Practical money tips – buying furnitures for your new home

To those who think a sofa set is at minimum RM8,000 or higher, you may skip this article. You bought a new condo. You need to fill it up with furnitures. How much is enough? Today, I share with you real prices as at today or perhaps this year. It should not exceed RM7,000 and if you really are on a tight budget, you can still make do with half of this budget. No, this is not a joke. I am already doing it and have been doing it many times over.
wpid-IMG_20140308_211353.jpgSofa Set. Everyone comes into your home, first thing they see is your sofa set. Second thing they do is to sit on your sofa. This is likely to be the most expensive piece of furniture you need to have. Make sure the colours match your living room area. Buy a soft fabric based sofa and make sure it is washable. When you sit onto the sofa, it should give a firm feeling. Not soft or else it will not last you more than 2 years. It should not exceed RM3,000. I have seen a nice sofa set, 5 seater L shaped + 2 seater for just RM2,600. If all the sofa sets you have seen are over RM3,000 you must be in the wrong place. Continue searching. Go Courts Megastore to try first before other furniture shops. Then, you get a good benchmark.
Dining Table. Get a hardwood type. Not chipboard. Ask the seller. Typically, rubber wood is the cheapest hardwood you can find. If the seller said, ‘Nyatuh’ and the price is still below RM2,000 get it. Needless to think. Typically a 6 seater rubber wood dining set (6+1) is around RM1,500 – RM1,800, depending on the design etc. The cheaper the better but typically it should not exceed RM2,000.  I will be buying one for RM1,380 at a furniture shop in LDP furniture mall.
TV Rack / Table. If you say I don’t need one, my TV is on the wall, you are wrong! You need a rack to put your DVD players, DVDs (original / pirated) and many more things. Again, buy one which is solid and preferably one with lots of drawers. Don’t buy one which is open concept. You will die wiping it. Or your wife will faint wiping it. Typically this should be between RM600-RM800. Anything above RM1,000 is way too expensive for a TV Rack even if it looks so modern, so nice etc.
Shoe Cabinets. Do NOT buy a small one. Buy one which is 4 feet in height at least and as wide as your condo can fit. You will not regret this unless you want your wife to stop buying shoes and start buying HANDBAGS. I think you better let her buy shoes. The price range for this is very wide but safe to say, below RM800. This one does not need intricate design. Just a solid one would do. After you started using it, no one will be commenting on how amazing your shoe cabinet is. Trust me. I have bought no less than 7 shoe cabinets thus far.
Last but not least, for everything above, IF you are someone who is ok to be extremely careful in using your sofa, dining table, TV Rack and Shoe Cabinets, the price above can all be halved. A firm but less fancy sofa can be as cheap as RM999 for a 3+2 seater. Just go to the huge furniture warehouse based shops along Damansara to Sungai Buloh, opposite the Mega Store. Dining Table, 6+1, for which the table is thinner and the seats are slightly more compact and the handle is thinner, RM599 is a possible price. TV Rack – RM399 is a huge possibility, but it will be slightly smaller and less drawers etc. Buy what you ‘need’ not what you ‘want’.
Remember, if you buy a good one for half price of an amazing one, after using it for 3 years, you can change the whole set and renew your condo immediately but if you buy too expensively, you will feel hurt to change it and thus you have to just continue using the same thing for many many many years. It’s a choice really. I have told you mine.
next suggested article: Tips on why NOT to buy a condo


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