How To Transition Into Your First Real-World Apartment

By Allie Mitchell on July 13, 2016

Everyone knows moving into a new place is a definite change in someone’s life. Whether you are moving in alone or moving in with roommates, you have some real life changes ahead of you.

For most people, this is one of the big steps into adulthood. Even if you aren’t paying the rent yourself or if you aren’t moving that far away from home, it really makes no difference. You are officially responsible for yourself now; you are responsible for cleaning the place, the guests you bring over, how you conduct yourself when situations arise, etc.

The idea of moving into a place all your own to decorate and create a life in can seem scary and overwhelming. If you are paying for the rent yourself, the stress is even more real, considering the fact that you have to pay for bills, groceries and other living expenses yourself.

Most people like the idea of making a place feel at home and buy or rent furniture that represents them and what they want to convey to their guests. Unfortunately, not everyone goes through the transitioning process of moving into their own place well. It is okay to ask for help and get others’ opinions.

This article is to help you figure out how to go from living with your parents to living on your own and succeeding. All your parents and the people that believe in you want to see is you making it in the world. And showing them that you can maintain a place for yourself is one way to go about it. Transitioning does not have to be all that hard, especially when you have people behind you to make sure that you make it through with little to no problems.

Here are some tips for transitioning into your first real-world apartment and making it look easy. Well maybe not easy, but a lot smoother than what you might have originally planned.

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1. You aren’t in a dorm room anymore. The days of box-shaped rooms and basic overused furniture is behind you. Even if you are using some of your parents’ used furniture, at least you know where it’s been and how much it’s been used.

You don’t have to worry about what you put on the walls — or how many people you have over (unless you have a roommate, but that should be discussed among you guys personally) or anything else. This new apartment of yours is about expressing yourself and you alone; no one else matters anymore. You also don’t have to answer to an RA, which is nice.

2. Budget yourself. Because you aren’t living in a dorm anymore, your rooms aren’t furnished. You will have to go buy or rent your own furniture and other supplies. You can’t be as picky, unless of course you aren’t paying for things yourself, but let’s just suppose that you are.

You will have to learn to set money aside each month just because you never know what may go wrong and unlike in a dorm when things go wrong, you can’t just call maintenance and go about your day. You have to call the people yourself and pay them real money — you don’t have a university behind you on this one.

3. Know at least one of your roommates. Most people when transitioning into a new apartment usually like to move in with someone they know or at least someone one of their friends knows. Dorm experiences of surprise roommates are hard enough sometimes, and why do that to yourself all over again?

This time it is totally preventable. Make sure that you know each other enough to sign a six month or one-year lease, as cutting your lease short could result in forking over some real cash.

4. Make sure to photograph and document everything wrong with your apartment the minute you move in. You don’t want to be liable for any damages you didn’t cause. From my experiences, most dorms give you something to write about your damages when you move in.

Don’t try to fix things yourself if you have no idea what you are doing, as you may hurt yourself or make the problem worse. Most apartments have maintenance that get paid to help with standard apartment problems, so if you need them, call.

5. Don’t forget to decorate! One of the main intriguing things about getting a new apartment is decorating. Your parents may likely help you buy supplies for that, but make sure it’s stuff that YOU want. It is your apartment, after all! You have no limit on how much you express yourself while you are living there.

But, just FYI, buy a mattress pad; they will make your living experience (especially your sleeping experience) 10 times better than you could ever imagine.

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Never let the fear of change keep you from your future — even if you are taking small steps into your future such as moving into a new adult apartment. Just have fun with it and don’t lose your head.

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