How much? Just curious...

How much do you guys think it would cost to kit out a new house from scratch? I mean moving into a 4 bedroom/2 living area home and you have to get EVERYTHING for it new and reasonable quality stuff, not really expensive designer but not bargain basement either. Mum and I were having a debate this morning- she thought it would be alot more than I did.

We have a figure of how much we are going to set aside to do this when we move back and Mum thinks we will need way more than we have decided. I won't say how much, I just want to get an idea of what everyone thinks so I can decide if we're being unrealistic or not.

If you need beds (3k ea per queen/king); fridge (2k); microwave; kitchen stuff; lounge stuff; TV; kiddie stuff - gosh I'd say maybe $40k if you are careful. It's amazing how money goes. When we bought our house, we already had most of the stuff but still spent $10k of furniture, lawnmower, heaters etc. It's amazing the amount of stuff you can buy (but may not really need)!

We got a decent wooden queen bed for $120 brand new from canary furniture in chch, and I think the mattress was only about $600, you just need to shop around for bargains. We got all our lounge stuff, dining table, coffee table, tv cabinet, bookcase and sideboard for $2000, its all solid remu (sp) and was on sale at smithcity. We did however blow $3k on a sofa but that was excessive and a bit unneccesary (is a really nice sofa though)

Have a look on some of the insurance company web sites, they often have calculaters to help you figure out how much contents insurance you need - so that could be a good way of figuring out a rough figure.

When we went to the UK we only took one suitcase and one backpack each, and we were lucky to live in nice furnished flats, but we did buy lots of things that added up in terms of costs, and its the little things that you need that seem to end up costing - tea towels, sheets, mugs all those sorts of things!

I would say if you stuck to a budget you would be able to do it with 20k.

Thanks guys- I don't feel to foolish then. I was saying we could do it for 35k ish and Mum thought we'd be lucky to get it for any less than 60k. I thought she was being pretty ridiculous and looks like most of you think less than that too.

We have just kitted out our house here on the cheap for £3k. Everything is new but pretty budget but it only needs to last 3 years before we come back- I want to get decent stuff when we get back.

Heres what I've allowed:

Lounge Suite 3000
Entertainment Unit 800
Coffee Table 600
Dining Suite 1500
Buffet 800
Bookcase 800
Desk set 400
Extra Sofa 1000
Main bedroom suite 3500
Girls room suites 4000
Guest bed 1000
Outdoor set 1300
TV 2500
Stereo 800
DVD 700
Fridge Freezer 2000
Washing Machine 1000
Dryer 800
Microwave 800
plus 9-10k for extras like Towels,Bedding,Kitchen stuff etc That all added up comes to just over 35k.

Obviously some things will be a bit more expensive than I've allowed and others might be a bit cheaper but is there any huge cost that I've forgotten? Or way underestimated?

Our contents are also insured for just over $60k including some pricey jewelery. Def see if you can get that booklet from State it is great.

Also if you buy a lot of stuff from the same place you might get a discount

Our contents are insured for $60,000 - however, neither Nat or myself think what we have is actually worth that much! To replace new for old, we worked out we'd need about $45k including all furniture, clothes, toys etc. Might change a little now there's going to be 4 children instead of 3. The main reason our contents insurance is so much higher than what we require is that was the minimum contents insurance amount to get no excess on (Josiah's) glasses.

Just looking around my house I'd say between $35-40k without including outdoor furniture, bbq or spare room. I'm not sure if you have forgotten or just don't want one but I think every mum needs a dishwasher($1k) that's thge first thing I'll buy when we own our own home!