Moving Out for the First Time

The moving out process can be daunting but exciting. There’s a lot to consider, money, planning and more. In between the excitement and anxiety of finding your own place, there is a list of things you need to get done to make your first move as easy as possible. 

At some point, everyone moves out, be it solo, with a partner, with a roommate or as part of a student relocation service. Everybody feels a bit lost the first time around but the good news is that eventually, everything works out. 

So now it’s your turn to move out, here are our top tips to help you along your way when moving out for the first time. 

Work Out Your Money

Probably the most stressful part of the moving out process is financing your new life. Even if you have a great job or you’re relying on your student loans to keep you going, managing your money properly for the first time is an intimidating task. 

Your first step, as boring as it sounds, is going to be working out your monthly budget. Work out how much money you bring in each month. Your rent should be no more than 30% of your monthly income, this is just a rule of thumb but it’s worth keeping in mind!

Have an idea of how much you have left over after rent and subtract your utilities spend. These could be your water, gas and electric or broadband and phone bill. Sometimes they are even included in your rent. Do some research and work out what all these cost on average in your area. Once you’ve worked all this out the rest of your money can be spent on your food, toiletries and transport and anything left you can decide what to do with. 

Remember for a while it will seem your money is running much tighter than before, but you have new expenses and as long as you keep on top of your spending and budget there’s nothing to worry about.

Make Sure You Can Look After Yourself

As ridiculous as it might sound, make sure you’re capable of taking care of yourself and doing household tasks. It’s easy enough to blame your parents for not teaching you how to cook a filling dinner or how to clean your dirty washing. Take the initiative and make sure you can do the basics before you move. 

The basics you might have to do include:

• Basic Cleaning
  • Hoovering
  • Making your bed
  • Dusting

• Basic Laundry
  • Using a washing machine
  • Folding
  • Ironing

• Basic Cooking
  • Food Shopping
  • Cooking Simple Meals

You aren’t going to be amazing at first, there will be a learning curve, your parents and the internet are there to help when you are a bit lost. But the earlier you learn these skills the easier things are going to be. 

The Moving Out Process – Make A Plan

So before you move in you have to move out which can be a difficult process. So the best thing you can do is make a plan. So what should this plan look like? Some of your biggest tasks are:

Organise your items. Since this is your first time moving you probably have a lot of clutter you need to sort out. Go through all your drawers and wardrobe and either donate or get rid of the stuff you don’t need. 

How are you moving your items? Chances are you aren’t going to have an awful lot of furniture to move and might manage on your own. But if you need to move large items you might need to hire some help, for students you can contact a removals and storage company like Hartgrove Brosto help with your relocation or get help from some of your friends or family.  
Pack up your belongings. Packing always takes longer than you plan for, give yourself more time than you think you need. Don’t just throw all your belongings into any box, organise items into labelled boxes and pack the boxes as best you can.