Do I take my first apartment furnished or not?

Furnished is nasty. (my opinion) Not sure who and what has been done on it.
If you have furnishing, I say get unfurnished.
Will give you the feeling that it is your place.

At least get your own mattress, box spring, bedding and towels.

I would bring my own things. The extra amount it is a month for furnished, and you don’t even get to keep the stuff, doesn’t seem financially smart, in my mind. Plus, it would gross me out. But, if it were a temp thing, very short term..I’d consider it.

Unfurnished it is, thank youu’s.

Unfurnished. 1) You don’t know who’s done what on that couch, or with whom, or how often, or when it was last cleaned. YUCK. 2) when you move, you’re going to have to either A) find another furnished apartment (which is more yuck) or B) buy your own stuff anyway.

Take it unfurnished now, and start acquiring your own furniture. If family and friends are able to get you half way there with their hand-me-downs, great. Then you can buy whatever else you need, and slowly (when you have the funds) replace their hand-me-downs with your own purchases.

If it’s a short term deal you can buy whatever you need at Goodwill stores. I love ‘em. You can replace the stuff later at your leisure. (And redonate the items you are replacing.)

@Lupin has it. With my first apartment, it was empty except for me and my clothes, and food and computer. Then I got a desk from goodwill. My parents let me keep my mattress and an old couch. And I got a dresser and bureau from goodwill for 50$. [Remember that you can haggle with them, you don’t have to pay sticker price!] I got a coffee table, dining table, and chairs from a thrift store called The Hangar [you might not have this, but there are non-goodwill thrift stores everywhere].

And with my job and school going on, I started saving money and buying new furniture, replacing things one by one. It’s a good feeling having your own things.

I still envy my friend whose parents furnished his entire apartment with new furnishings. <jealousy> But the one solace I get is that the things I got were earned by me :)

I vote unfurnished.

Unfurnished. That way you don’t have to worry if you spill something on the couch, burn something, etc. And you can make it uniquely yours.

Unfurnished!

I had a lot of hand-me-downs, but slowly started replacing those things with new things. I went without things for some time, but you’d be surprised how quickly you might acquire the basic pieces.

My son furnished a temporary 4-room apartment for under $100 at thrift stores, some of it very respectable older wooden pieces that I will hate to see him part with when he moves. The shop delivered everything, carried it upstairs, and placed it for him. He’ll get a token amount when he sells it back, so it amounts to a rental for a few months—much better than taking whatever happened to be left behind, in whatever condition.

You can also get a lot of miles out of a few wooden or plastic crates or cubes and some ready-to-assemble particle board pieces.

Basically I did the same thing starting out, except that I shopped my parents’ basement. You can replace things gradually, and there’s always somebody for whom what you’ve got is better than what they’ve got, so you can sell or at least give away your old stuff. Meanwhile you are not sleeping on the floor, and you do get to make some choices. You might even find some gem you’ll keep forever.

If you want to find a thrift shop in your area go to this TheThriftShopper site . You enter your zip code and it displays all the shops in the neighborhood with hours and user ratings. I visit these shops where ever I travel and usually find something interesting with local flavor.
People discard and donate things for all sorts of reasons.
“One man’s ceiling is another man’s floor.”

Take it furnished for now. See how it goes, keep some money aside. Even the simple things you’ll need in this apartment (detergents and brooms and pans and whatnot) will cost a lot more than you can ever imagine. Perhaps not on the first day, but over a period of months for sure.

Try to set some money aside for furniture before you move next time. Then you could start with maybe a bed and a table, and whenever you have some extra cash go and buy an extra piece such as a mirror, a couple of nice chairs, maybe even a sofa. Depends on your finances obviously.

First apartment was partially furnished with junk.