When I moved into my first apartment after college, I had a mattress on the floor, a folding chair, and a card table that wobbled. That was it. I looked at furniture store prices and my bank account and realized I could afford approximately one lamp.

I furnished the entire one-bedroom — living room, bedroom, kitchen table and chairs, desk, bookshelf, lamps — for $487 total. Not with particle board junk that falls apart in six months. Real wood furniture. It took about three weeks of hunting. Here is the strategy.

The Facebook Marketplace goldmine

Search for “moving sale” and “estate sale” listings. People who are moving cross-country or clearing out a relative’s house are motivated. They need the furniture gone by Friday and they will take almost any offer. I got a solid oak dining table with four chairs for $40 because a couple was moving to Florida in two days and could not fit it in the U-Haul.

The key to Marketplace: set your search radius to 10 miles, sort by newest, and check multiple times a day. The best deals are gone within hours. If you see something good, message immediately with a specific pickup time — “I can pick this up today at 3 PM with cash” gets way more responses than “Is this still available?”

Watch for keywords: “solid wood,” “Amish,” “vintage,” “teak,” “mid-century.” These are the pieces that were built to last. Avoid anything with “particle board,” “MDF,” or “Ikea” in the description — those things do not survive a second move, and at that point you might as well buy them new.

Thrift stores (the right ones)

Not Goodwill — their furniture prices have gone up and the good stuff gets picked over fast. Go to Habitat for Humanity ReStore if there is one near you. They sell donated furniture, appliances, and building materials, and the prices are genuinely low. I found a solid wood desk for $25 and a floor lamp for $8.

Also check church thrift stores and small local charity shops in wealthy neighborhoods. The inventory is better and the prices are lower. The volunteers pricing things are not scanning eBay for market value; they just want to move stuff.

What to buy new (very short list)

Mattress. Never used. Bed bugs are not worth the savings. You can get a decent memory foam mattress in a box for under $200 on Amazon. The Zinus and Linenspa brands are fine for the price.

Upholstered anything. Couches and armchairs from strangers can have bed bugs, mysterious stains, or decades of pet hair embedded in the fabric. If you cannot inspect it thoroughly in bright daylight, skip it. Wood and metal furniture is fine — you can clean and disinfect it easily.

Everything else — tables, chairs, desks, bookshelves, dressers, nightstands, lamps, mirrors, kitchenware — can all be bought used for pocket change if you are patient and check Marketplace regularly.