I just bought a couch that was highly rated by Wirecutter. It was around $1k. I won’t give the name here but u can google the Wirecutter article. I bought armchairs from IKEA and they are very comfortable- i bought slipcovers from another online vendor and swapped out the legs and you wouldn’t know it was IKEA.

And some of u will laugh - but I got great buys from hotel surplus furniture stores. U should check if there is one near u.

I put the main living room couch right under the master bedroom bed frame, in terms of importance. Why the heck would you go cheap? It's like trying to save a lot of money on a mattress. You really want to get bad sleep every night for 10 years? A really good, well made couch lasts 10-20 years. It's where we do family movie night, where I watch football every Sunday. Where the wife and I binge our shows. When you divide all the use over such a long time, it really doesn't pay to go cheap.

You don't keep up with the Jones anymore. You keep up with the Chans.

Anonymous wrote:I have been really into doing small projects in the house during COVID and interested in replacing some furniture. As “middle class” (defined broadly) people I do like shopping but am always cost conscious- most furniture is ikea, wayfair, world market... but i’m so drawn to west elm, anthropologie, etc.

I want to know how much to let myself splurge guilt-free... is it crazy to spend $500 on a coffee table or $3k on a new couch??

Are the people shopping at C&B and West Elm people like me, or do they have a lot more wealth? I was hoping to get a real understanding on this anonymous forum.

Stats for reference: 40-yr-old couple with 7&4 yr old kids, $250k hhi, $750k in retirement and college savings, $75k cash savings, save an additional $4k-ish a month after expenses.

HHI 750k and we only very recently started thinking about west elm and “nicer” furniture. Everything was wayfair and IKEA even when HHI was 600k or so. I don’t think it’s a good idea with 2 kids and 250k HHI

Anonymous wrote:The question is: do you buy furniture as your forever furniture and hope it never goes out of style or gets damaged, or is furniture fungible and temporary, likely to be changed as your life changes (babies become kids become teens become empty nest become grandparents).

Do you see your family room the same wen you are 25 as when you are 65?

How about 10-15 year furniture? 😊

We spend more and buy American made, Century and Baker furniture, or antiques. For all of you who care about the environment the garbage furniture you buy is bad for it and your health.

The question is: do you buy furniture as your forever furniture and hope it never goes out of style or gets damaged, or is furniture fungible and temporary, likely to be changed as your life changes (babies become kids become teens become empty nest become grandparents).

Do you see your family room the same wen you are 25 as when you are 65?

OP I have almost the exact same stats as you, down to the age of kids (39/41 couple, 5 and 7 yo kids, 245hhi, 3000 PITI, 75K in cash..). I just budget the furniture, I also save ~4K a month and I make a plan for the year between the travel/extras/ renovations/ new furniture etc..

Once I have decided how much I am willing to spend on furniture during the year I pick my battles.
- Kids only get IKEA (I actually really like IKEA),
- I have both a west elm and an ikea couch: for a leather couch ikea was not good enough, but the ikea white linen couch was comfortable and the similar PB/RH or CB was 5 times more. Couldn’t justify it.
- I did one big splurge at restoration hardware (a 900$ coffee table, a side table, a dinner table and a few other things..). I spent 5k total when I could get a 30% on furniture. I looked at a couch there but couldn’t justify the difference in price with the ikea and west elm couches.
- I love the anthropology catalog but couldn’t justify the prices, the quality seems terrible

TLDR: I mix and match. I always buy the expensive furniture on sale (they have so many sales it makes no sense to rush). I find that for some items it makes no sense to buy the non Ikea version that costs a fortune (the couch in the guest room or TV room, the bookshelves, the kid furniture, the cotton drapes in secondary rooms ..), and for others it does : for some accent pieces (coffee and side tables, lamps), for pieces where the material matters (real wood, real leather, real linen etc..).

I have a smallish home and I’d rather buy one good piece I love and wait for more.

I want to know how much to let myself splurge guilt-free... is it crazy to spend $500 on a coffee table or $3k on a new couch??

We just bought a new house and sold ours furnished, so, as we are furnishing our new house, we are asking ourselves these same questions. What it comes down to for us is how would you feel if someone spilled a glass of red wine on your new $3k couch or put a water ring on your new $500 coffee table because they forgot a coaster, because, it will happen. We ended up finding things that were much less expensive and are happier for it. We had found a $3,500 couch we loved and then, after thinking about our lifestyle for a week, bought a $800 one.

Macy’s named a sofa after Boo Radley?!

It is kind of shocking how narrow a range of taste there seems to be here. I would have thought that money would give people a wider sense of the possible. Alas!

OP, you’re not going to go bankrupt on anything you buy once every 10 years. Live it up with a $3000 sofa.

Anonymous wrote:I have been really into doing small projects in the house during COVID and interested in replacing some furniture. As “middle class” (defined broadly) people I do like shopping but am always cost conscious- most furniture is ikea, wayfair, world market... but i’m so drawn to west elm, anthropologie, etc.

I want to know how much to let myself splurge guilt-free... is it crazy to spend $500 on a coffee table or $3k on a new couch??

Are the people shopping at C&B and West Elm people like me, or do they have a lot more wealth? I was hoping to get a real understanding on this anonymous forum.

Stats for reference: 40-yr-old couple with 7&4 yr old kids, $250k hhi, $750k in retirement and college savings, $75k cash savings, save an additional $4k-ish a month after expenses.

IKEA is just and looks like junk-anytime I see it in a house I think college. Replace all of that with someone nice-you can afford it-set a reasonable budget-check Facebook marketplace if you like PB and the such-you can get it practically brand new for a 1/3 of the cost.

Our stats are similar to yours, except we’re 10 years younger. Our sectional cost $4k and didn’t feel out of line to me for a piece of furniture we will use daily for many years.

Anonymous wrote:How do you save 4K a month after expenses ? That’s a lot. I make a little more 260K and can’t save that. He’ll yea buy that couch.

it actually was lot less during early covid except now we pay a sitter
Take home about $12,200

piti $3200
food $2000
insurance policies(/12) $300
utilities, gas, cells $500
clothes, books, gifts, other shopping $500
other things that come up $500
sitter $1000

Check out the dark comedy "The Joneses" w/ David Duchovny and Demi Moore. It's a great story expansion on the phrase of "Keeping up with the Joneses." I think it's on Amazon Prime.