IKEA Nation

"$1,500 to $1,700."

This is the amount needed to buy enough stuff at IKEA to totally furnish a one bedroom apartment.  Tell this to your dad if he is going to subsidize this adventure and go slowly since fathers (males in general) equate furniture stores with panic attacks.  A furniture store to men is a place to buy stuff you don't really want or, more importantly, stuff you feel you don't really need.  Regardless of the financing source, you are going to need $1,500 to $1,700 to get:

a bed frame

mattress and sheets, one blanket, two pillows and pillow covers

bathroom towels, shower curtain, shower rod, miscellaneous bath glassware

small chest of drawers, two lamps  and two nightstands for the bedroom

wall mirror

computer desk, chair and lamp

living room sofa and matching chair

entertainment center or what I call a TV stand

two floor lamps and one bookcase

two barstool type chairs to go under that cheesy little bar area that seperates the kitchen from the living room

glassware, plates and can opener (manual) needed to fill up the kitchen cabinets.

That's actually a lot of stuff for $1,700 and worth it if you can afford it or weasel it our of your parents.  (Marc got it out of me this way.  He said it was a graduation present.  I told him he graduated from college a year ago and he got a graduation present then.  He informed me that this was a graduation present for getting his wings from the US Air Force navigator school which was a whole lot tougher than graduating from college.  Knowing what he had gone through, including being locked up in a box for 14 hours in survival school, I reluctantly agreed.)

It is also a good deal because IKEA is one stop shopping.  You can get most of the stuff in a truck or SUV, put it together which is not real hard but not totally painless, and you're set.  The furniture is pretty impersonal and the same stuff is in about every apartment in your complex but you have the basics and you're not sleeping on the floor. 

You want to get up and running fast because as a new graduate you don't have time for leisurely, expensive shopping or leisurely garage sale shopping.  You should be devoting your time to finding a job.  If you have found a job, you should be devoting your time to doing the best job possible to keep that job and get promoted so you can buy the furniture you want and the house you want for that furniture to go in.  Or keep the stuff you got and invest the money you make and get rich.  Or a combination.

Comments

[lpkitten]

ohh ikea, how i love and loathe that store. you would be amazed at what you could actually fit in a little vw jetta. no need for an suv or a truck!