible -- one for the entirety of the zebra body, and the other for the stripes that go inside each zebra.

Paint your undercolor, masking out the zebras (I loooooove the Serengeti green one)
Stencil on your zebra stripes
Add arrow details, maybe with gold paint???
Voila, you are the bomb

Good luck with the new flat! Hope it or another great one works out soon!

Midcenturymater

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Oh and put a post on fb saying you are looking for house ware. People have so much today they are happy to pass on to someone who needs it.

With a low mortgage like that us would aim to pay it off under 10 years unless your income is very low. Imagine you can be mortgaged fast with such modest home price. You are setting yourself up so well and how great to have your parents supporting you! Not all do.

Torran

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@midcenturymater thanks! I know, I'm very very lucky - my Dad has been able to find the things that I would have had to pay a surveyor to find. My Mum has provided a lot of emotional, and financial, support.

It's not very mustachian but I am definitely sending them a bottle of fizz when it's all over and I am finally in possession of my own home.

My income is pretty low, so £85,000 is pretty much the top of my budget. However the mortgage repayments would be affordable.

Then I need to desperately throw as much money as possible into a 'Disaster Fund' for when a bird flies into a window and smashes it/the boiler breaks down/etc!!

Torran

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Although yes, I agree - it is an amount that could actually be paid off within a reasonable time frame. I'm planning to get a mortgage which will allow me to overpay now and then without penalty.

It will be so very satisfying to watch the number come down over the years :)

Midcenturymater

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We always try and recognise people's contributions to us. Being frugal is of course not the sane as being cheap.
Look for a bottle of bargain fizz or great cava😁
Look our house payment is just over 60 percent of our one income...and we manage....just no shopping apart from necessities. Every time you go away put it on air bnb and put that money in your emergency fund!

We love owning a house....in spite of the costs.



Torran

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@midcenturymater will definitely be splashing out on some fizz. They deserve it! I've been a complete stress-monster the last few weeks as the house purchase goes ahead.

So yeah, in other news, I have now purchased a flat for £72,000. 46 m squared, 1 bedroom, white goods included, and, perhaps most thrillingly of all, windows in ALL the rooms. (Many flats in my price range had strange rooms with no windows. Oh the joys).

From the bedroom at the back there is a gorgeous view of parkland and a river and lots of trees.

Very excited.

Actually right now I'm just flattened. The unholy trinity of solicitor/estate agent/building society are making me feel permanently slightly-on-edge, with a 'what if this whole flat purchase thing just falls apart' thing. Then I remember how insanely privileged I am to be in this situation at all. All the feelings. Feelings everywhere.

ANYWAY I have now started assembling the list of things I've bought for the flat in charity shops (or elsewere... as cheap as possible) and thought I would post it here, incase anyone is even vaguely interested.

I have a £1000 budget for all furniture (i.e a bed, a dining table, etc.). Hoping to see how far under budget I can get this. Freecycle will be checked obsessively. Will buy all this (except the bed) AFTER I've moved in, so I can get a feel for what I really need. Likewise consumables, will leave that until the first day in the new flat. Except toilet roll. Thanks again guys for that priority reminder ;)

In terms of the little things that bleed away the cash... I have spent £104.74. On the following:

4 dining plates - £4 (charity shop)
Coffee pot - £1 (charity shop)
6 mugs - £8 (IKEA)
Oven mitts    £4.5 (IKEA) (this was a mistake. Could get them in poundland! Arg)
4 dishtowels - £2.5 (IKEA)
2 salad-dressing bottles £3 (IKEA)
3 lrg glass storage jars £9 (IKEA)
Colander £4 (IKEA)
Seive    £1.8 (IKEA)
Wooden chopping board £4.95 (IKEA)
Linen basket thing £9.99 (TK Maxx)
1 green oven dish £3.5 (charity shop)
1 turquoise oven dish £2.5 (charity shop)
5 drinking glasses £2.5 (charity shop)
1 lrg mixing bowl £5 (TK Maxx)
Baking scales £2 (charity shop)
Toaster £3 (charity shop)
1 lrg Bodum cafetiere   £3 (charity shop)
1 sml Bodum cafetier   £2 (charity shop)
1 bath mat £2.5 (charity shop)
1 lrg glass juice jug £1.5 (charity shop)
2 cereal bowls £6 (TK Maxx)
Storage tin £3.50 (TK Maxx)
Dustpan and brush £1 (Poundland)
20-piece cutlery set £4 (Poundland)
4-piece Tupperware set £7 (Tesco)
3 x kitchen scissors £1 (Poundland)
Can opener £1 (Poundland)
Tape measure £1 (Poundland)

I love cooking, I love it a lot, so baking scales etc are on the 'necessary' list.

Many more things to get. Jeezo, even buying things cheap is kinda expensive huh.

I guess it's all part of the house thing and the adulting thing. Turned 30 years old: bought a tape measure. Yeeeeah.