You all know that I love a good pre-loved bargain, whether it’s from a charity shop, the car boot sale or even from somewhere online and so I love to do a monthly post dedicated to sharing some of my bargains with you!
I am still in full on excitement over the house we’re buying but I’m trying not to get too invested in the house as there’s so many reasons why it could fall through. I’ll share more about it all when I have the keys in my hand but in the meantime, just know that it’s a beautiful house that is going to be the biggest project of my life and right now, I have everything crossed that it will happen.
My first bargain of the month this month is a bargain for lots of reasons but before I tell you about it, I have bought it for when we move house because ‘if’ we’re lucky enough to get our dream house, I’ll have a lovely office space which I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t already decorated in my head. It’ll be a small room but I already know I want it to be colourful and the kind of space that makes you feel happy when you walk in – I’ve had colour palettes and wallpaper all picked out since about half an hour after our offer was officially accepted.
And even if this falls through, we are looking for houses with an office space for me so my first bargain today works wherever we move to . 😁
So the first part of this bargain is an unopened can of furniture paint that I bought from the car boot sale for £3.50 and a furniture paint brush that I got for £1.50. The paint is by a brand called FrenchChic which when I look on Amazon, seems to be quite a good make with prices ranging from £15-£30 so I definitely got a bargain.
The colour is called ‘Daff’ and is a lovely yellow colour from a limited collection and I suspect it’s why it was never used as it’s definitely an interesting colour for furniture and personally, I’d only use it on a piece of furniture for my office. When I spotted it, I wanted it straight away as I knew that it would be perfect for something for in there.
Problem was, I didn’t have a piece of furniture to paint and I didn’t want to wait until we moved in to do it as I know there’ll be much bigger jobs to be done when (if) we are lucky enough to move in. So, off I popped to a little vintage furniture shop in town to see if I could find something that I could paint.
I found exactly what I was looking for…
I wanted something with character because the whole house is filled with period features and my office, although small, has a lovely sash window and some original cornice around the ceiling so it just feels like it needs more than the Ikea Kallax unit that I currently store all my office-y stuff in.
It was a complete bargain because of some scratches and chips so for £20, we walked away with the cutest little writing bureau for me to paint with my bargain paint.
We filled in the chips and smoothed out the scratches with some filler that we had in the cupboard and then set about the fun part of the makeover.
I had so much fun painting it, mainly because it felt like I was doing something for the new house. I can’t control everything that happens in the house buying process but doing this felt like something solid that I was doing to take a step towards making it ours. I know it doesn’t make sense at all but so much is out of our control that I just needed to do something, anything to help me feel like the house was going to actually happen.
The paint was very yellow at first so I borrowed some white wax from our neighbour and gave it a quick coat which really took the bureau from sunshine yellow to butter yellow – the perfect colour for my new home office.
To finish it off, we popped to B&Q and got a few wallpaper samples to line the drawers with so it’s looking bright and colourful and I absolutely love it!
I don’t want much furniture in my office so I’ll have this, a big desk and my office chair and hopefully some kind of squishy comfy chair for when I’m on calls that don’t need me to be sat at my desk.
My next bargain cost me a grand total of 20p from the car boot sale.
It was a funny boot sale as it was a windy day with big black clouds in the sky that looked very ominous – it looked like it was going to rain at any time. We arrived pretty late and seeing as it was so quiet, some sellers were already starting to pack up. Those that were sticking it out were in two camps – those who were sticking to their prices with no bargaining as they were trying to make their money back and those who literally couldn’t care and just didn’t want to take a whole load of stuff home.
This pen came from one of the sellers who was just selling everything off for whatever price. I just like the pen and recognised Parker as a good brand so when the lady told me it was 20p, it was a no-brainer. I didn’t even see the original manual with the pen when I bought it but when I got home and I found it, I had a quick look on Google and it’s worth way more than 20p.
I can find a few similar Parker pens selling online but can’t see this exact model (if that’s the right word) so can’t get an exact price. I can see that the cheapest pen from this range is selling for £25 with prices going up to £127. Even if mine is the cheaper end, it’s still a lot more than the 20p I paid for it. I’m keeping it anyway as I love it but nice to know that it’s got a bit of value and I bought it for practically nothing.
I also bought a few other bits from the same stall for 20p but nothing too exciting.
Next up are a few clothes I need for when we go away next month which I desperately need as it’s going to be very cold and I definitely don’t have the right clothes for our week away. I don’t want to spend much on clothes just for this week as I know that I won’t get much wear out of them because I’m really not a warm clothes kind of person. 😁
So, this is a little round up of a few of the bits I’ve bought this month for our holiday…
- A thick fluffy knitted jumper. It’s a longer length and I’ll be able wear with skirts and leggings so it’s going to be a good buy at just £3.
- A plain cream Regatta fleece which is practical to layer on in the cold when we’re away. It was a bargain at £4 and it fits really well so I think it will be worn loads while we’re away.
- A lovely cream fleece with chunky knit sleeves which looks way nicer than it does in the photo. It cost £3 and I actually think I’ll get loads of wear out of it as I can throw it on over anything I’m wearing on cold days.
- A gorgeous Lucy and Yak long skirt which is super comfortable and has a split to just above the knee. I love the Lucy and Yak skirts and I was after the sunflower design of this skirt a while ago until it disappeared off their website! This one is almost as nice and I paid £8 for it which is a huge bargain because it’s still on the website at full price.
- A black velvet scarf to keep me warm. It still had the tags on from Wallis and honestly, it’s so warm and looks lovely and for just £3 I think it was a great bargain that I’ll wear loads even when we get back home.
- A little umbrella which will tuck into our suitcase nicely although I think it might be a bit windy at times to use it. It was only £1 so I’m OK if it gets blown inside out and never ends up coming home with us.
- This cute grey fleece jumper is pretty much going to sum up our whole week away I suspect so at £3, it’s going to earn it’s keep.
And that’s pretty much it for this month’s pre-loved bargains from me!
If you want to find out more about how I find bargains on Vinted then this how to buy on Vinted post is perfect for you – it’s the perfect place to start if you want to start finding some pre-loved bargains of your own.
Also, I know that money is tight for many of us right now so I did just want to say that usually when I buy anything pre-loved, I try and only use money that I’ve made from things that I’ve sold on Vinted so I rarely pay actual money for anything you see that I’ve bought from there. Here’s a post about how much I made in a weekend selling on Vinted a little while ago to give you an idea!
If you do decide to sign up to Vinted, I’d be super grateful if you use my refer a friend link. 😁
So that’s what I’ve bought pre-loved this month. I’d love to see your bargains so feel free to tag me in any Instagram posts and I’ll pop over and see what you’ve been buying!
And don’t forget, you might like to read my post sharing all my top tips for getting a bargain buying clothes in a charity shop here and if you can’t get out to wander around your local charity shops then have a look at my favourite online charity shops!
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