Moving Out? Get Ready for These 5 Everyday Responsibilities Part 1
Parents can be great at managing the day-to-day tasks needed to keep everyone in the household healthy, fed and ready for each day. You may be aware of some of these tasks (like grocery shopping or putting gas in the car), but some of them might have escaped your notice. If you’re planning to move out after graduation, it will be important for you to take on these tasks so your everyday life can run more smoothly. Don’t worry: It is a challenge at first to remember it all, but over time, you’ll find your own rhythm!
Car Maintenance: License Plate, Oil Change, Tires
Not everyone has or needs a car, but if you do, it comes with some responsibility. You likely have already experienced some of these things if you have driven your own car or the family car during high school. Key tasks you’ll need to complete on a regular basis include:
License plate renewal (Once a year or every two years)
Drivers license renewal (Depends)
Paying property taxes (Once a year depending on your state)
Paying car insurance (monthly)
Oil Changes (Depends on your vehicle)
Tire rotation and other maintenance (Depends)
Each state has different requirements for license plate renewals, drivers license renewals and paying property taxes if you own your vehicle. Often, these include state safety inspections, bringing in proof of residence and insurance, and other documentation. You will likely not get any reminders about these things, except perhaps your property tax statement in the mail. That is why it is important to check your drivers license expiration date and check your license plate renewal date to ensure you plan ahead.
Oil changes and other car maintenance depends on your vehicle. Oil changes typically would happen every quarter or every certain number of mileage. They usually put the recommended next-change date or mileage on the windshield sticker. Ensuring proper maintenance of your car can help prolong its life and help it remain a useful asset for you as you start your journey.
Reading Laundry Tags to Help Clothes Last
If you’re not accustomed to doing your own laundry, one of the first skills you will want to develop is learning how to separate your laundry to prolong their life. It is possible for clothes to get cleaned when they are dumped together into the washing machine and dryer, but they may fade and wear out much faster. This is where the laundry tag comes in handy!
Taking the time to read the small print on the tag can save you a lot of time and money in the long run, as this tag will tell you exactly how to wash your piece of clothing to make it last. Some items must be washed in only cold water and hung out to dry. Some require hot water and tumble dry on a low heat setting. Eventually, you will get the hang of recognizing what type of materials need which kind of settings. But as you’re starting out, the best way to be sure you’re handling your laundry with care is to read the tags and separate them accordingly.
Pro Tip: Does your tag include symbols you don’t recognize? No problem! There are plenty of charts online that will translate these symbols to words so you understand what to do.
Making a Grocery List & Shopping
Depending on how it worked in your house, you may have participated in family grocery shopping or perhaps you just let your guardian know what you needed and it appeared in the kitchen later that day or week. Either way, if you are moving out on your own, planning, buying and preparing your own food will be a task you’ll become very familiar with.
There are many different approaches to how you do this, and it will likely take experimentation. Some people buy their groceries ahead of time and prepare all of their meals at the start of the week. This is called Meal Prepping. It takes more time up front but less time during the week.
Others prefer to buy the ingredients they need and then prepare their meals each day as they come. This might take more time during the week, but always results in a fresh, hot meal. There are many meal kit services that make this approach simple by sending you the ingredients and recipes right to your door.
And others might buy the bare minimum for food they need for breakfast, for example, and then eat out for most of their other meals. You’ll spend a lot more money this way and perhaps not eat as healthily, but it is usually thought to save time.
What works for you depends on your budget, your schedule and your preferences. Cooking starts out difficult but—like any skill—gets easier with time and practice. You can do it!
Pro Tip: Ask people further down the road how they plan their meals, so you can learn some of the different solutions that work for people.
Paying Utilities, Rent & Other Bills
Paying bills can be tedious, but it is incredibly important. Depending on your living situation once you move out, you may have more or less bills to pay. If you move into your own apartment by yourself or with roommates, you will likely need to pay rent, utilities, water, internet, and perhaps other service fees. Some places are all-inclusive and these are included in the rent payment, but not all. It will be important to confirm before you sign the lease, to make sure you can afford the apartment plus all of these items in your budget.
You may also need to pay other bills such as a car payment, insurance payments, school fees, and any other financial commitments you’ve taken on.
Many bank accounts allow you to set up automatic payments so your account will automatically deduct a certain amount on a certain day of the month and pay a bill. This can work for bills that are consistently the same amount and required at the same time every month. Other bills such as utilities, which often change month-to-month, may not work with autopay.
Pro Tip: Even if your bills are set up with auto-pay, stay aware of when they are deducting from your account and the amounts because mistakes can happen! You don’t want to be late.
Home Maintenance & Cleaning
Maintaining a comfortable and pleasant home doesn’t just happen. If you participated in family chores of some kind growing up, you know that it takes work. When you move out on your own, one way you’ll spend your time is cleaning and maintaining your space, whether it is one room, an apartment or a house.
Your family likely had one standard of cleanliness and this may or may not be different from potential roommates. Maybe your guardians preferred there to be no clutter or dust and thus cleaned every day, whereas a roommate might have come from a home where these tasks were done once a week. If you choose to live with others when you move out, these differences will become apparent. The goal from that point is to agree on some kind of system or schedule where everyone contributes to creating a livable space. It will take compromise, but it is worth it!
Here are some of the tasks you will complete, though not all:
Dusting shelves and furniture
Washing, drying and putting away dishes
Cleaning out the fridge
Taking out the trash
Vacuuming
Cleaning the bathroom(s)
Washing all bedding
Cleaning mirrors and windows
Etc.
You and your roommates will find a system that works for you!
Pro Tip: As soon as you and your roommates move in, be proactive about discussing how the space will be cleaned. You don’t want to wait until conflict arises!
Summing It Up
Moving out on your own comes with amazing freedoms and responsibilities. It is a lot of work to keep your everyday life running smoothly, but it does get easier. The more you practice, the more these things will simply become part of your routine.
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