Moving Into Your First Apartment

By Shaina Eldredge on July 12, 2017

Recently, I moved away from home for the first time. I am originally from Memphis, Tennessee, but I go to a private art college in Nashville. To be honest, a big factor as to why I chose to go to school in Nashville rather than a school in Memphis was because I felt that this was an opportunity to leave my hometown.

It isn’t that I don’t like where I’m from necessarily, but I’ve moved over 16 times in my life with my family, but every time we moved somewhere different, we always found ourselves back in Memphis. And Memphis has a sense of familial security for me — almost all of my family lives there. We also never left the south, and in the future, I think I want to end up somewhere northwest. I saw Nashville as my starting point.

After two years of going back and forth from Nashville and Memphis, from my dorm and my parents, I began to get frustrated; I couldn’t take all of my things with me to the dorm and whatever I didn’t take found itself in indefinite residence in my parents’ attic. Not to mention my dog that I had adopted a year before I left. You never think you’re going to feel ready to do anything, but I never felt readier to do anything in my life than move to Nashville.

My boyfriend and I currently live together and split rent, and we recently came home from my parents’ with my aforementioned puppy. And here’s how we did it:

1. Make the decision

This seems like an obvious step, but with something as big as leaving the nest, faltering is bound to be a problem. Originally, I was going to move in with not just my boyfriend, but also a really good friend of mine who I lived with in my first semester of college. She and I set goals and made promises and we were so excited.

But when the next semester began, she realized that she wasn’t emotionally ready to leave home just yet. At this point, no real action was taken, it was mostly just talking, but I still felt like it would be a lot harder without her. But I was still determined. In January, my boyfriend and I made the final, serious decision to get our own apartment.

2. Set goals and systems

Every week since early January, my boyfriend and I put in $100 each into a savings account. Along the way, this money was to be used for rent, deposits, fees, any other money that was specifically for the apartment. Neither of us could touch this money unless it was for the apartment.

Since, at the time, I was the only one in Nashville while Ian, my boyfriend, was still in Memphis, I was in charge of visiting potential homes and calculating average costs. Whatever could be done via phone, like setting up the electricity under our name, I put Ian in charge of. In the end, the $200 a week system worked out and even paid for three months of rent after we paid other fees and expenses.

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3. Think about furniture

If we moved somewhere in Memphis, Ian and I would probably have pretty much every piece of furniture we needed, and we wouldn’t have had to sleep on an air mattress for two months. It isn’t a dreadfully long distance between the two cities, but no one in my family is going to drag a couch 200 miles for us.

Instead, we’ve had to make do. A friend of mine did give us a table and chairs for eating, and we found a nice desk on the side of the road that we repainted, and we even built our own platform bed. We live right next to a Goodwill, but we do not have a truck. Things like couches are nice but with no way of putting big furniture in our car, we will have to build our own furniture with Ikea or Pinterest. Which is more expensive, but how often do you get to say you built your own furniture?

4. Embrace your freedom

You’re going to be stressed out about bills and making rent and blah blah blah. But look at you! You have your own place, with your own rules that you can do whatever you want in. Decorate the walls with your art, nail mirrors to the ceiling, never make your bed, you crazy animal. Be proud of what you have accomplished so far — whether you’re 20, 24, 36, or 92 and you’re getting your own apartment, YOU’RE GETTING YOUR OWN APARTMENT. So congrats, and good luck.

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