Welcome to my monthly pre-loved bargain post, which is always one of my favourite posts to write. 😀
There’s something so satisfying about finding something you genuinely need or love second-hand, especially when it costs a fraction of what it would have done new.

This month’s finds are a real mixture of practical purchases, home finds and a couple of things that I bought because they made me smile when I spotted them. Some were charity shop finds, some came from Facebook Marketplace and a few were the sort of bargains that make you do a little happy dance when you get them home. 😁
So grab a cuppa and let me show you what followed me home this month…
One of my favourite finds recently was a lovely old light fitting that I picked up from a local vintage shop for £3. I knew it would look amazing on our upstairs landing as it’s quite grand (or it will be one day when we paint the walls and get rid of the old fashioned pink carpet 😁).
It didn’t come with any glass shades, but I wasn’t too worried about the missing shades at the time because I convinced myself it would look lovely with some decorative bulbs instead but it turns out that wasn’t quite the look I was going for. It just looked like it was missing something but I knew that it could still be the perfect light for our landing if it had the right light shades on it so I got myself on marketplace to find some that would work.
That’s when I discovered that the fitting is genuinely vintage and takes a size that’s much harder to find these days than I expected.
After a few weeks of searching, I finally spotted three matching shades on Facebook Marketplace and they were exactly what we’d been looking for. We picked them up, brought them home and they finished the light off perfectly.
They cost £10 and that still meant that new light was still a bargain…

It’s not everyone’s taste but we were looking for something vintage style that didn’t cost a fortune as the upstairs landing is currently pretty old-fashioned but it’s quite low down on our priorities list so it’s going to stay as it is for a bit and needed a light that matched it’s vibe and this definitely ticks that box.
Next up is the amazing bargain filing cabinet which we picked up for £20!

It lives in our cupboard under the stairs and is doing a great job at keeping us organised! We did consider putting it upstairs in the office but we prefer it downstairs where it’s super easy to access – we put all post, reciepts and paperwork in a basket in the middle drawer and once a week (ish) we go through the basket and file anything away that needs keeping.
And while we’re on the subject of the office, I shared a whole post about the pre-loved bargains in there so I won’t go through it again but I will just leave this photo here…

My office is the one room that was all mine to decorate. 😁
It looks exactly how I pictured it in my head and I feel calm just walking through the door! Pretty much everything in there is pre-loved and actually gathered over the last 12 months or so since we first viewed the house last July. I did buy a new Alexa for £30 from Facebook Marketplace this month though and it’s been brilliant as I love having music on in the background while I work.

And next up, I’m going to share what is hopefully the last chapter in our dining room table saga. 😁
Jut before we moved house, my partner spotted a dining room table that was perfect for our new house. It was an eight-seater and it was way bigger than we need but he loved it and I loved it because he loved it. He always gives me an opinion on the things I point out to him (more often than not a no haha) but it’s rare that he spots something and really wants it. So despite the fact that we hadn’t moved at that point AND we didn’t need a table as big as that, we bought it and crammed it into our small dining room in the old house.
We moved house a couple of months later and it looked perfect in our new dining room.

The table looked absolutely perfect when we first bought it, but then there was a whole drama involving the bases which ended with us having to drive two hours to collect replacement parts. We eventually got it sorted, but it never felt quite right afterwards and always had a slight wobble that drove me mad.
As time went on, we also realised that we use our dining room much more in this house than we ever did in our old one. It’s right in the middle of the house and the table quickly became a dumping ground for laptops, paperwork, cups of tea and whatever else we happened to be doing. Unfortunately, the high-gloss finish showed every fingerprint, mark and smudge, which meant it always seemed to need wiping down or polishing.
I tried gently suggesting that perhaps a slightly smaller table might work better for us, but those suggestions were politely ignored and the giant, high-maintenance table stayed exactly where it was!
That was until my partner spotted another table last month. To be fair to him, it was actually a little longer than our existing one, but it was also narrower which made it feel much less imposing in the room. I could live with that compromise.
What I couldn’t live with were the chairs that came with it so before we agreed to buy it, I made it very clear that I would happily welcome the new table into our home, but only if we could replace the chairs. 😁
We ended up selling our old table and chairs on Facebook Marketplace, along with the chairs that came with the new table. Between the two sales, we made enough to cover the cost of the new table and eight replacement chairs, which we bought from a local wedding venue that was refurbishing for just £10 each.

We’ve got two of the chairs stashed away for when we have a full house and just keep six around the table for day-to-day life, which works much better for us.
The new table is solid oak so it’s much more practical than our old one. It doesn’t show every fingerprint, it doesn’t need constant polishing and it’s sturdy enough to cope with whatever we throw at it. Considering how much time we spend around that table, whether it’s eating, working, chatting or planning house projects, that’s turned out to be far more important than having something that looks perfect all the time. 😁
The Marketplace sales and the bargain chairs meant that the table, although it wasn’t cheap, didn’t actually cost us any money.
And my last house bargain is a light shade that we bought for £1 from the boot sale last weekend. We needed a shade for the entrance hall downstairs as we still had the one up that was up when we moved in and it was a plain cream (or it was probably cream in it’s younger days) and we wanted something a bit more ‘wow’ for the hall as it’s the first thing you see when you walk in the house and it’s framed by a beautiful archway.

This is less wow and more ‘that’ll do for now’ as we’re not redecorating the hall until we do the upstairs landing but for 50p, it’s a step in the right direction. The curtain is going soon too – it currently leads into an extra room that we don’t use. It used to be a courtyard but it had a roof fitted and it has double doors leading to the garage. Don’t ask…. 😂
It’s been a quiet month for Vinted buys which is unusual for me but I have sold a few things on there and we’ve also sold a few things on Marketplace which is always a good thing as we get to make some space and some money at the same time.
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. 😁 You actually get £5 to spend when you list three items and another £10 when you sell something.
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!
I’d love you follow me on Twitter and it would be amazing to see you over on my Facebook page and on Instagram. If you’re interested, you can find out more about me here and while I’ve got your attention, if you’re wondering why some of my posts lately are a little bit less frugal then have a read of this post. 😉
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