Splurge Vs Save: What’s Worth Investing In Within The Home

As we’re just a few months away from starting to view houses we’ve started to think about what we want inside the house. I’ve started to do some mood boards of decorative ideas which are going to be one of my favourite parts of getting a house. But it’s the bigger things that we’ve started thinking about. There’s going to be a lot to buy when we move as we sold a lot of our older furniture when we moved out of the flat. And we’re going to do a complete kitchen renovation so we’ll need all the white goods.

As we’re going to need to buy a lot it’s left me thinking which bits we’re happy to splurge on, and which items we can save on. We’re fully aware we won’t be able to buy everything we want to begin with. But we don’t want to do everything on the cheap and have to replace things a few years down the line. Here are some of the items we’re thinking about; splurge vs save.

Kitchen splurges: White goods

When we’ve been pricing up getting a kitchen done it’s amazing how many white goods you’ll need. A fridge/ freezer, oven, hob, extractor fan, washing machine, tumble drier, and dishwasher. That’s a lot of products. But it’s an area we don’t want to scrimp on because they’re such key items that we want to last. Having been at my parents with a single shelf in the fridge, and no freezer space we want to get a huge American style fridge freezer. And I love the idea of getting a washing machine where you can add extra items in even once it’s started. As I’m pretty bad and always end up missing a sock when doing the washing.

I never had the chance to influence these items in my old flat as they were all built-in. But they’re things we’ll use a lot so we’re planning on splurging to get what we want.

Kitchen save: Cabinets

Yes, we want decent cabinets but for me, I feel it’s more about the drawers and how you organise than the actual cabinets. We’re going to be more than happy to go Ikea and get our cabinets from there. Especially as Luke and his dad can fit them for us so less money on labour *yay*. Looking at prices in somewhere like Ikea versus somewhere that specifically sells kitchens is absolutely crazy. We’d rather spend more on the electrical goods, and a decent work surface to make sure it lasts than the cabinets themselves.

Another kitchen splurge: Boiling water tap

We may save money by not having to buy a kettle, but we want to splurge on a boiling water tap. This might seem a little silly considering neither of us drinks tea or coffee. But this is more from a cooking perspective. Imagine knocking up pasta and being able to put boiling water straight in the pan rather than waiting for a kettle to boil.

We also want to have reasonably minimal space on the worktop, so this means we won’t clutter things with a kettle in the way.

Splurge vs Save on TV’s

As we’re going to have a lot more rooms we’re going to need to buy more TV’s. Specifically one for our living room, and one for our bedroom. But we’re going to go to pretty much extremes with these and splurge on a living room TV as this is where we’ll watch it the most. This is where we’ll cuddle up and watch a movie, or sit and watch Saturday night TV. And it’s also where we’ll watch things with guests and friends. So we don’t mind splurging on good quality, long-lasting TV for here.

Whereas I don’t feel like we’ll watch the TV in our bedroom anywhere near as much. It will mainly be for Saturday and Sunday morning YouTube watching when we can’t be bothered to get out of bed. So as long as the one in our bedroom is flat enough to not stick out from the wall and is an alright size we’re planning to save here.

Office splurge: Desk chair

I already know which desk chair I want from made.com and it’s about £179 (isn’t it gorgeous?!) Which for a desk chair seems like a lot of money really, but it’s in a space I’ll use a lot. I sit at my laptop working for long periods of time so having something comfortable with good support is really important. Plus I’ve never really had office space before. I’ve always worked on the sofa or the dining room table. So this will be a first for me.

As the room will also be the one room which is totally mine I want to make sure it looks good as well. And the one I want is grey velvet with rose gold detailing. So what’s not to love.

Office save: Sofa bed

We’re already going to have a double bed in our spare bedroom, but I want to maximize the amount of space we can accommodate guests in. So I thought having a sofa bed in my office would mean someone can sleep there if needed. But then it also gives me a nice seating area in my room.

But this isn’t something I feel I need to spend much on as I don’t think it will be slept on very often. It will mainly be if there’s a time when both our parents come round. As one will get our bed and another in the spare bedroom so it’s somewhere we can sleep. Or at say Christmas when we may have loads of guests.

How do you decide what to splurge on in your house?

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