First Apartment

So, i am getting my first apartment soon and wanted to get some advice from you all. With all new things, other people have done it before you and can give you some handy advice.


Thanks all for any tips :)

I know when I first moved out, my boyfriend and I were very gun-ho to get new everything. Then our parents talked sense in to us and told us to wait till he actually bought a house (if we were still together) to do that. So when we got our first apartment, they helped us out with giving us their old house supplies and I know we got a lot of free used stuff from craigslist, local paper, etc. Glad we did that now because things got stolen from the complex people doing checks, etc and things got stolen and broken from having parties and having people over.

We bounced around from apartments every 6 months when our lease was up since apartment living sucks around here. I ended up dumping him last year and figuring out who got what was a pain in the you know what!

We are /sorta/ back together now after being apart a year and so far so good. Doubt getting an apartment again will happen since that was the root of our money problems. We threw away soooo much money on a stinking apartment that we couldn't even call "ours" and that gave us some big problems. If we ever get serious again, it will be for real and no more playing around thinking we know what we are doing to just get away to live together and away from our parents. If everything goes as we hope it does... we will be looking into getting an actually house together.... but that will be years down the road.

Good luck!

Congrats!!

Check out http://www.whitefence.com/index.html?mrc=Gutilities to shop for utlities.

Oh this takes me back (I'm not say how far back either LOL), to my first night alone in my first apartment...it's a wonderful memory of finally feeling "grown up". :)


Now on a practical note....

- buy a good security chain and peephole if they aren't provided by the landlord, use them, EVERY time, EVERY day - the world is sadly full of creeps

- learn to budget, living on your own is far more expensive than anyone realizes the first time out of the nest

- call your mother! :D

- all your friends that still live at home will want to hang out, remind them garbage day is Wednesday and if their butts are at your place, they get that chore!

- invest in good pots and pans and a decent vaccuum

- buy good used furniture, your friends will spill stuff on it anyways so why waste good cash

- make sure there's room for your snakes and lizards

- call your mother! :D

LOL. I am pretty good at budgeting, unfortunately, the people I'm moving in with are not, so I'm going to have some work cut out for me. lol.

Aren't you a bit young to be moving out on your own? :confused:


That said...when I got my first apartment (I was going solo) I cruised garage sales for all the basics like dishes, pots n' pans, silverware, wall hangings, etc....and hit up the Goodwill stores for great deals on furniture that I never worried much about. It was a lot of fun shopping that way...got great stuff at unreal prices.

Congrats! Getting out of your parents' house is the first major step to adulthood! :D

A quick tip: buy furniture that is well-made and practical. What's funky and modern now might look ridiculous in a year or two. You can't go wrong with wood! Goodwill does have a lot of stuff that can be reupholstered quickly and will still be cheaper than something from, say, Pottery Barn.

Good luck!! :)

i love garage sales...and what my friends and i call hippy shopping...go out the night before garbage day and collect all the cool stuff you can find.

i am a bit young, but i have been supporting myself for a while, and i am going to community college and it is a 30 minute drive, so me and some friends are getting an apartment (of course with my father's permission) closer to campus so we don't have to spend so much money on gas.

Amy... you will be spending A LOT more money each month on rent, then you would be doing so on gas. You do know this right?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Amy05

i am a bit young, but i have been supporting myself for a while, and i am going to community college

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So you're at least 18, right?... that's not that young to be out.

Ah, moving into your first apartment :) I moved out at age 20, as my boyfriend (now fiancee!) and i wanted to get out of the city and live in the sticks. We spent nights and nights in the car with Penny Savers and News Classified ads, and must have visited 20 apartments before we found the one we liked. We loved it because it was a single house; lived there for a year about before we found the house we are renting now and upgraded.
I need to stress this: I work in collections, and I see people's fouling up budgets and it really can destroy your life financially. I urge ya to figure out just what you make a month, and what your expenses are; "vital" stuff like gas, electric, gasoline.. that has to come first. So many people get tempted by Best Buy and other retailers that will give a line of credit to anything with a pulse; skip some (or in some cases, just one!) payment on that, and it's collection city; balance due, fees, interest, argh.
I would be verrrrry careful on who you moev in with. people can steal, get lazy/slack off, live like a pig and screw ya over on the rent money. Personally, if mark were not financially responsible and independent before we moved, it never would have happened. Much better to grin and bear it with a parent (and contribute to their house also; room and board is usually much lower than rent/utilities, and even a little helps momsters and dadsters out.) Before I moved out, I would spend hundreds a year on clothing, buy any CDs, etc that I felt like getting; my friend and i went to denny's literally, every night and got as much food and drink as you could imagine. After that.. well, ramen noodles became a dietary staple.
Once you get things semi-figured out, then yuo will be glad that you thought it through.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by frankykeno

Oh this takes me back (I'm not say how far back either LOL), to my first night alone in my first apartment...it's a wonderful memory of finally feeling "grown up". :)


Now on a practical note....

- buy a good security chain and peephole if they aren't provided by the landlord, use them, EVERY time, EVERY day - the world is sadly full of creeps

- learn to budget, living on your own is far more expensive than anyone realizes the first time out of the nest

- call your mother! :D

- all your friends that still live at home will want to hang out, remind them garbage day is Wednesday and if their butts are at your place, they get that chore!

- invest in good pots and pans and a decent vaccuum

- buy good used furniture, your friends will spill stuff on it anyways so why waste good cash

- make sure there's room for your snakes and lizards

- call your mother! :D

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couldnt have said it better! lol. reptile room is a must. :sunny:

Yeah dont spend too much money on new stuff. Check craigslist free link first.

Ikea(if there is one around) will your best friend or can be your worst. Just grab what you need and dont look around, trust me. I find cheap stuff there. Like for example I went to find some snake hides and ended up buying other things for my room and spent a lot more than expected.

Best of luck. Cheers!

Since everyone has hit all the money and furniture points, I can think of some things that I forgot when I moved into my apartment. I was living in the dorms during the school year, and I used a friends furniture, but there were alot of little things I didn't think about. Like a shower curtain. haha And I had a trash can, but you may want one for the kitchen, one for the bedroom, the bathroom, etc. It's the little stuff you use every day, but just don't think about.

And have fun. I loved my crummy little apartment. I didn't konw anyone in town, and couldn't go home while I was there, but I loved it. It's so cool being able to have a space that you can call yours, even if it is only temperarory. The dorms don't count as your own space. haha^_^ Good Luck!!