What advice would you give a young adult about to move out?
I am asking this question because the young adult in question, is me. I am to move out in a few years, and it feels impossible to move far away from my hometown (which I want). I have no idea how to juggle both finances, a job, and the move itself. With the global inflation going on, it feels impossible getting hold of a decent apartment to rent.
What advice would you give someone like me? What should I keep in mind and prepare* myself for? What are your experiences moving out, or moving away from your hometown? How long did the process take for you, and how did you manage keeping a job that paid all your taxes and rent? If you could look back and give younger you some advice, what would you tell them?
(If it provides any context, I am North European.)
Lots of advice here already, so I'll mention one that is overlooked by a lot of people: learn to cook for yourself at home. You will save a lot of money and be more healthy in the process if you prepare your own meals.
Came here to say. Learn to cook, learn to sew, learn basic plumbing and carpentry.
Sewing is good but basic plumbing and carpentry can wait until the OP is is a position to buy a home. Learning how to make your landlord do necessary repairs without getting evicted (and being aware that this may be impossible) is a more important skill for a tenant.
And learn what basic plumbing really is. The second you question whether you should be trying something you should probably stop and ring a pro.
Also to add, don't attempt any electrical stuff beyond rewiring a plug. A mistake with plumbing would cost you a fair bit of money, a mistake with electricity costs your life.
Yes; my advice was going to be to get hold of one decent cooking pot and one decent chef’s knife and learn to cook.
Prepping my own food and being able to bulk cook meals for a few days to a few weeks ahead was a big advantage. Also helped me to get to know people and make friends.
You need a decent pot. And a knife you can maintain and sharpen. And to learn to cook.
@C4d @scytale It's nice when people actually know how to take care of a knife. It's WAY MORE IMPORTANT to know how to cook, shop, and plan meals, but there are two basic things you should know:
- Don't drag the blade along the fucking cutting board! Stop it. Use the back (spine) instead when pushing food off
- Swipe it along the honing rod at a 15-30 degree angle every now and then when you notice it feeling sluggish or dull - look it up if you're not sure
Buy a plunger before you need it.
Is that a US thing? In my 45 years the only time I've experienced a clogged toilet was when my sister tried to flush a stuffed giraffe. The giraffe hadn't even done anything wrong. Traumatized and wet, it survived.
Not a US thing, a risk/reward thing. Even if you only see a clogged toilet once every 10 years, to know you could have fixed it in 2 seconds if you owned a $10 thing vs letting it sit and stink up your house while you run to the store to get a plunger is not a risk worth taking. Even worse, maybe your family has normal sized poops, but a friend of yours doesn't. They tend to clog up toilets more often than average. They might have a poop knife at home to break it up and allow it to flush more easily, but you don't. Now they clogged your toilet while you have company over, and instead of being able to fix it themselves in 2 seconds, and they have to embarrassingly ask where your plunger is, and worse, if you don't have one, you have to leave in the middle of your fancy dinner party to go get a plunger from the store.
It's a one-time purchase of a trivial amount of money. It doesn't take up much space and can sit behind your toilet. It will last for the rest of your life. Why would you not own one when you consider the alternative? The upside of owning one is massive, the downside of owning one is minimal. The upside of not owning one is minimal, the downside of not owning one is massive.
Just buy a plunger, if not for you, for your guests. I haven't clogged my own toilet since I was a dumb kid and put printer paper down there. But my guests or my guests children may have.
don't get cable tv
Find ways to take pleasure in activities that have 0 cost, and are social.
Exercise with friends in a public park. Develop good health.
Community events like public concerts and shows.
Walking around public galleries and free art museums.
Poverty feels like a trap when you are isolated. Break the isolation and it can be a formative and empowering period.
One I haven't seen mentioned here is familiarize yourself with tenancy laws in the place you want to move to. It is always good to know your rights, and with landlords these days, you have to be as savvy as you can. A lot will come from experience, but knowing what they're allowed to do or not do is priceless.
If you don’t need to for safety or sanity, don’t. Now is a bad time to try and set out on your own.
If you must move out from your parents, find someone to do it with, not a romantic partner but a platonic one that you can be good roommates with (maybe harder than finding a romantic partner lol). Going alone these days is near impossible unless you’re already well off me have a healthy safety net, something most people don’t have today.
He's from northern europe so the government most likely provides him a safety net. I'm also from northern europe and I had no problem moving on my own and start studying without any savings.
Make sure you have a towel. I say this as a guy who dried off after showers with an old tshirt the first week after I moved because I am a great planner.
Extend that to other less glamorous essentials. Think about the mundane things you use daily that blend into the background.
Entire books have been written on this subject, always know where your towel is.
Lots of good advice in this thread. My contributions are to say don't move in with friends you aren't willing to lose. I did it despite the warnings and it turned out terribly. I can't say I regret it but depending on how the situation turns out for you it could range from losing someone youve been close to for most of your life to downright traumatic.
Don't be afraid of renting rooms for a while (as a male, can't say that's a good idea for women or people in marginalized groups). It's cheaper, less binding, and frees up some funds to develop other areas such as reliable transportation, good furniture, etc.
Take your time finding a place and be realistic with what you can afford. Being on your own is expensive and it's important to make sure you're moving somewhere you actually want to live and that will give you access to the things you need. Be it groceries, good job prospects, or education.
I'm from the US so I'm not sure how things are in your country but it's rough out there. Take the time you have now to figure out a career field that you'd want to work in and that would provide the income for you to be financially independent. Immerse yourself in the culture and structure of that group. Find community pages, forums, websites and programs. Read it all and get an idea of what you'll be getting yourself into. You may become aware of adjacent industries or specialties within that field that interest you more than the job you were originally thinking about.
Best of luck!
be safe and well! :)
Learn the renters rights in your area, like commit it to memory, there are plenty of people who will take advantage of your inexperience or just think you won't make a fuss if they do something illegal that harms you or refuse to give you your deposit/ect. When you get your lease, actually sit down and read it, save it to a google drive, be able to pull it up whenever. I can't tell you the multitude of times its saved me, plus, if someone tells you you can't have your deposit back for x,y,z, ask them for an itemized list of damages, in the us they must provide it, and every one that seems flimsy or is wrong, send them back that you "dispute this charge" and proof if you have it, take pics or HD video when you move in of everything
Budget plan before you move out. Try to gauge what you realistically can expect to earn, write down all recurring expenses that you can already gauge, try to buy your own groceries for a few weeks just to get a feeling for what stuff actually costs and what you'll need.
Realistically, the only item where you can actually move the needle is rent. So given the spreadsheet above, you can calculate how much you can spend on rent.
And do yourself a favor: don't budget on edge unless you really really have to. It's better to drive a few minutes longer each day, then to spend 10% more on rent. Washing machines break, bikes get stolen, etc
I learned all these lessons the hard way, they are not fun lessons to learn. You will kick yourself later if you also learn them the hard way. First, get a job, today. Work experience before it is necessary will make many many things much easier than hitting everything all at once. As someone else previously stated, make a REALISTIC budget. Realistically, you will likely be making minimum wage. You should also start paying for things yourself so you know the true costs.
You will likely need to stay in a cheap motel in the new city before anyone will give you a job there, and no one will give you a job there if you don't have a place to live. Additionally, no one will let you rent there if you don't have a job there. This means you will need to save about 3 months budget before moving into the seedy cheap motel in the new city (start now).
When looking for a place to rent, find one that you can afford by yourself, then get a roommate if desired. Having a place you can only afford with a roommate, and them then moving out, makes you homeless. If you always plan for the worst (and hope for the best), you won't be caught with your pants down. Please note that generally the cheaper side of town is the more dangerous side of town. If you know anyone that lives there, ask them what parts of town to stay away from.
I'm unsure of how credit/history works in your country, but get a (singular, one, JUST ONE) credit card. Use it ONLY once a month and ALWAYS pay it off EVERY month. I was not that smart. Everyone told me that, and I didn't listen. Now I'm still paying off debts over a decade later. If you don't listen to anything else, please take this point to heart. $100 is not a lot to have, but it is a lot to owe. If you want something, save for it.
That said, don't buy it as soon as you have enough, you need to keep a good chunk in your savings account for emergencies (car broke down, lost your job, getting evicted because your landlord wants to rent it for 3x the price, etc). You should have a minimum of one months expenses saved at all times. I would recommend 3 months worth, but I know how hard that is (still try though).
Start saving for a house and retirement as soon as possible. Put it in a bank/credit union that is easy to put money into, but hard to take it out of. Personally, I put it in a credit union that I can have my main bank send a check to, but can only get the money out in person, Monday through Thursday, from 10am to 4pm.
Learn to cook now. Learning to cook without a teacher is hard. Not knowing how to cook makes buying groceries hard.
Lastly, I don't recommend a financial planner. They are not free. The person who suggested it brought up retirement, the fact is, no one has any idea what you will need for it by the time you are eligible. Look at any ~70 year span, and then look at the retirement retirements at each end. The only thing you can know about what it costs to retire is that it will be a lot more than what your parents need.
@Thanatos931 @clark Worth noting that all of this is dependent on housing being attainable. Here in Victoria, :canparrot: rent for a room is often $1000CAD - nobody gets their own place unless they work full time, and well above minimum wage.
Your best bet in this situation is to get a room in a house full of people you like being around, and stay there as long as possible. If you've got a place to yourself, stay there. If you can live healthily with your parents, stay there.
Came here to say learn to cook and always check Youtube before you give up.
Once talked to a younger kid who had just moved out, they were complaining that the cost of a BLT sandwich delivered to their house everyday for lunch was a crazy expensive 9ish dollars at the time, roughly their hourly wage. Yea, of course it is. 7-9 dollars will buy all of the ingredients to make that yourself all week (2015 dollars).
Youtube can teach you a lot more about cooking than a recipe and vague instructions alone. This is a fun channel I discovered during Corona Quarantine.
In addition, always check Youtube for tutorials/DIY videos before you call any repair service, even if it's covered by your rental agreement. Couple winters ago I was able to kick-start our furnace instead of waiting for the landlord to do something. You can practice on someone else's stuff before you get your own place; or, if you don't feel confident trying to fix it yourself see what should be done by whoever shows up.
Edit: and also have a box of cash you never touch, one day you will need it
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
fun
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
corollary to this is NEVER EVER DO YOUR OWN ELECTRICAL WORK AS AN AMATEUR. replacing an outlet plug is one thing, anything more complicated than that and you're best served hiring a professional so you don't die.
otherwise go nuts
Valid caveat.
Wise of you to seek out advice and plan this far ahead. I’ve moved many times and have learned a thing or two.
First, savings. Don’t minimize them. It’s always crucial to live within your means and have cash set aside. Everything costs more than you think. The move, the new place, the getting settled into a new place. Jobs may not work out. Bottom line, do whatever you can to have some savings and quickly replenish it if you have to dig in.
Second, housing and transportation. Usually the two biggest out of pocket costs. Moving to a new area means you don’t know exactly where you want to live or what commutes are tolerable and where is worth living. So find something you’re comfortable with, but don’t overspend or get too committed. I love being close to work so I don’t have a long commute and will take a much smaller place to do so. I also don’t like living with roommates, so I often cut back transit costs and other expenses to live alone. If you don’t mind living with others, you can save a lot of money. But do not be house or car poor. See the first point.
Third, furnishings and getting settled in. It will take time. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself to create a picture-perfect home or have a big groups of friends right away. These things take time, especially to be done well. Cover your household basics (a good mattress is a worthwhile investment) then keep an eye out for second hand goods to get things started. Try to expand your horizons and join local groups or clubs to make some friends with similar interests. If you notice red flags, pay attention to them. Sometimes nasty people cling onto newcomers and can cause you unnecessary stress/problems. Seek out worthwhile relationships and nurture them instead.
Moving to a new places is one of the most exciting and frightening things you can do. But as long as you avoid getting your bank account too close to zero and take your time while putting in effort to live like a local, it can be absolutely amazing. I’ve lived in different countries, met people from vastly different cultures, lived on entirely different cuisine, and simply had some of the most mind and soul-expanding adventures in new areas. I’ve also missed my home, my family, friends I left behind, things I gave up, and more. But the reality is that all the material stuff will come and go, the time with family and friends should be cherished but not limit your life, and at the end of the day, you are the one in charge of your destiny. It’s up to you and you alone to figure out where to live and what to do to discover happiness. Just make sure to give yourself a fighting chance. Don’t go broke. And avoid abusing anything. Moderation and variety.
I write too much. Good luck!
When you're making a budget don't plan to spend everything you make. You will always be out of money if you do that.
And for heaven's sake, start an investment retirement account now. Yeah, I know, "but I'm not making enough, but there's that shiny thing in the (online) store window, but I'm never going to get old." Just allot one take-out coffee's worth of spare change per week. You can up the ante later. Let the miracle of compound interest do its thing.
Find a certified financial planner or the equivalent in your country (but walk away immediately if they start trying to sell you on whole life insurance or some other scummy products). You want someone who will act as a fiduciary and give you sound financial advice that's for your benefit and not theirs. At a young age, having that grasp of some financial concepts like what it takes to retire, what kind of emergency fund you need, how to protect your money from taxation as much as legally possible, what your budget should look like compared to other financially sound individuals, etc will make your life so much easier. I can't give you any advice beyond "seek out a fiduciary of some sort" because I don't know the specifics of your country in, however if you can save and invest instead of burying yourself in high interest debt, you'll be doing future you a huge favor.
Also, travel while you're young and don't have kids because they'll take up a lot of time and it's difficult to travel with little ones.
Take care of your whole body. This includes your eyes, ears, teeth, mind, brain, and all your extremities and vital organs. Eat a variety of nutritious foods at appropriate calorie levels to maintain a healthy weight, brush your teeth, do your cardiovascular exercises and resistance training, and see a doctor and dentist regularly.
Stick with school, especially if it's free. It is hard paying off debt from school without a degree to help you.
Love yourself and those around you.
I just wanted to let you know that I really enjoyed this comment. I think it has some good advice but the writing style is kind of unique, it’s almost alien in a way that I can’t quite explain, I liked it!
The trick is lots of rambling, run on sentences
I would look at making a budget beforehand. For rent, look at actual listings in the area you want to move to. You'll probably need roommates.
And keeping a job isn't that hard as long as you treat it like a strange form of high school where the teacher or principal can fire you.
Have some savings in case of emergency. A few thousand at least.
Work out a budget. What you earn, minus your bills + 10%, is the money you have for fun. The 10% helps prevent bill shock. Personally, I record the amount of the last four bills and average them then add the 10%. Seems to work.
Inherit or buy quality cookware and learn how to cook. Quality isn't necessarily expensive. And good cooking is cheaper and healthier than anything else. At the start doing meal prep recipes to cover a week would be good.
I started over again out about a year ago, and my best decision was to buy an alright futon and save up/look around for a decent quality bed. The futon was enough that I wasn't miserable but not so good that I could be complacent like I would with the first mattress I could afford/find. Since I was not desperate, I could wait till a good deal showed up.
Also, you are going to establish 'home' in phases or waves. It will be really exciting at first, but your energy will probably peter out sometime after you have a basic kitchen set up, sleeping area, and maybe sitting area. That's natural and nothing to feel bad about! I wound up being in a ~10 month break after my initial blitz before I started to turn my apartment into a home; it took me that long to recharge.
Claim benefits, work on the side until you can afford not to.
Live with working housemates so bills are shared.
A "few years" is not "about to move out". You've got a long time to work this out.
It is very tough for your generation, no doubt at all. It's been getting tougher and tougher for the last 50 years. And I witnessed all of those years so I don't know that anything an old codger like me can say that would be useful to you.
But it is still probably true that young people usually move away from their home towns for a job. So look for the job you can afford to move for and take it from there. Employers know that people have notice periods and need time to move, they won't be expecting you to start the next day.
That is less true if you're stuck in low wage work so, if that is the case, get some work experience in an area where agency work is common (care work, warehousing, office temping, etc) or get stuck into the gig economy. Those jobs are portable and you can use agency work to find a permanent employer you like and who likes you.
If you're in Northern Europe you will be able to claim in-work benefits if your housing costs are too high for your wage to support (just make sure you look up the rules on how much space you're allowed and how much support you will get).
Moving only takes a day (unless you have shedloads to pack), and house-hunting from afar is one of the few things that is a lot easier these days. Once you know where you want to move to, pick a convenient day or two to visit, check all the online estate agents operating in the area and fix up as many appointments as you can fit in while you're there. If you see somewhere decent and affordable, don't waste any time applying for it (you can often get accepted on the spot).
Make sure you think about public transport routes if you move before you know where you will be working. You will need to be close to good bus/tram/train routes to get you from home to where the jobs are, especially if you're going to start out with an agency. That's another thing that is fantastically easy to do from afar these days.
You're either in the EU or you have freedom of movement within the EU so, if language barriers allow, you can cast your net pretty wide.
Start saving now. Moving does not take long but it is costly. You get paid holiday because Northern Europe, so save that up for when you are ready to quit your job and use it to cover your notice period. That way they have to pay you for not turning up to work and you can get a new job while they're still paying you. Double pay for a few days or weeks goes a long way to covering costs you would otherwise struggle with.
Good luck. Start planning. Even if it's just a fantasy right now, you'll come up with some ideas that might actually work and ways to overcome some barriers.
Beware of scammers, especially anyone who approaches you because of a post on social media.