Could you furnish a house for £50?

It is time to discard the UK's throwaway culture as the credit crunch bites. Daniel Wainwright aims to prove the best bargains come for free.

Watch the video to see how he did it!

Everything costs more these days. With first-time buyers still struggling to get on the property ladder despite the recent house price slump it seems almost impossible to even think about setting up a home.

Aside from the mortgage repayments, insurance and estate agents fees there's the problem of furnishing the flat or house.

And it doesn't come cheap. Or does it? What if you could get the furniture for free? Using the Express & Star's eCycle service I set out to do just that. I had four nights to prove that it can be done.

It works by allowing people to advertise their unwanted furniture for free as long as it would not cost anything to the person who collects it. Borrowing an empty house in Codsall Wood from estate agents Berriman Eaton I set out in a trusty Transit Connector van to see what I could pick up.

In just four nights I had to turn that empty house into a liveable home with all the comforts given to me completely free of charge.

The first order of business was to get myself a bed, otherwise it would be a pretty miserable and uncomfortable existence.

Using eCycle I got in touch with the Johnson family of Grosvenor Road, Ettingshall Park, who wanted to find a new home for their sofa bed and a perfectly serviceable colour TV.

They also offered me a working FM/MW radio and cassette player – I snapped their hand off. Every home needs music.

Next I visited retired aerospace engineer David Causer of Almond Close, Pelsall.

The 69-year-old has recently had some new furniture and had already given away his old hi-fi unit when I called about it. I was hoping to use it to house the TV and fill some of that empty space in the living room. Instead he offered me a G-Plan display case.

This type of furniture was everywhere in the 1970s and was generally seen as the height of good taste. It was the first furniture brand to be heavily advertised.

But times and tastes change and unfortunately for David he was unable to find anyone to take it off his hands.

He said: "I tried charity shops but they said they had lots of G-Plan furniture and couldn't take any more.

"It's still in good condition and I didn't want to throw it away when I knew someone would make good use of it. The only problem is you'd need a van to collect it and that's why it has sat here for a few weeks."

Of course the beauty of G-Plan is that the cabinets can be easily disassembled. Forget Ikea and its Alan keys, this just needed an ordinary screwdriver and a tiny bit of patience. The lamp still worked as well so if I ever find anything worth showing off the cabinet will really come into its own

A lady from Willenhall listed her round coffee table. When I went to collect it she also said I could take her old ottoman, once used as her children's toy box, and a desk lamp. I have never seen anyone with ottomans outside of the Black Country.

I remember having one as a child but if I mentioned them to people when I was at university they would stare at me blankly. A pattern was beginning to form. People getting rid of their old furniture would, sometimes, have something else they were happy to off-load.

As a struggling householder I was particularly grateful.

Now my bedroom was almost complete. The only thing missing was a wardrobe and a chest of drawers. But more pressing was the need for somewhere to sit in my lounge and enjoy my TV.

Karen from Pendeford had recently been through a divorce and knows all too well how difficult it can be to furnish a home quickly and on a budget.

The 37-year-old gave me her white sofa, a comfortable two-seater wooden frame with cushions that were still perfectly usable.

She said: "Some friends of mine had this sofa and brought it round for me. It was brilliant because it gave me a bit of time to get the money together to buy another one.

"They were given it by some friends of theirs when they moved house so it's been passed down the line a few times. For that reason I couldn't bare the thought of it just being dumped." Karen also gave me a superb pine bookcase and a neat, blue chest of drawers with just one knob missing which will ease my problems storing clothes.

My four dining chairs came from a pensioner in Cannock. While I was there she also offered me a neat little TV table. This meant I was able to keep the G-Plan unit out of the corner of the lounge where it would have blocked all my natural light.

The dining table was from a 91-year-old lady in Walsall. She lives in a two-storey house in Delves but has recently had to move everything downstairs because she's not as steady on her feet as she used to be.

"My bed is in my living room now so there's no space for the table. There is nothing wrong with it though and it would be a terrible shame if it went to waste."

The table had been listed on eCycle for a few weeks. It seems that most people do not want just tables or chairs on their own. But covered with a cheap cloth, at £4 the most expensive thing in the house, it was absolutely perfect for my front room. In my final few hours I managed to get hold of a fridge. It isn't ideal for my borrowed kitchen because it only stands about a foot tall, and can't hold much more than a pint of milk and a tub of butter.

But for the time being it is fine.

The gentleman in Codsall who gave it to me bought it for his son to use at university.

He said: "My son was finding things were going missing in the communal fridge in his halls of residence so I bought this for him to keep in his room. He's in his second year now and lives in a house with his friends so there's no need for it anymore. I could probably have sold it but it was £40 new so I didn't think it was worth it. It was just going to waste sitting in our garage."

In the end the only things missing were a wardrobe and a washing machine. Despite 14 wardrobes being listed on eCycle all of them had gone when I called. If I was planning to stay any longer I would keep looking, because it's only a matter of time before something perfect comes up.

And when it comes to the "waste-not-want-not" spirit, people in the Black Country and Staffordshire are evidently some of the most generous in the land.