Saving up Before Moving out on Your Own
Moving out from your parents’ home is a big decision. Not only will you be living alone, you will be bearing all the costs of living alone, including rent, groceries and utilities, on your own. Before you decide to move out, you should make sure that you can sustain yourself financially on your own. This requires making two budgets, one based on your savings and one based on your monthly income. The moving out budget (savings) – moving out raises significant costs. First, you will need to pay a deposit in addition to your first month’s rent. Deposits are usually …
Read More »Avoiding the Phantom Sublease
Subleases are great ways to avoid anchoring yourself to a long-term lease. They are usually only a couple months in duration and are often cheaper than the normal rental rate for the apartment or room, making them ideal for people moving without jobs or a definite idea of where they want to settle. However, you need to be careful when subleasing. Not all landlords or rental agencies allow sublets. Many explicitly provide in their contracts that sublets are NOT allowed. If that’s the case and you try to sublet, you could find yourself getting kicked out of the apartment abruptly …
Read More »Localizing Your Conversations
Settling into a new city or town is hard. It’s even more difficult if you don’t know anybody. It takes time to learn how to have conversations with new people, the first step to meeting new friends. However, there are tricks to making your transition from stranger to knowledgeable local quicker and easier. Follow the Local Team(s) Even if you aren’t a sports fan, being aware of the trials and tribulations of the local teams can help greatly in sparking conversations with others. If a team is doing well, it’s even more important. Plus, sports are often a good reason …
Read More »Finding Your Inner Decorator
If you’ve just moved, don’t make your new place look just like your old place. Use moving as an opportunity to experiment and make your new home your unique. Get bold, release your inner desires, embrace the beautiful, brave and weird. Here are some simple ways to do this: Paint – paint your walls and woodwork in colors that you like. Seek a feeling that you will enjoy seeing every day. If most colors suit you, try a couple combinations and see which ones you think bring the best out of the room and its furniture and elements. Arrange – …
Read More »Upgrading Your Patio
A patio is a valuable asset to have. They can serve as fantastic places to host company or provide visitors with a change of pace or breath of fresh. They can be used as spots to watch fireworks, share drinks on a warm summer night, or serve hot dogs and hamburgers. Despite what patios have to offer, many people let them go to waste, looking like this, this or this. They are treated as mere extensions of the back or front yard, not as extensions of the house. If you are moving into a place with a patio, make sure …
Read More »Quality vs. Quantity
In 2011, the average cost of renting an apartment in San Francisco was $2422. To many people, this might seem insane. For others, it is the price they have to pay to live in a comfortable spot. What is really underlying these two opinions? What causes one to jerk away from such a price and another to bite his lip and pay it? At it’s most simplistic, it’s probably the desire for quality vs quantity and vice versa. That is, for some people, high rent is worth paying if they can live in the area where they want to live, …
Read More »Using the Bungee Cord when Moving
We’ve all heard it before: duct tape can do it all. It is the fixer-uper’s right hand man, the go-to answer for any home-related headscratchers. Well, if duct tape is a do-it-yourselfer’s Batman, the humble bungee cord is its Robin. Bungee cords come in many different sizes and colors, but they all perform the same function: fastening things into place. If you’re moving, they are a great moving supply to have on hand because they can ensure that furniture and boxes remain in place in the truck during the move. Of course, you might ask, “well, doesn’t rope do the …
Read More »The Flexibility of Month-to-Month Renting
Month-to-month leases or subleases can be a great help to a person who is moving to a new area. They are valuable tool for a person looking for a place from afar or for a person who is unemployed or does not have a permanent job. Month-to-month leases allow a person to live in a room or an apartment for a short amount of time without having to agree to a long-term lease, giving the person the flexibility they need to explore an area and find a more permanent place or to find a job. The risk is low compared …
Read More »The Consequences of Not Changing Your Address
I’m currently leasing a place. The person who lived here before me is named Whitney. I get her mail often. I also receive mail from a guy named John and a girl named Kim. Based on how long Whitney had been there, I can conclude that these people lived in the place well over a year ago. Recently, I received John’s tax return. Changing an address is essential when you move. Changing it with the U.S. Postal Service is an easy fix, but not a permanent one. The Postal Service will only forward your mail for a year. So, even …
Read More »Letting Go: Learning to Love the Dumpster
There are many things that define Americans, some good, some, well, less than savory. One of these things is stuff. As Americans, we put a high priority on having stuff, the best stuff, the newest stuff, the most expensive, most practical, coolest stuff. But time goes on, and in time what was once some primo-luxery stuff might become, well, just stuff. And that stuff is stuffing up your closets, drawers, trunk, car and garage floor. You probably pay it little mind, if you come across it at all. When you move, though, this stuff is going to come to light. …
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