The Creative Way I Thrifted Practically Everything I Needed for My New House (and Only Spent $55!)

For my last year of college, I’m sharing a house with four other girls, including my BFF! We each have our own bedroom, share one bathroom, and have a spacious living and dining room. I’m particularly excited about the amount of space I have in my own bedroom, and I can’t stop dreaming about all the ways I can make it homey and cute. 

I’m thrilled that we’ve been able to start furnishing and decorating — but as five college students with very limited funds, we’ve had to get creative in order to save money on furniture. 

I came into this lease with a few pieces of furniture and decor from previous years, including two lamps for my room, a rug for the living room, an IKEA cart for storage, and art prints to decorate my walls. I still needed a bed, a desk, and a dresser for my room, as well as a few key pieces of furniture for our shared spaces, including couches, a dining room table, and chairs. 

In order to ensure we had everything we needed without overspending, we created a shared doc and compiled a list of everything we already had for the house and what we still needed to find. Then we divvied up what each of us could contribute as we found missing pieces to complete our house. My housemates and I have had *lots* of success scoring furniture for hardly any money — in fact, I haven’t spent more than $60 on house items this year, thanks to some smart hacks and splitting some costs with my housemates! Keep reading for all our good secrets and places to look.  

It’s a go-to for a reason: I had success finding a great desk with a storage cabinet and light wood finish here for only $30! Facebook will suggest an easy automatic message to send, but the trick to Marketplace is to type out your own message when reaching out to sellers. You’re much more likely to get a response back this way. Also, reach out to as many sellers as possible. I contacted at least 10 sellers about different items, and when I finally found my desk, my mom and I drove 30 minutes to go pick it up.

The key here is to find out when bulk pick-up is scheduled in your area, and then drive around the night before to look for any rejected furniture pieces lying outside people’s homes. People will discard perfectly nice furniture, and it’s completely free to collect, as they were throwing it out anyway! My housemate found our beautiful wooden dining room table and matching chairs this way. 

I got a lot of great furniture just by asking people I know if they were getting rid of anything. My aunt generously gave me her old mattress and bed frame when she was moving out of her apartment. My housemate’s mom passed on her old couches and a coffee table to use in our living room. And my family friends gifted me a great dresser and nightstand they were giving away. If you offer to pick up the items, you’re honestly doing people a favor by getting rid of their unwanted stuff with zero hassle on their end. 

Yard sales are a great way to find cheap furniture and other household items. My housemates and I picked up a microwave and two standing lamps for our shared spaces, all for $30 (and then divided among us). Your town might even have a designated day for yard sales that you can look up online. 

My four housemates and I have collectively picked out a few household items — several art prints, a drawer organizer, a shower curtain, and a bathroom mirror — to order on Amazon and split the cost of. None of us spent more than $5 to $10 on each order we placed. Some of the smaller items are totally “nice to haves,” rather than household necessities, so whether or not you decide to spring for some items like this really depends on your budget.

This post originally appeared on Dorm Therapy. See it there: Here’s How I Spent $55 (Actually!) on Furniture for My College House