By now you must have known that decorating your home is pretty expensive, even when you try to be minimal and simple in your design. To decorate home on a budget, you need all the guides and inside gifts you can get.
Decorating a home is not easy, as it requires some time and effort to visualize, budget, and execute your design. If you’re rather buoyant in terms of cash, this might not excite you, but for some of us with less cash, we have come up with the best option.
Being resourceful and relentless is essential for creating a lush-looking home without spending too much. We’ll start with methods for saving money on furnishing and decorating your home.
Talking about decor design being “cheap” and “affordable”, there is a difference in meaning depending on the person, some people think of “cheap” as something less than “$3000” but to some “$100” is all they can afford to come up with.
Some people don’t even have any disposable cash to use but still have it in mind to furnish their home for a comfortable living.
We all started from somewhere so it’s totally understandable, to get started let us:
- Look at the cheap ways to furnish your place, no cash is required.
- See low-cost ways to furnish your home, for people with some budget.
- Check out how you can make your home look expensive without going bankrupt.
Without wasting much of your time, let’s dive into the necessary steps on how you can decorate home on a budget, I get that you might not be able to read through all right now, if so, you can easily pin this article, and get back later.
How to Decorate Home On a Budget
At first, you might think this is not possible, but it is quite doable, this methods are for those who are low on cash but still need to furnish their place.
1. Facebook Marketplace and Craiglist – Free stuff
This method is most effective when you search the free sections on Facebook Marketplace or Craiglist. You’ll find some important stuff for you to use when furnishing your home.
The reason you find some of these free stuff is that sometimes, some people don’t want the stress of dealing with throwing away stuff, and would be happy to give it out to people who are really in need of those items. If you think you need some items you can pick them up and use them to furnish your place for free.
On the Facebook Marketplace, it is easy for you to filter out free items you want and their locations, and you can save money on transportation as well. You can find pretty good items there without paying a dime.
If you don’t have a Facebook account, Craiglist is your best bet, you can get free items there, but if you have a Facebook account then the marketplace is your best option for free items.
2. Freecycle
Freecycle
Another source of free stuff is Freecycle, you can register an account on Freecycle and start getting daily emails to inform you of free stuff that is available in your location.
Once you’ve registered an account, make sure you turn on your notifications, this will allow you to get notified as soon as there is free stuff posted on the website.
One downside is that there are lots of people watching out for free items like you, they might be faster in claiming all the goody-goody. As we know free stuff brings competition, so it is best to act fast to claim good stuff.
3. Family or friend gifting
If you are unable to look at the above methods due one reason or the other, you can use this method. It involves asking your family and friends for stuff they don’t want anymore, there are chances that you would find some free stuff to use.
Some items like laundry baskets, mattresses, linens, dishware, and others, can be gotten from them if you ask politely. This can save you lots of money which you can use for other things later. It doesn’t hurt to ask for a hand.
4. The neighborhood treasure-finding walk
Dalycity
You could be missing out on free stuff if you don’t take a walk around your neighborhood, it wouldn’t hurt to take a walk and gain some free stuff.
This method works better than the rest, it’s faster and more comfortable to check your local back alleys for items like chairs, wardrobes, and others. Some people discard those items they don’t need and you as someone who needs it pick it up, it’s as easy as that.
Note: To get more free things that are just being discarded, you should try checking out at the end of the month when people buy new things and discard those old ones. Even better at the end of the year, people get gifted and push some items out.
You just need to find out which one works better for you among these steps, you can literally get something free using any of these methods. Although some things you find might not always be to your liking you’ll definitely be able to get your things later as time moves on.
Now unto the next one
Things under this section won’t be totally free, but will mostly be affordable and cheapest ways for you to decorate home on a budget.
These methods might not be as fast as you would expect if you’re looking to save money on getting some specific items for your home, but it’s worth the wait.
1. Thrift store plus second-hand shopping
ThriftCart
This one is like a minor upgrade to the free items you can find on the Facebook marketplace and Craiglist, items you get from second-hand stores are definitely cheaper and might look better or close to a new one depending on how the previous owner’s usage.
You don’t need to have a lot of money on you to buy second-hand items, some might be available at half of the original price or even less. The local thrift shops in your area are a go-to place for super deals that will save you some money for good products.
You can get some of these items better and cheaper at thrift stores:
- Artwork
- Baskets
- Ceramics
- Dishes
- Frames
- Lamps
- Glassware
- Coffee table books
- Trays
- Wood furniture
- Mirrors
- Planters
2. Yard Sales
Angie’s List
There are items you can get from Garage Sales, you can check out signs in your area on telephone poles, this is usually done by old school.
You can easily find yard sales going on in your area just by searching Google for a local website that has posted items for sale. All you need to do is search for the keyword “AREA garage sales” (Put in your area address where AREA is) then click search for the best deals you can find.
There are also groups online to find yard sales, you can check Reddit, or Facebook and search for Yard sales in your area.
3. Online classified websites
Finding good deals on a classified website is easier than you think, you’ll just have to search for the keyword “Furniture” or the nearest to the item you need. You can easily get good savings on vintage items plus furniture items to decorate your home.
There are other places to get good deals apart from Craiglist or Facebook marketplace as I have mentioned before. If you’re in the USA you can use these websites:
- Geebo
- Bookoo
- Locanto
- Mercari
- Oodle
- Offerup
- Sell.com
For our Canadian folks use:
- Locanto
- Used.ca
- Kijiji
4. Redesign your home
Tima pexels
It doesn’t hurt to make some tweaks to your home design, even rearranging your furniture can make things look great again. Changing the position of some furniture in your space can make a lot of difference to the look.
This one doesn’t require you to meet someone to ask for stuff, you can do this for free on your own, all you need is vision, and power to move stuff, and voila it’s done.
For those who have extra rooms to use, it’s more interesting to move your stuff from one room to another, you can think of it as rebranding your home. LOL Nothing is as interesting as you look forward to seeing how it works out.
DIY is expensive in my Book
What about the DIY home decor ideas on a budget myth, it is widely speculated that DIY is money-saving, this is totally the opposite, but Sam I don’t get how that is. Hold up let me explain.
First, you need these:
- Money for;
- Materials
- Tools (you can ones you have)
- Time to spare
- And lastly, the skill to make it happen.
If you don’t watch out, you might overspend your budget in the name of making your home look new with the items you buy.
Some items of furniture are as expensive as the price of the new one when compared to your DIY final product, not to add to the time and effort you’ve spent on it. We hope that this article helps you understand how you can decorate home on a budget or for free.
You can be creative with your home design by spending less, here is an example of how to beautify your bathroom by spending less.
