When is someone ready to move out and live on their own? What should they consider first when renting?
Hi Canterpiece, do you mean ready to leave their family home, ie living with their parents? Well, whenever they want to be independent and stand on their own two feet. I knew I was ready at 18. First and foremost - how much do they earn? And how much is a room in their local area? Beth x
Cost/benefit analysis. Renting is expensive and it's dead money. But it's expensive to buy a place too. Do you have any family capital you could tap into and buy a cheap flat? My first flat was auctioned, the previous tenant had wrecked the place to the point where there was no functioning kitchen, bathroom, plumbing etc. But they always sell through auction and you can't get a mortgage, so you need to be able to buy outright plus renovate, but at that point you can then get a mortgage and pay off whoever you borrowed the money from to buy it. But it depends what part of the country you're in (I'm oop north), my flat was £31k at auction, plus fees and about £6k in materials to renovate and I sold it for £68k after nearly 4 years. Down south, you could probably 4x all those numbers. After 3 years of house sharing I could not face living with my parents again, but renting alone would have soaked up all my income. I was torn on what to do.
^ Ay another Northerner! Nice. I do mean that, yes. --- I'm between jobs at the moment. Which is unfortunate, since it's no secret that my area is fairly dire for employment. However, I'll be doing a course soon (job centre scheme) and once I've completed that I should get an interview. Then hopefully, if all goes well, I'll have a temporary full-time job. I'm hoping to find something more long-term. The trouble is, well, I'm in the middle of absolute nowhere. That is ultimately what led me to take my first job because opportunity is rare. So I took a job with several red flags because I needed to get my foot in the door. I was fired in the end - well "I won't fire you but I want you to quit" which is basically the same as being fired. Of course, I don't tell interviewers that. Anyway, yeah - a big reason I want to move is to expand my career options, because my days if the rest of the job market was a pond I'd be fishing in a puddle right now. It's just a big mess of 'Oh sorry you're overqualified, we're worried you might leave us!' or "You're too inexperienced" and 'Sorry we only want local people'. Ugh. I'm hoping to land this temporary job so I can earn a bit more whilst I continue to search for something full-time. A lot of adults my age leave the area since housing isn't affordable and there aren't many job opportunities. It's more the type of place where people retire. Beautiful but surrounded by a dying economy. I want to move as soon as I can. I should look into the lowest wage that I could afford to rent on. I need to look into what bills would cost on average. Groceries. It's not going to be easy to figure this out but I refuse to be stuck in this situation forever.
I'm not sure if this is applicable to the U.K., but I would contact some kind of housing authority or housing welfare service for info. I'm not suggesting you should go into those programs, but they can provide a lot of answers and information from an insider stand point who deals with this on a daily basis. There are also social media apps with listings looking for roommates. It may not be perfect, but you basically meet to make sure everyone can pay the bills and isn't a psycho. However you rarely interact with each other in the household on a daily basis. The housing authority also has listing of people looking for roommates. Again not sure if it works that way in U.K but it does in U.S
Plan carefully around your budget and know there might be unplanned expenses. Some renting places comes with furniture and other not Take the following inconsideration when renting Relocation cost Deposit and first month rent cost Monthly and weekly groceries Electricity cost
Do you drive? It’s a massive help when it comes to getting a job. Around here public transport is terrible, busses between small towns are infrequent and unreliable. Even when there isn’t a problem, the first bus is too late and the last bus is too early for a lot of jobs.
Good luck! I would hold off on the move until you have your full license. Having a car gives you a lot more options and a full license looks good on a CV too. Driving license, better job, move out. That's the order I'd do it in, unless you're really desperate to get out sooner.
My last interviewer outright asked why I still live in my area. Ugh. Because rent is expensive, my dude. Let's be real here. Of course I didn't say that. At least I have passed my theory now. I look forward to when I can move out and have better career opportunities. For now, I play the game of convincing others that I have no ambitions whatsoever and I love living in a dying economy in the middle of nowhere.
Good job on passing your theory. That's one step closer. How long is the wait for your practical test?
That depends on how quickly I can get my act together. Right now I have a habit of drifting a little close to the middle of the road. My spacial awareness could use some work. I'm hoping I can fix that in my next lesson and progress forwards with my course. At the moment, I'm probably looking at next April. However, that could change depending on how quickly I pick things up.
Do you have anyone who could sit in for you while you drive? You can get temporary insurance cover for learners by the hour with Veygo. Once your theory is passed, its really just a case of getting in hours behind the wheel while you wait for a slot at a testing station. I didn't have many lessons but a lot of time practicing driving with my dad - I wasn't really ready for the test and my instructor told me as much, but was willing to risk the test fee for a shot on the off chance I passed and I did.
