Well we have been here a year and the total value of all our furniture is probably about $300. actually i'm very tempted to sit down and add it all up.
Most of it is secondhand but there are a few new items (like my daughters new desk) I'm quite happy to put a little effort in to tidy a piece of furniture up and "make it my own" and feel that the time spent doing that is probably equal to the time and effort of researching and haggling prices plus all the petrol costs of running around the stores must add up.
Its nice to have the furniture around even if its not in tip top brand new condition and this way we can replace items with the perfect pieces we fall in love with little by little and probably still sell the old item for the same or more than we paid for it.
I think the most expensive item we've bought so far was our Queen bed at approximately $70.
Theres only two pieces of furniture that i regret not bringing, my daughters toddler bed (which was ironically a freebie from Freecycle) and the desk i made for GCSE at school, those items had sentimental value which cannot be replaced.