Would you credit it?

Feb 8 2005 By Helen Logan Evening Gazette

Apparently, gone are the days of sitting on deckchairs while saving for a three-piece suite with a growing number of today's first-time buyers taking just one month to furnish their new home.

A study by Alliance and Leicester found almost a quarter of new homeowners are equipping their home within four weeks, with the average spend on "home essentials" topping £4,617.

And here's me thinking first-time buyers were struggling, due to soaring house prices, just to get on that first rung of the property ladder.

I bet the £4,000-plus is all on credit as I cannot believe they have that sort of spare cash, bearing in mind they will have had to fork out for a deposit, stamp duty, legal fees and general moving expenses.

Way back when I bought my first house I could not afford to buy new furniture all at once.

And, having taken on a mortgage, I did not want to overstretch myself with high interest loans.

Instead, I made do with hand-me-downs from my family such as a bunk bed which I dismantled in to two single beds, a wardrobe, a dressing table, a settee and some easy chairs.

Having lived in a rented attic flat for a couple of years where there was no room for a washing machine, buying a new one of those was my number one priority.

And then it was a question of getting a new three-piece suite, a dining table, chairs, and a sideboard and so on bit by bit.

All in all it took several years to kit the place out how I wanted it.