Apartments

The boyfriend is looking into getting his first apartment in less than a year. Eventually it will be ours, but I need to focus on finishing school first. =P

It's overwhelming, and I was wondering if anyone could share some stories of their first apartment? Any advice or suggestions? How did you make ends meet? How did you aquire all the neccessities like shower curtains and dishware?

We're getting jobs, and selling his old action figures and stuff now during summer, but I dont even know where to start after that. Utilities, insurance, phone bills, grocery.. Eek.

at the time of graduation the Girlfriend got a bunch of stuff like Towels, Dishes and that sort, and i happened to get a ton of appliances like a microwave/vacum etc.  so that was just luck.  But pick up all the extra shifts you can! and dont always order out...  runnign out of money and not eatting for 3 days at a time = the suck.

Double post Blah

I loved my 1st apartment! The best way to make ends meet is too cook and avoid going out to eat all the time. For the first few months, I never cooked. I was always going out to eat and it took a pretty big toll on my wallet...and the scale. Its so easy to just be lazy and say, "Lets just go grab a bite to eat." You may think the grocery bill is expensive, but its costs way more to eat out every night.

Also, realize you dont need "high end" furniture or anything super expensive to start out with. You can buy lots of cool things for the bathroom and kitchen at places like Target/Wal-Mart/K-Mart that aren't going to cost you too much.

Good luck!

I'm glad my two first responses were positive ones. =D That makes me a little less uneasy. I found a place for furniture, even if it's not the greatest.

It's going to be the going to college, but working part time, but trying to pay bills that is going to suck. How much does a weekly grocery bill cost for a couple? I can cook some.

Ask your family and friends what they want to get rid of LOL

It is amazing how many people have all kinds of things they are looking for a good excuse to get rid of.  When my kids left for their own apartments we saw it as the perfect excuse to get new dishes without chips and cracks so they could have the old ones.  Woohoo mama got new dishes!

Cooking at home, especially for two people is much cheaper!

Also look for garage sales and moving sales.  I bought my couch and coffee table for $50 total from a friend who was moving to NYC.  Many of my dishes came from my grandmother, as well as pots and pans.

Ikea is also great.

enjoy!  the first apartment is always exciting...

My first apartment was awesome. I was able to afford it all on my own, utilities, car, rent, food and every thing working two part time jobs. I Moved right at the end of june in 04 when i was graduating. Its a cool experience. I lived off of tomatoe sandwiches and beer for the first 3 months until i met my gf, and we got a new place! As the above posters mentioned getting hand me downs are awesome, and free. Or check out a local value village for dishes and stuff. And yes IKEA is amazing and cheap. Also when looking at apartments and doing walkthroughs tell them, about every little ding and dent, missing things, and such so you dont get strung along for it when you move out. Good luck, it will be fuN!

I know with my first apartment (which was in a different state and city than I am in now so it may depend on where you live) I was able to budget for my utilities.  Try calling up your electricity company and talking about a "budget plan" (I think that is what it is called).  What this will do is set your electric bill for a set amount each month.  At the end of six months to a year the electric company will re-set your monthly payment, to reflect your average monthly usage, accordingly.  It really takes the guess work out of what you owe each month and lets you plan your paychecks.

If you want to save on phone bills stick to a landline only. Also,  a large number of companies will give great deals on landlines + dial up internet that are very affordable if you desire internet.

Also, ultilize your Targets, Wal-marts, and dollar stores!  Do some of your grocery shopping there.  For example I get my pretzels at the dollar store...  for the same amount per package and same taste I pay at least a dollar less!  Mac N Cheese is ~39cents at Target.. etc. etc.  A variety of healthy items too!  Even brand name items can be up to 3-4 dollars less than in your chain grocery store.  AND if you know someone who gets the Sunday paper... see if you can have the coupon section if they dont use it.  Furthermore, look at the food sales ads.  Plan your meals around the sale items... not your shopping around your meals.  And try to buy your fresh produce at a produce market.  It is much cheaper!

And I VERY MUCH agree with aasil and polarice... IKEA is awesome and cheap!!!  If you live in a large city... Alley hunt!!  It's kinda fun and amazing what you might find.

And good luck.  I miss my first apartment!  It made for VERY fun times!!

Oh and BTW:  That's really sweet the sacrifice your boyfriend is making with his action figures.  A lot of people would never be that caring and thoughful to do such a thing!  I wish you two well.

when one of my friends got her first apartment in NYC, we all met her there and broke off into teams to alley hunt.  we had a list of things she needed, and one person was driving around a pick up truck all day to transport our finds.  by the end of the day, her apartment was finished.  obviously this didn't cover things like shower curtains or even dishes, but she did get all of her furniture that way. 

Yea! I'm getting my first apartment soon too!  I'm a college student who works part-time for min. wage and my fiance is working a not much better job until he can get into grad school so we are freakin about the cost too.  we will prob get some stuf we need off our registry but mostly we are looking at grage sales and asking for hand downs from friends and relatives.  (we figure we can replace the old furniture one at a time as we can afford it later) we wrote a budget and if we buy cheep groceries- i'm geussing we will need about $250 a month for that? and never eat out, we should have about $10 each for spending cash at the end of the month (so we can get a burger if we want).  Even though it is going to be expensive, i'm so excited! and it will be very nice not to live w/ my parents anymore seeing as i am 22 and a little old to be living with them.

my first apartment was three blocks from kits beach in vancouver.  it was on the first floor, with a slider onto a small deck right next to the pool.  i think the rent was $475 a month.  it may be the best place i will ever live.

Wow, I'm really happy to see all the positive responses. I expected more horror stories than advice. I'm trying to make a budget, but even if the boyfriend works for $15 an hour and I work minimum wage, we still barely scrape by. I guess we have a year to save up, though. I'm trying my hardest to find a part time job, preferably working from home since I don't drive.

The rent around here is $800 for a one bedroom, not counting utilities. That makes me nervous. If he moves further away from me and the university, he'll just have to pay more for gas and it will even out.

I will definitely go bargain hunting. I never thought about shopping at the dollar general. I also found a few websites to help me out. It's like a garage sale via internet. =P

Thanks tons for the advice. I'm begining to lighten up since you all make it seem so easy. =]

Check out http://www.craigslist.com - people post stuff they want to sell cheap or give away - You might find some really good stuff there! (It is segragated by State, and then by region within the state so that you can just search local postings)

Good luck!

you can do it...it's just hard.  my first year out of school, i lived in a house with friends.  my monthly income after taxes was $1,000.  my rent was $690 (not including utilities).  i still wonder how i managed to pay my student loans and eat.

I've been married 23 years and have never owned a new piece of furniture except our bedroom set for years and even now most of the stuff we own is yard sale - goodwill and given to us by friends or family.  Go to estate sales for linens

Also look at Freecycle in your area.

I'm kind of surprised at the number of college students who move from their parents' home into a place with a boy/girlfriend. My (totally unsolicited) advice is not to do so. I think it's MUCH better if each partner has experience living on his/her own first, even if with other roommates. You learn much more about yourself, and much more about your partner, that way, before you entangle your lives. It's SO much easier to ditch just-a-roommate who proves unsatisfactory to live with than a boy/girlfriend who proves unsatisfactory to live with.

But back to the first apartment thing. I loved my first apartment. I started accumulating things for my first apartment months and months before I moved into it. I shopped for linens and dishes during the January white sales (got a set for 8 for about $20, IIRC, from a major department store, and still have many of them 30 years later!), looked for sales on furniture, bookcases, etc., as they occurred, and let it be known that I was moving. I got my dining room table and chairs from a neighbor of my grandmother's and some kitchen things from the mother of a friend. I made the lights in the living room by purchasing the (inexpensive) components at a hardware store and getting the shades at Pier 1. I bought my (teak) bed, sofa, bookcases, and rugs (carpet remnants) new, by working part-time while going to school, saving up for them, and getting them on sale.

Make a budget and stick to it!  That's my best advice.  My boyfriend and I have a budget - and you have to include everything you spend money on, so don't forget gas for your car, insurance, etc.  We budget about $150 per week on groceries, but we also have a kid and like to cook gourmet meals all the time.  I have gotten by on about $50 per week for 2 people before.

Definitely don't go out to eat, or eat fast food, or order pizza - unless you put it in your budget.  Remember, you can spend $15 on a pizza, and that's 1/3 of your grocery budget for the week, on one meal!  You can buy a couple of days worth of groceries for that. 

Don't be afraid to buy generic stuff.  Bargain hunt.  Go to garage sales, ask your friends and family for used stuff.  Be prepared to eat things like beans and rice (yummy!).

The most important thing is for you and your boyfriend to sit down, at the first of every month, and make a plan/budget for the month.  (We make a brand new budget every month.)  See how many paychecks you'll get that month (if it's every Thursday, like mine, some months have 4 and some have 5 paychecks) and how much they should be.  Then start with the necessities (rent, insurance, utilities).  Figure out how much you can afford to spend on groceries each week.  Try very hard to leave yourselves a little "wiggle room" - $20 to $50 per month for unexpected expenses, like needing to go to the doctor or something.  If you end up not needing it by the end of the month, either save it or treat yourselves to a nice dinner for being so good all month!  Just remember that you're in this together, and don't fight about money. 

(Sorry this is so long.)  Don't forget to budget for gift-giving (birthdays, Christmas, graduations, etc) and don't be afraid to make gifts.  When we're poor (which is most of the time), I generally give a basket of homemade cookies as gifts.  People love it, it's thoughtful and yummy.  I can buy a simple basket at WalMart for $2.50, and fill it with 2 dozen cookies that probably cost me about $3-5 worth of ingredients.

DON'T USE CREDIT CARDS!  I got into so much trouble using credit cards when I was first married (we were both 19).  When we were broke, we'd use credit cards for groceries.  When we could afford our bills, we still used credit cards for things like eating out or buying video games for my now-ex-husband.  $20 at a time doesn't seem like much, but it really adds up. 

Actually I just moved into my first apartment 2 months ago. So far so good and everything was very easy! We have a one bedroom apartment which we found on www.rent.com and we pay $562 per month in rent plus all utilities, everything comes out to $900 a month. Before we moved in I thought we would struggle to pay the bills but it has been easy as long as we don't go out too much which gets REALLY hard sometimes but we survive on movies! I got netflix which also saves a lot of money on renting movies.  I never realized all the $$ I used to spend eating out!! That's where all the money comes from! Instead of eating out we buy groceries and I cook or we get lean cuisines and such. Before we moved in we always ate out and never had any extra money! As far as furnishings go we were VERY lucky to have such a generous family! My sister gave us ALL her old furniture and my mom gave us a microwave and stuff for the bathroom. His mom gave us the bed sheets and some kitchen utensils and plates and we got an old entertainment center for $20 at a garage sale!! Garage sales are your best friend!! Oh and as far as advice try to bundle your utilities if at all possible and make a budget and cut anything from the budget that you can live without. We couldn't afford cable for the first month but then they had a special and we got it the next month.

All the stuff I needed I accumulated slowly..... my boyfriends sister recently got her first apartment and got most of her stuff from:

Friends/Family
Garage sales
Freecycle/craigslist

Now they have a pretty much full apartment with practically no money spent!

Your boyfriend also might be able to find a cheaper place to rent on craigslist too.  A lot of people who want to rent out places they own will post an ad on craigslist or in the newspaper.