When people are first moving out I do not think they realize all the bills that they are going to have.  They have had no experience in paying them and therefore really do no fully understand what it costs to live on their own.

If you are a parent of a young adult moving out or a teenager who is thinking about striking out on his or her own than I implore you to really think about all the expenses that you are going to have to cover every month.  Are you prepared for them?  Lets see.

Now normally when you think of getting your own apartment (I assume that most 18-21 years old are not in a position to buy a house) you factor in rent, food, basic utilities, and automotive necessities like a car payment, insurance, and fuel.

But, wait!  There are tons of other unexpected bills that you are going to need to factor in.

You are going to need to come up with security deposits for your apartment, a security deposit for your utility bills, a security deposit for your cable and Internet, and a security deposit for your cell phone if you do not already have one.

There are also items that you have never had to buy for yourself in the past.  Mom and dad always bought them for you.

These items will usually include toilet paper, tooth paste, shampoo, paper towels, dish soap, body soap, cleaning products, vacuum cleaner bags, and laundry soap.  If you are a female than you might have already guessed that you will need to also buy a plethora of other hair care products and feminine hygiene items.

You are most likely going to need to buy food condiments for your refrigerator like various spices (ie salt and pepper), mustard, mayonnaise, salad dressing, and possibly butter.  Unless you like to eat with your hands than you are also going to have to purchase cooking utensils like forks, spoons, knives, spatulas, bottle openers, pots, pans, bowls, and of course plates.

This will not apply to the majority of young people who move out since they will most likely be renting an apartment but if you and your friends decide to rent a house than you will need to purchase a lawn mower to mow the grass or have enough money to pay to have it done.  As I write this I am thinking of my neighbor right across the street from me.  I can see them now through my window.  The person who actually owns the house kept the yard in pristine shape for as long as I have lived in my house and now she moved somewhere else and is renting her home to this young guy and girl with a daughter.  They both cannot be any older than 25 years old.  Anyway, the yard looks like total crap now.  Weeds are coming out everywhere and the grass is ankle high.  They did not have a mower, borrowed one after some people complained enough, and maybe mowed their grass once all summer long.  Everyone else on the block has their lawns mowed and edged up and the people who are renting has their yard that looks like it came out of a horror movie.

Another unexpected expense that many teens do not think about when moving out is automotive maintenance.  I am not talking about the actual car payment, auto insurance, and fuel which will be the biggest car related bills.  I am talking about oil changes (every 3 months or 3,000 miles) and other scheduled maintenance needed for a vehicle.  You are going to need to get the brakes serviced every so often, new tires, studded tires if you live in colder climates, and there will totally unexpected mechanical problems (even if you  have a new car).

You might say you are going to save but you are not going to save anything for at least the first year.  Keep in mind I am not trying to be negative nor am I telling you to live with your parents indefinitely.  I am strictly pointing out what your total REAL expenses are going to be every month.

Your entertainment is going to eat up a large portion of your paycheck.  You are not going to stay at home and do nothing.  You could have done that at home.  One of the main reasons you moved out was not only to be independent but to have fun.  You are going to be having parties at your house, going to parties, going to the movies, eating out, ordering pizza 1/3 days of the week, and living the life.  Fun will be that huge expense that we almost never plan for and yet costs us the most.  If you saved all your receipts every month and really calculate how much money you spend on amusement you would be surprised.  Just as surprised as if you saved all your Starbucks and coffee receipts and had an exact figure on how much you spend on coffee every month.

So you need to make a spreadsheet and add up all your expenses.  That is why I say you need to take the sum of everything you think you can afford, half it, and then you have what you really can afford.

What we think we can handle and what we really can handle is totally different.  And this is not just for young people this is for everyone.  Why do you think your average American household has $8,000 in credit card debt and 43% of American families spend a lot more than they earn each year?

If this is happening to people who have great jobs than what about you?

You think you have a job in which you can make $2000 a month working 40 hours a week then, please, do not set your bills based off $2,000 in income!  Set your monthly expenses at maximum $1200 a month.  That way you have a cushion.  You will see that your $1200 expected expenses will be $2,000 once its all said and done.  But if you put your expenses at $2000 than your expenses will be more like $2500-$3000 and you will be in the red.  You will have to borrow from friends and family and that might work for a month, maybe two, but you will end up in a massive amount of debt and end up moving back in with your parents within a year.

Do yourself a favor.  If you are moving out of your parents house put your bills lower than you can afford.  Give yourself some room to breath.  You do not want to be saddled down with a bunch of liabilities you cannot meet or will have trouble meeting them.

Living with your parents for a couple years after you turn eighteen is not as bad as it seems.  You will have way more money than all your friends who moved out.  They will be struggling and you will be at the mall buying whatever you want because you do not have rent or utilities to pay for.  When you get home your mom will have a nice roast ready with mashed potatoes that you probably will not appreciate but she doesn’t care because she’s your mom.  She will also do your laundry for you.  If you need some help your parents will b right there and willing to help you.  You can save up, go to college, or start your own business.  Why would you want to put yourself at a disadvantage for nothing.

I have seen countless teens with a lot of promise just saddle themselves with tons of debt doing this.  I hope many of them, as well as their parents, are reading this and will actually take what I am writing to heart.  I pleaded with one of my adopted sons Ira to stay at home with me for a little while and save his money but he fought me every step of the way.

Ira wanted to get his own place and sure enough two months later he was calling me on the phone begging for $350.  I sent him the money, reluctantly, but that did no good.  What can I do?  He is 22 years old and can make his own choices.  Moving into a new apartment is expensive and he was not ready yet he argued with me that he was.  Look at the result.

Make a moving checklist and stick to it.  Create a spreadsheet and follow the procedure I just laid out.  Be prepared for unexpected bills and plan for them.  I do not mean to rain on your parade at all.  I was there too and I made a bunch of mistakes that were probably not too smart at the time. Hopefully you can read this and not make the same mistakes that I made.   A few bad choices and you can ruin your credit and good name.

Take what I said and really think about it.  You will be better off and can thank me later.

-John Vogt

In a previous post I mentioned my first time moving out and how it didn’t go very well. What I didn’t mention was how the it occurred in the first place. I was 18 (maybe just turned 19) and I was working as an assistant manager at a fast food restaurant. I thought I was doing very well for myself at the time.

One day I came home and my Mom informed me that she was moving to another state. I didn’t know what to think, I had no motivation to move out and moving to another state was definitely not something I wanted to do. I had my job, my friends and just the general familiarity of where I had been living for years.

I started thinking about how I was going to deal with the situation and decided I would just stay. My Mom could Move Out if she wanted to but I wasn’t moving out, I was staying put.

So…my first move out was really me being left behind when my Mom moved out. (She was single at the time)

She helped me get the electricity in my name. We got the lease changed and put in my name. Had to go get the cable TV changed over too, couldn’t live without MTV back then (1986?). Oh ya, MTV stood for Music Television. They used to play music videos back then. Now it should be RTV (Reality Television). Anyway, I digress.

Well, fortunately my Mom left the deposit in place on all these or I would have had a problem right away. The deposits alone could have easily added up to $700 or $800 dollars. Thank you Mom.

Mom moved out and I had my own place. A nice 2 bedroom apartment. Oh what a life. Or so I thought.

Half way through the second month I was already having severe money problems and money withdrawal issues. I was used to blowing $800 a month on whatever I wanted and now I couldn’t. The bills were adding up to more like $1000 a month and I could see where things were headed. I started asking around and my great aunt agreed to let me stay with her for a while. So, now I had to move out of my own place. Moving in with my great aunt didn’t sound like fun but she was very nice and welcomed me.

So, what is involved in moving out? Well this time (for me) I had to have all the window coverings professionally cleaned. (not cheap) I also had a bunch of small nail holes in the walls. In 1986 you couldn’t just go on the internet and type “How to fix nail holes in apartment walls” into google and get ideas. So, I used the old fashioned search engine. I called my parents to ask them.

My Dad got into the tools I would need and about needing to repaint the place when I was done. I was really thinking I had gotten myself into a fix. Next I called my Mom, mostly just to grip about the problems I was having and how she had left me. I told her about the holes and she said, “Oh, thats no problem, get some Colgate tooth paste and go around to each of the holes with some on your finger and just squish it into the holes. She said that when it dries it will look just like new.

I did as my Mom suggested instead of taking my Dad’s advise on this one. It worked like a charm. Thanks Mom.

I had to pack up all my things and scrounging for moving boxes took a while, Turns out I probably could have bought them from a moving company for a few dollars but I wasted a day driving around to liquor stores instead. I loaded everything up, carpet cleaned the carpets and moved out.

Moving Out More Costly than You Think!

This was an unplanned post. I had lunch with a friend a few weeks ago and he made some comments that I’ve been thinking about for weeks.

My friend is a therapist and as long as I have known him he has been taking trips and vacations to exotic places. He’s been anywhere and everywhere.

I had not seen him for about 6 months and I asked him about his latest trips. What he had to say seems to have hit me as a great truth but its one I had never thought of.

He told me that he had just returned from a trip to see his parents. He told me that he had not been on a vacation type of trip for over a year.

My friend explained that between birth and as late as 25 years old your parents take care of you and take you on trips and you are their center of attention. From 25 through about 50 years you do your own thing enjoying life and go on trips for your own pleasure and you and your family/job are your center of attention. Then in middle age you end up taking trips to see your parents as their health is failing and they become your center of attention.

During this last stage people often end up either moving out and moving in with their parents again to take care of them in their old age. Another option is that your parents move out and move in with you instead.

Over the last few weeks I’ve noticed that a number of my friends who are in their middle age are experiencing the exact same situation as my therapist friend.

If you have not taken some time to think or plan for this situation then I would suggest you at least think about it.

If you are a young person, enjoy yourself and  make the best of things. When your time comes to lend your parents a helping hand you’ll know that you have had your time and for 5 years or so you’ll be busy with your parents in one way or another.

You’ll be giving back for all the support and love you got from your parents. They will surely appreciate it more than you’ll know until you yourself enjoy the same thing from your kids one day.

A common thought is should I pack it for moving and send it/move it to where I am going or should I sell it.

My advice is almost always Sell It if you are moving a great distance and paying for a moving service. This goes double if you are moving a car. Moving companies are very expensive but they get the job done very efficiently. However, the cost will often be more to move the item then to buy it again when you get where you are going.

An example: My friend decided he was moving to Indiana. He started packing everything he owned (and he owned quite a lot of stuff). He packed his children’s toys, he packed all his books, he packed his tools, he packed his bedding, he packed all he furniture, he packed up EVERYTHING. By the time he was done he had a full size 40 foot conex totally full and then started mailing boxes of his stuff because it was cheaper than using a moving company and getting another conex.

You may be wondering, how much does it cost for moving all that stuff? Well, in his case it was over $16,000. Imagine what you can buy with $16,000. Of course he was moving from Alaska to Indiana but even then, $16,000. Yikes!

Next he decided to ship a car (actually, it was a mini van). How much does it cost to ship a car? Well, its a lot. Especially from Alaska. If I remember correctly, it was something like $5000. In my experience, you can buy a pretty decent used mini van for $5000. They are not the most sought after vehicle on the planet. Good used ones often sell for $5000 or less.

So, he shipped the car for $5000 and he still owed about $7000 in it so he just took a $5000 vehicle and paid $12,000 for it. Now I ask you, should you move it or should you sell it? He would have been far better off if he had just sold it at a loss and then bought a new one when he got to his destination.

To make things worse, he bought a motor home to move his family and move his animals. Plane tickets would have been $2500, maybe $3000 with the two dogs. The motor home cost $18,000. The trip (which took weeks) was another $6000 easy. That’s $24,000 for a trip that he could have made for $3000!

Well, he gets to his destination and after they get moved in to their new place, he decides to sell the motor home. After a long time trying he finally sold it for $8000. Thats a $10,000 loss on his purchase and makes the total cost of moving the family $16,000 and thats on top of the $16,000 he paid to move his house stuff.

I ask you, would you move it all or try and sell everything that wasn’t a family treasure and just purchase what you need when you get where you are going?

When I move out the next time, I’m moving out with the bare essentials. Its a great opportunity to shed a bunch of the junk you have collected over the years.

Ok, if you are like most people, you have a cell phone and you use it a lot. Both for making phone calls and for texting.

Have you taken a look at what your cell phone bill is?

Cell Phone Bills Can Eat Your Savings Up

You may be wondering what this has to do with moving out. Well, its about expenses and your cell phone bill is likely to be one of your expenses that you didn’t think of before you decided to move out. Relocating to another state could even offer more surprises.

When you are analyzing your different bills, notice how much that cell phone bill is. It will likely be more than your heating bill and maybe as much as your heating and electrical utilities combined.

One of my boys was in the army and he got used to doing all the ring tone and the MMS and the internet and literally thousands of text messages a month. Well,he got out and his only income is from unemployment. That $200 a month plus mobile phone bill eats up 25% of his unemployment. When he was making his plans for moving out he didn’t consider that at all. Problem is he got addicted to texting and addicted to MMS and now he’s not willing to give it up. Instead he’s having to eat Macaroni and Cheese for every meal and can’t pay his rent.

I’m not saying you have to give up your cell phone but you need to be realistic about how much of your limited income it will eat up. I’d strongly suggest getting a prepaid phone instead so you know exactly how much your spending. I know I know, prepaid is not cool and their phones suck. Well, its still your best bet for making it on your own at first when you move out.

The next best way would be to get unlimited minutes. Its rather expensive but at least you know exactly how much you’ll be paying each month. No surprises when you go over and you were paying $1 a minute and your over by 700 minutes.

I hope that some of these suggestions will get you thinking more about what all is involved in moving out on your own. In future posts I’ll be developing a checklist moving out.

You might be contemplating moving out if you are a senior in high school or have recently graduated or are graduating from high school or maybe college.

You might be frustrated that even though you are 18 (and an adult for for gods sake), your parents still expect you to be home at a certain time, help out with household chores and even let them know where you are going! How dare they. No one else’s parents expect such things from them and some friends you know are moving out and getting their own place, why shouldn’t you?

Well, let me try to break it down for you. First of all, almost all parents (at least ones that are any good imho) have the same expectations as your parents do and even if they don’t, your parents are not being unreasonable for the value you are getting from staying with them for as long as you possibly can.

Second, your friends are in for a VERY rude awakening and will likely be living back at home in 6 months or less.

So, you have probably already figured out what my advice will be. STAY AT HOME living with your parents as long as they will let you. Don’t let anyone tell you that you are a Moma’s boy or any other bullcrap like that. It just makes good sense. Especially financial sense.

If you are bent on moving out right away, here are some things you should be aware of:

Rent

Utilities

Food

Entertainment

Clothing

Gas

Insurance

Cable TV

Internet

Cell Phone

Now, estimate what each of those are going to cost you. Now, add another 20% to that because its going to be a lot more than you think. Ask yourself, do I want to throw away that much every month just so I can live in a little apartment somewhere?

Now I know what you are thinking, you’ll get a roommate or roommates. Well, that will have to wait for another post but for now, ask around and see what others have experienced with room mates. Also, if your going to have roommates, you might find they have some “rules” they expect you to live by if you share a place with them. Thats not to mention all the rules your landlord will have.

Maybe what you already have is better than you thought. When I first moved out I was 18. That was a disaster. I’ll tell you about that some other time. The second time I moved out I was 22. Notice I said the second time. Obviously the first time ended as I will predict for your friends who are moving out. They’ll be back at home soon and probably deeply in debt and have an eviction on their record. Anyway, back to the second time I moved out. I not only held down a full time job but I also mowed the lawns, shoveled the snow and swept the parking lot for my landlord just so I could scrape by and eat macaroni and cheese (sometimes I could actually afford to add some cut up hotdogs to the Mac and Cheese).

If I had stayed with my parents instead of moving out on my own, I could have saved up and planned for making a better income early in life. I could have gotten a few small investments and maybe even bought a mobile home or a small condo for my first place instead of throwing away countless dollars on rent. I could have had $30,000 in 3 years and at 24 I could have purchased or started a small business of my own or paid cash for college.

On with the story though, the military wasn’t as good for Ira as I had hoped. He got into drinking and spending, since the military (Army) pays for almost everything you “NEED” he got used to spending all the money/pay he got and a bit more. I was constantly getting letters in the mail from his bank that he had spent more than he had. He was buying $1.00 candy bars for instance but his account was over drawn so he had to pay an extra $20 for overdraft fees. Thats a damn expensive candy bar and this would happen numerous times per month.

So, Ira finally got a chance to move out of the army. I advised his to wait until he could handle his finances better but he was intent on moving out as soon as possible.

Seeing that I wasn’t going to win this one, I asked him what his plan was going to be. He wanted to go to film school which has been his long time passion. School would start in October, it was June when he was planning to move out of the barracks. His plan was to move to a house that he and a couple of his military buddies would share as roommates. (I’ll go into the roommate thing in another blog post) He would have to sign a one year lease. This didn’t make sense to me at all due to him going to school in 4 or 5 months. “Why keep up a house and all the expenses when you are away at school?”,  I asked him.

I strongly advised him to move to his Mom’s or my place again for the 4 to 5 months between moving out of the barracks to the time he moved into the dorms at his school. My advice fell on deaf ears it seems. He went ahead and rented the house and signed the one year lease.

Ok, a month and a half went by and I started getting these friendly phone calls from him. He was hinting that things were tight but didn’t say so. The following week he called and went into a long story about how his roommates were not paying, his unemployment didn’t come through, he couldn’t find a job, the utility company debited his account and took the rent money and now he was in big trouble. He went on to say he should have moved out of the barracks and moved in with his Mom and saved his money until school started.

I said “So, what do you need?”. He told me he needed $350 right away or the rent would be unpaid and late. I couldn’t help but remind him of the advice I had given him about Moving Out. I transfered the $350 to his account and I’ll tell you about what happened next another day.