Latest news with #vintageclothing
The Sun
4 days ago
- Business
- The Sun
I've made £18k in 7 months after losing weight & flogging my old clothes – my little-known site makes reselling easy
ARE you trying to flog your old clothes - but don't seem to be making any money? While most of us have heard of Vinted - where some have made a fortune of £18k - there are also other sites to check out. 2 2 This is what one savvy Brit, TikToker Jess, recently shared online after raking in close to £20k in less than a year. Jess, who posts under the username @ started selling items from wardrobe after an epic body transformation. As none of the old clothes no longer fit her, she decided to sell them online - before realising she had ''the bug for reselling ''. Reselling involves purchasing products from various sources , such as manufacturers, liquidators, individuals and charity shops, and then selling them at a higher price to generate profit. Resellers determine a price that covers their costs, for instance, the purchase price of the product and any shipping costs, and allows them to make a profit. They then sell these products through various channels, including Amazon, eBay, Etsy and Vinted. ''It started off small and I scaled it from there,'' said Jess who moved from her ''items to charity shops to wholesale''. As well as flogging the goods on Vinted, eBay and Depop, Jess also uses a little-known site to cash in - Whatnot. The ''vintage clothing reseller'' explained: ''Whatnot is a live auction selling website. ''They have an app [...] and it's a really, really nice platform with lovely people and lots of sellers, and lots of buyers. I've made £18k on Vinted & a hack means I don't have to hunt for bits I've sold ''What I will do is I will get all my items ready and I will show those items on the screen and then people will bid if they want to buy that item.'' According to Jess, you can start at different prices, such as £1, £3 and £5 - which is ''entirely up to you''. The site - where you can also feature the products front-and-center rather than showing your faces - also offers pre-paid shipping labels. Once you've made a sale, slap the label on the box and send it out for delivery. Do I need to pay tax on my side hustle income? MANY people feeling strapped for cash are boosting their bank balance with a side hustle. The good news is, there are plenty of simple ways to earn some additional income - but you need to know the rules. When you're employed the company you work for takes the tax from your earnings and pays HMRC so you don't have to. But anyone earning extra cash, for example from selling things online or dog walking, may have to do it themselves. Stephen Moor, head of employment at law firm Ashfords, said: "Caution should be taken if you're earning an additional income, as this is likely to be taxable. "The side hustle could be treated as taxable trading income, which can include providing services or selling products." You can make a gross income of up to £1,000 a year tax-free via the trading allowance, but over this and you'll usually need to pay tax. Stephen added: "You need to register for a self-assessment at HMRC to ensure you are paying the correct amount of tax. "The applicable tax bands and the amount of tax you need to pay will depend on your income." If you fail to file a tax return you could end up with a surprise bill from HMRC later on asking you to pay the tax you owe - plus extra fees on top. According to Whatnot, 48-72 hours after the order is delivered, you can cash out via direct deposit. It doesn't have to be just clothing you're tying to cash in from - the sellers flog electronics, collectibles, beauty, live plants, and more. Raving about the little-known site, Jess said in a video: ''I personally kind of think it kind of has revolutionised the way we resell things. ''The thing I love the most about it is that when I get my stock in, I can show it on the screen [...] and then you buy it. ''I post it out within a couple of days - so it really stops that whole issue of having to store items for a really, really long time.'' While there are plenty of pros, Jess also noted the platform does have its cons, such as the fees. Seller fees are as follows: 8% commission on the sold price of an item when it sells 2.9% + 30 cents (24p) payment processing fee for the entire transaction Payment processing applies to the subtotal, tax, and shipping price paid by a buyer for a given order The payment processing fee is not currently applied to any international shipping/taxes. ''But with a lot of reseller websites, there are fees anyway. ''The other cons can be the price points - you might not always get the same prices you would on things like eBay, Depop and Vinted.'' Jess also added under another video that she's ''registered as a sole trader and will pay tax during the self assessment window''.
Globe and Mail
5 days ago
- Business
- Globe and Mail
Savvy businesswoman Sandy Stagg helped spark a hip Toronto scene
Running her Antique Clothing Shop on London's Portobello Road in the 1990s and 2000s, Sandy Stagg was particular when it came to the touching of dainty vintage garments for sale. 'This is a two-handed shop,' she would tell customers in no uncertain terms. 'Be gentle and put your bags down. If not, get out!' The rule applied to all, dames included. The great actress Maggie Smith entered the store in 2002 in full film-star disguise: hat, silk scarf and huge sunglasses. When she pawed one-handedly at a rail of Victorian blouses, Ms. Stagg read her the riot act. To which Ms. Smith lowered her shades, uttered 'Indeed!' and walked straight from the shop. 'Sandy was so impressed she laughed for hours,' said her friend, Jo Headland, a seamstress and salesperson hired by Ms. Stagg. 'Sandy was infamous for being rude to her customers, in a way that only a fabulously dressed Englishwoman could be.' Ms. Stagg, from London's working-class neighborhood of Shepherd's Bush, had come to Toronto in 1968 with a lot of nerve, a sewing machine and a Canadian husband who would not be her partner for long. She would establish herself as a savvy restaurateur, pioneer trader in second-hand garb, model and beautiful muse of the General Idea arts collective, cutting-edge scene starter, skilled gardener, pale gamine about town, dog lover, enthusiastic party person and patroness of the arts. She returned to Shepherd's Bush in 1988 to look after her ailing mother, whose landlord wanted her out of a rent-controlled flat. Ms. Stagg was having none of it. 'I'm here and we're staying,' she told him. Ms. Stagg stayed until 2008, when she sold the Antique Clothing Shop and returned to Toronto to live out the rest of her life. She died from the effects of a stroke at Toronto Western Hospital on May 28. She was 84. Ms. Stagg was different things to different people in Toronto. Some shopped at her popular Amelia Earhart Originals, a small vintage clothing store on Charles Street off Yonge Street (and later in Yorkville). Others dined and hung out at her hip restaurants: Peter Pan (which helped spark the Queen Street West art and music scene of the late 1970s and early 1980s) and Fiesta. The grooviest people did both. 'She dressed a lot of the people who came to eat at her restaurants,' said artist AA Bronson, the last surviving member of Toronto's groundbreaking General Idea trio. 'I don't think one can simplify Sandy, but above all she was interested in people and helping people make things happen.' When the General Idea artists would throw ideas around the dinner table, Ms. Stagg encouraged and facilitated their audacious notions. 'Next thing you knew, you'd find yourself in Vancouver or New York or on top of the CN Tower doing something,' Mr. Bronson said. 'Sandy was a magnifying glass. She took whatever was going on and blew it up into something bigger and more interesting.' At her clothing boutiques in Toronto and London, Ms. Stagg elevated second-hand attire to high-fashion status. She had a magpie's eye for lovely, discarded things and the entrepreneurial flair to exploit the finds. While in London, she would visit Toronto on shopping trips. Once, she found a disassembled dress at a boot fair that was made by French designer Madeleine Vionnet. Ms. Stagg purchased it for $13 and took it back to London where she and her assistant, Ms. Headland, pieced it back together with traditional couture stitches and vintage silk thread. The reconstituted garment graced the cover of a Doyle Auctioneers & Appraisers catalogue and sold for $35,000, according to Ms. Headland: 'It was typical Sandy, saving something and building it back to money-spinning glory.' The reclamations of Ms. Stagg extended to cool eateries. She and two partners took the Art Deco greasy spoon Peter Pan Lunch, got rid of the grease and updated the spoon. The Globe and Mail restaurant critic Joanne Kates praised the just-opened place in 1976 for its rare marriage of trendiness and friendliness and its 'intelligently limited' culinary aspirations. 'It has obviously been very carefully put together by people who understand that the best way to exploit nostalgia is to avoid exploiting it,' Ms. Kates wrote. Though Ms. Stagg enjoyed vintage objects, old fashions and retro culture − she jitterbugged with the best of them − she hardly lived in the past. 'Sandy read about history for research purposes, not pleasure,' said her one-time romantic partner and longtime friend, the architect Paul Oberst. She not only listened to the new sounds of the day but supported and befriended the musicians. Ms. Stagg danced to disco, vibed to new wave, was pals with Rough Trade's Carole Pope and dated singers from influential Toronto punk bands the Diodes and the Viletones. 'She was interested in whatever was going on,' Mr. Oberst said. 'We went to see Roxy Music, Bob Marley and Elvis Costello, all at Massey Hall, I think.' The New York art rockers the Talking Heads were introduced to Ms. Stagg and the Peter Pan crowd through two influential Toronto modern art hubs, A Space and Art Metropole. 'Sandy took us under her wing and made us feel part of that world – a crazy and wonderful world that sadly no longer exists,' Talking Heads singer David Byrne said in a statement to The Globe. 'A reminder that a person, or just a handful of people, can be a catalyst that enables all sorts of people to come together and interact − at least for a while. What she did was special." In her later years, Ms. Stagg was a 'feisty old lady' devoted to her backyard garden, according to artist and close friend Charles Pachter. 'Sandy would beam and talk about her roses and peonies and the birds in her garden,' Mr. Pachter said. 'It made her happy.' Ms. Stagg cultivated scenes, friendships and flowers with a maestro's touch. Though a style icon, she believed that fashion should not be considered separate from food, furniture, music or politics. 'She takes an interest in observing how fashion functions as a code of being,' The Globe's David Livingstone wrote of her in 1984. 'Glamour, as a thing of the spirit; style, as a matter of soul.' She was born Sandra Penelope Newton on Oct. 3, 1940, in Dorset, England, at a manor converted to a maternity hospital for evacuated Londoners during the Blitz. Her parents were theatre carpenter Thomas Newton and seamstress Dorothy Newton (née Burke). They raised their only child − a much older stepbrother died in 1960 − in a rented flat in London that had a bomb shelter and a lemon tree in the backyard. Her dad was an air raid warden near the end of the Second World War. 'That is why they had a telephone, and she was always very proud of having one of the first telephones in Shepherd's Bush,' Ms. Headland said. 'Also, she loved sitting in the basket of her dad's bicycle and being taken to see the bomb sites.' She attended Godolphin and Latymer School, an expensive private day school for girls in Hammersmith, West London, that in 1951 became state-supported and ceased to charge fees to pupils. By 1960 she was married, in a gown she had made with her own hands, to John Stagg, a friend of her father's. 'He was much older and she only married him to keep her dad happy,' Ms. Headland said. They lived in the parents' flat in Shepherd's Bush until Ms. Stagg left her husband after four years of marriage. Though she would go one to enjoy a glamorous lifestyle, Ms. Stagg took pride in her gritty British upbringing and looked up to John Lennon, a lowly Liverpudlian who as a member of the Beatles became a celebrated person in a class-conscious society. Without him, she told The Globe in 1984, 'I would not be who I am today.' Though she is not known to have crossed paths with Mr. Lennon, the anti-establishment figure who released Working Class Hero as a solo artist was an inspiration to many of her generation. 'The world had changed somewhat in the 1960s,' Ms. Headland said. 'A working-class Brit could make their way in the world and not be ashamed of their roots.' In 1966, Ms. Stagg met and married a Canadian in London, Bud Petersen. Two years later, they moved to Toronto, where their suburb-dwelling marriage would dissolve. She headed downtown to begin her eclectic career. She made costumes for the maverick Global Village Theatre company and created one-of-a-kind shirts for the Brick Shirt House. At a flea market outside the Church of the Holy Trinity, now surrounded by the Eaton Centre, she sold clothing brought from London or bought cheaply at Salvation Army thrift stores. 'She could look at a huge mound of old clothes and spot a designer number from 50 yards,' General Idea's Mr. Bronson remembered. Gravitating to the city's nascent avant-garde art scene, she was a fashion designer for General Idea. Her image appeared in many of their projects. Ms. Stagg had a flair for the theatrical gesture. Intending to move her Amelia Earhart Originals boutique from Yonge Street to the ritzy Yorkville shopping neighborhood, she was informed by a city inspector that a bylaw prohibited the sale of second-hand goods in the former village of Yorkville. 'Sandy quickly made an appointment with the boss of the bylaws and went to his office on the 10th floor of City Hall,' Mr. Oberst recalled. 'She marched straight from the door to the plate-glass window, turned dramatically and said, 'I may as well throw myself through this window if I can't keep my business!' The stunned bureaucrat saw to it that the bylaw was changed. Her vintage clothing shop in London drew celebrity fashionistas John Galliano, Jean Paul Gaultier, Stella McCartney, Alexander McQueen and model Kate Moss. Fashion designer Paul Smith was chased down the road by Ms. Stagg as he left with his purchase. Because his credit card didn't work, she grabbed back the bag containing a pair of men's brogues. 'He had to send someone the following Friday to pay and pick them up,' Ms. Headland recalled. 'I think he was terrified of Sandy.' In her final days, Ms. Stagg, who had no children, was looked after by a group of friends − dubbed Team Sandy − that included Mr. Oberst and Erella Ganon. One of the visitors was the great Toronto singer Mary Margaret O'Hara. 'She came to the hospital and the two of us sang songs to Sandy at her bedside,' Ms. Ganon said. 'It was beautiful.' You can find more obituaries from The Globe and Mail here. To submit a memory about someone we have recently profiled on the Obituaries page, e-mail us at obit@
New York Times
24-05-2025
- Business
- New York Times
A Veteran Vintage Dealer Tries On Manhattan
'The New York eye is the best,' said Tommy Dorr, the owner of Mothfood, a vintage clothing business that this month opened a showroom in Lower Manhattan. 'I mean, people here have the best taste in clothes.' Mr. Dorr, 43, is originally from Michigan, where he got his start as a vintage seller working at a bowling alley turned flea market in the late 1990s. Since then, he's started a few of his own ventures, including Lost and Found, a shop he has kept open just outside Detroit since 2003. Mothfood is probably the project for which New Yorkers know him best, largely because of the Instagram account Mr. Dorr used to establish the brand more than a decade ago under the same name. 'I don't even remember why I picked it, but it's just a great tongue-in-cheek kind of name,' said Mr. Dorr, who considers it a good litmus test for customers. Are you in on the joke, or do you find the notion of moth-eaten clothing kind of, well, gross? He likes garments that are well worn — sun-bleached jackets, paint-splattered denim and hole-y T-shirts. Historically, they have not been everyone's thing. But over the years, Mr. Dorr has found a devoted following that counts celebrities, stylists, designers and everyday vintage hunters among its ranks. They are accustomed to ordering from his e-shop or visiting him in Los Angeles, where he opened the first Mothfood showroom in 2015. 'I've been wanting him to come to New York,' said Emily Adams Bode Aujla, a New York designer and friend of Mr. Dorr's who has been buying vintage pieces from him both for personal use and for her brand, Bode, for longer than either of them can remember. 'I think that I always have thought his business would do so well here, but I'm selfish,' she added with a laugh. Ms. Bode Aujla got her wish in April, when Mr. Dorr started moving into a 1,000-square-foot space on the second floor of a nondescript building on the corner of Allen and Canal Streets in Chinatown. On a recent afternoon, light poured in through a wall of windows, the door to the fire escape was cracked open, and Mr. Dorr was sitting in a gray armchair wearing a thrashed baseball cap and canvas shorts, appreciating some quiet moments before he invited customers into the space. The shop, like his Los Angeles location, is appointment only. It's a casual system: Anyone who wants to come by can reach Mr. Dorr by email through his website, or shoot him a direct message on Instagram. (Though Mr. Dorr warns that direct messages risk getting lost in the shuffle.) The goal isn't to exclude anyone, Mr. Dorr said, but rather to make the shopping experience more intentional. When he experimented last year with a pop-up in Williamsburg, in the former location of Chickee's, the vintage shop run by Kathleen Sorbara, he found that the foot traffic was mostly people biding their time while they waited for tables at nearby restaurants. 'Most of my good customers were ones I already knew,' Mr. Dorr said, or people who had set out deliberately to check out the brick-and-mortar version of his Instagram account. Lately, more intimate retail experiences are on the rise in New York, with some shopkeepers eschewing more traditional storefronts by inviting shoppers into their studios or even to their apartments. 'There's a value to these places because I think people want privacy in general,' added Llewellyn Mejia, who opened the Allen Street showroom with Mr. Dorr. People like 'just being able to shop on their own,' he said, noting that appointment-only spaces were 'already booming.' The new Manhattan space is decorated with antique furniture and folk art Mr. Mejia sells from his shop Trinket. It is pleasantly filled — not crammed — with vintage clothing spanning the 20th century. Faded Made in USA Levi's, silky-soft threadbare T-shirts and earth-toned cotton duck work wear are some of the shop's forever staples. But Mr. Dorr is eager to cater to his New York base and bring in a wider range of styles that Los Angeles customers have been less interested in, like suiting and outerwear. 'You need to dress for weather here,' Mr. Dorr said. 'It's more interesting just as far as what you can sell here.' For now, though, he's looking ahead to summer, and an antique rack at the front of the showroom displayed a selection of 1930s Japanese hemp and linen suits ($995-$1,250). Mr. Mejia's home furnishings and objets d'art, including a hand-carved statue of a poodle ($450), were arranged on a gallery-style wall. Elsewhere, a 19th-century church pew served as a display for Mr. Dorr's stacks of vintage work wear double-knee pants. So far, visitors to Mr. Dorr's new showroom have included people from around the neighborhood, which is home to a vibrant crop of well-curated vintage stores like Leisure Centre and Desert Vintage. (Not to mention the robust community vintage institutions just across the East River in Brooklyn, such as Front General Store and Crowley Vintage.) A few stylists, costume designers and fashion world people he is friendly with have also dropped by. Mr. Dorr estimates that about 75 percent of his business is taken up by these industry types. He has supplied styles for period pieces like the recent Bob Dylan biopic 'A Complete Unknown,' and has helped dress musicians including Boy Genius and Paramore. Though he sources mainly men's clothing and sizing, his customers are pretty evenly split between men and women. One of his female clients is the filmmaker Durga Chew-Bose, who has been shopping with Mr. Dorr for about four years. While shooting her directorial debut feature film, 'Bonjour Tristesse,' she realized she needed some stylish but unfussy clothes for long hours on location in the South of France. Already foundational to her wardrobe were the soft blank T-shirts — especially in faded black — she has sourced from Mothfood over the years. 'Whenever I'm packing my suitcase, I pack all of the blanks that I have gotten from him,' Ms. Chew-Bose said. 'Basically I can't travel without them.' Getting overheated in the French summer sun, Ms. Chew-Bose reached out to Mr. Dorr for an emergency shipment of some extras. 'When I was shooting in France, I remember he found some for me to direct in, which I found really useful,' she said. In his showroom, Mr. Dorr walked around the racks pointing out some of his favorite pieces, like a simple cotton 1960s white dress shirt, a 1980s western-style Carhartt chore coat, a stack of 1990s Champion reverse weave sweatshirts, and a World War II-era anti-gas pullover with splatters of paint from its second life as a painter's smock. Over the last couple decades, the people interested in his finds have changed, he said. 'When I started, vintage was only for hipster kids and weirdos,' Mr. Dorr reflected. Nowadays, he added, the average vintage shopper is more likely to be 'just regular people.'
Daily Mail
24-05-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
Entrepreneur who made £1,200 on Vinted reveals genius 50p trick to increase sales
A Vinted seller has shared the '50p hack' that can increase sales on the fashion and beauty resale app. Zakia Moulaoui Guery has always loved vintage clothing, having spent her childhood scouring thrift shops in France with her mother. Now based in Edinburgh, Zakia, 37, uses the online thrifting app - that gained popularity among Gen Z and millennials during the Covid pandemic - to sell one-of-a-kind pieces from her own closet. Over the past two years, Zakia has earned £1,200 from the app - and picked up handy tricks to close a deal on the app along the way. For instance, if you find something is proving particularly difficult to sell, Zakia recommends reposting it with a price that's 50p lower than your original listing since 'reducing your items regularly works quite well'. This is especially helpful if you want to maintain your 'Frequent Seller' badge, she told The Sun, but don't have enough stock to flog. She explained: 'I always start by knowing what I would absolutely sell it for at a minimum, so that I can reduce the price if needed. Once it's posted online, I just want it to sell. 'So if I'm reposting, I knock off £1 or 50p. Reducing your items regularly works quite well.' The social entrepreneur, who runs a company that organises walking tours by people who have experienced homelessness, also shared some of her other tried-and-tested strategies to maximise earnings on Vinted. She recommended picking a niche so your shop front stands out to Vinted's 16 million users, with Zakia focusing her collection on 'vintage or retro-inspired pieces'. The founder of Invisible Cities also suggested looking through your wardrobe for branded items from labels like Cos or Uniqlo that don't fit your style, since these can go for a pretty penny on Vinted. Finally, she advised that Vinted isn't just for clothes; selling beauty and skincare products - so long as their unopened and still in their original packaging - can 'make a lot of money' as well. It comes after another ace Vinted user revealed the five most common mistakes first-time sellers make. In a clip titled 'How I made over £4k selling on Vinted', Chloe outlined the things you 'shouldn't be doing' if you want to make big bucks on the app. Chloe revealed her very first step is to always check the account that she is selling to or buying from as there are some 'scam accounts' floating around on the app. She said: 'The first thing that you shouldn't be doing on Vinted is not checking accounts. 'I call this 'account vetting' and if I'm buying or selling to somebody, I will go to their account and check their reviews, check their bio, check everything that there is to do with their account. 'If something feels a little bit dodgy, then I just either don't buy from them or I don't sell to them. 'This is so important because so many accounts are made to scam people now, so if they don't have any reviews, if their username looks really weird, if they have nothing in their bio or no picture, stay clear from these sorts of accounts. 'Please, please, please before you buy anything or before you sell to somebody, you need to make sure that it is a genuine account and that it is an actual person rather than a scam account.' Elsewhere Chloe revealed that you don't have to spend money on fancy packaging to send items. She said: 'Please, please, please do not buy the TikTok shop bags to ship your items in - please recycle. 'Ask your family, ask your friends, ask your partner, ask your neighbours, collect old packaging, because this is so much better for the environment and it really, really saves a lot of waste.' Chloe also stressed that it is very important to collect packages quickly and if you will be away get the package delivered to the house. She said: 'The third thing that you shouldn't be doing is leaving your parcels when you should be collecting them. 'Please, please, please, if you are a buyer, collect your parcel. 'I buy and sell on Vinted and if something is delivered to the parcel shop, I try and pick it up straight away, because I know how frustrating it is when you are a seller and you're waiting for somebody to pick up their parcel and they just don't.' She also urged Vinted sellers not to spray the clothes with perfume before they package them up. Finally, Chloe claimed it was very important to ensure that your bio was complete. She explained: 'The fifth and final thing that you should not be doing is leaving your bio blank. 'Fill in your bio, put a nice picture, put in a little bit of information about you.' Chloe said this makes sales 'a little bit more personal' and allows users to identify whether you are a real person or a scam account.
The Sun
21-05-2025
- Lifestyle
- The Sun
I saved £11k furnishing home with bargains including hot tub & sofa that should have cost £1,800 – how you can too
SCROLLING through the items listed for sale on Facebook Marketplace, Becky Chorlton's eyes suddenly widen with delight. She has just spotted a swanky Bosch fridge for the rock-bottom price of £15. 8 8 8 Messaging the seller, she snaps it up and within hours a gleaming fridge-freezer — which would have cost £599 if bought new — has pride of place in her kitchen. For Becky, bagging bargains is all about the thrill of the hunt. Every day, she logs on to Facebook Marketplace to track down furniture steals for her new house. To date, she says she has saved more than £10,000 on furnishing her three-bedroom cottage in Cheshire. She has found all sorts, including a dining table, TV cabinet, wardrobe, lamps, a rug — even a hot tub. The total cost of her purchases so far is just £700. 'I've always been into buying second-hand,' says Becky, 27. 'I'm obsessed with prolonging the life of anything and everything. 'I hate over-consumption. It's a good feeling to get a bargain and prolong the life of something that would end up in landfill.' Becky, who runs an online vintage clothing store, says she's inherited her thrift habit from her mum, Sandra, a retired receptionist. Her obsession stepped up a level 18 months ago when she and her boyfriend, Steffan Roberts, a 28-year-old outdoor activity instructor, moved into a rented house together. 'We were renting before buying a house together,' she explains. That's when her money-saving hobby started. 'We didn't have much money and didn't want to invest in furniture, so I started looking on Facebook Marketplace and other second-hand sites.' I made a DIY fence for £68 with pallets from Facebook Marketplace - it gives more privacy & people say it's 'fantastic' Becky and Steffan moved into their new house in March this year. One of the first must-haves Becky saw listed was a pine farmhouse-style, eight-seater dining table with matching chairs. A set like that would normally sell new for around £1,200 but this was going for just £150. Becky quickly snapped it up — on Facebook, naturally — and sent Steffan off in his van to pick it up. 'We've got an open-plan kitchen and the large dining table is perfect,' she says. 'It's one of our favourite things. It's on the list to sand down and repaint. It was really good value as well. Even second-hand tables can cost hundreds.' INCREDIBLE BARGAINS Yet Becky surpassed even her own expectations with the Stoves cooker that she found for £400 — a saving of £1,600 on the store price. Then came the high-quality Bosch fridge-freezer for £15. 'Our new kitchen didn't have an integrated fridge, so we desperately needed one,' she says. 8 8 'We found this one, which said 'like new' on Facebook and it was in such good condition. We just gave it a clean before we put any food in it.' Of course, the old fridge that came with the house didn't end up at the dump. 'We've put it in the garage, it's extra storage for food,' explains Becky. She says she has become so hooked that she isn't even prepared to pay full whack for a kettle. But incredibly, she found one that someone was giving away for free. Becky then turned her attention to the living room. Happily, a very comfy, neutral- coloured, L-shaped sofa had been left by the previous owners, along with a couple of chandeliers. 'The previous owners couldn't take it with them and they offered it to us,' says Becky. 'As first-time buyers, we jumped at the chance.' Becky then hunted down a TV cabinet on Facebook. 'It cost £65 and I was really happy with that,' she adds. 'It's a nice French style. I reverse-Googled the image and saw that it costs £650 new. 'I look everywhere, but for furniture, Facebook Marketplace is the best boutique. 'We tend to pick stuff up the same day when we've seen something we like — you have to be quick when you find a bargain.' A lamp she bought for £35 (£130 new), a coffee table for £10 (£40 new) and rug for £20 (£65 new), all from Facebook, have completed the look. Looking for furniture pieces for the garden, Becky then found a bench and bar stools, which were being given away. 'I'm so obsessed with the garden bench,' she says. 'It works perfectly as a place to sit and soak up the sun in the garden. 'The bar stools also help complete the country-cottage vibe that we wanted. 'I took off the original cushions and replaced them with new ones.' However, one item that Becky bought for the garden unfortunately turned out to be a mistake. 8 8 Her Lay-Z-Spa hot tub, which retails at £330, had seemed a bargain at £70. 'We cleaned it thoroughly, but it was in a bad way,' she says. 'We ended up selling it for a bit more — I think around £100.' Becky says that the only items she and Steffan had paid the full retail prices for were the washing machine and dishwasher — to make sure they were covered by the product warranties if anything went wrong. It may take a while to find something that suits, but it's well worth the wait. One of the bargain buys Becky is most proud of is a lamp by the Italian luxury brand Natuzzi. Listed for just £35, it would have cost £1,000 if bought new. 'We weren't a fan of the lampshade, so we bought another one in a charity shop for £5,' she says. 'We used it in our old house, which had more of a retro, mid-century style. It didn't go with the style of our new house, so we sold it for £200 — so we made a bit of money.' Becky advises collecting an item you've bought online yourself to save on the cost of delivery. 'The kitchen table, for example, was around four hours away, but my boyfriend was willing to drive and pick it up,' she explains. Having now turned her attention to the main bedroom, Becky is holding out for the right find. 'You have to be patient,' she says. 'At the moment we're sleeping on a mattress on the floor. 'We'll know the right bed when we see it.' QUEST FOR A DEAL Becky's bargain quests don't stop at Facebook Marketplace. Two or three times a week, she visits car boot sales. 'I look for clothes, furniture, anything,' she says. 'Before we go, I'll change my location on Facebook, meaning I get a whole new bunch of furniture to browse. 'And if you buy something that's not the best decision, you can just sell it for what you paid.' Becky also travels up and down the country scouring charity shops for bargain buys. 'We tend to pick a town and go there to explore the charity shops,' she says. 'If we don't like them, we cross them off the list. Expensive towns tend to have more expensive price tags,' she adds, and advises: 'Be friendly to the staff — they may let you know when they're restocking.' 8 Becky explains that she bargain hunts in charity shops for her job selling vintage clothes online, and adds: 'I love it.' Her mum has recently been busy on Facebook's shopping section, too. 'My nan recently passed away and my mum is clearing out her house,' Becky says. 'She's listing everything on Facebook Marketplace — some of it's free as she just wants it to go to a good home.' What advice does Becky have for anyone wanting to follow her example? 'Be open-minded,' she says. 'It may take a while to find something that suits, but it's well worth the wait. 'Sometimes second-hand can be just as good — or even better — than buying new. 'And like me, you could save thousands.'
