I’m about to move out but my budget makes me scared. Can you help me?
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I don’t even know why I’m responding when you admit to fabricating huge posts to lie to us, for what? The exact advice you want? Is incredibly off. Get BetterHelp. I have a great therapist and it’s cheap. They take a % off for insurance.
Stop the bs and move out. Do you even have a car?
Why won’t you move in with a female roommate?
Please stop lying and tell the truth, we don’t know you. We’re not going to show up on your yard to laugh at you or something. We’re trying to help and getting annoyed at constant lies and no progress for months and months.
BetterHelp is cheap and great. I got 8 sessions through insurance and now get 30% a month.
You need professional help.
You need to move out now.
I left an abusive situation with a laughable amount of money and I was younger than you. I found an apartment with other people in two days, in a city.
There’s no reason you are still there but you choose to be.
Get a female roommate. Just never invite your family over. Why won’t you consider a roommate? We’re strangers, I don’t understand why you won’t be honest. It’s the internet and it’s anonymous.
Do you even have a car? A job? I don’t even know what to believe anymore.
WASHCLOTHS, move out! Why are you still there?
The only thing that was made-up was that one post. Everything else true — I have a job, I have a car. I made my first post here last December? It took me until now to build up the savings I have now, especially with a car purchase halfway through that time period. I’m not stalling, I was saving.
I’m sorry, I’m still wary about roommates. I’ve heard too many bad stories from my friends in college (yes, I had friends in college, not made up. We just parted ways and lost touch after graduation) who did vetting and still ended up in shitty situations. I’d also rather live alone.
An update: I found one complex for $1290/month, W/D included (so I don’t have to call or pay a repairman if it clunks out compared to buying my own), 3rd floor (preferable for me — no stomping above and safer as a single woman living alone), 630 sq ft., upgraded appliances and renovations with decent reviews. I also toured the property before and it was clean and quiet, though I have to visit at night to see the environment then. It has a much earlier move-in date, but I’m considering taking it.
There’s another one for my original goal of $1100/month rent with similar good reviews and clean/safe grounds, but no W/D and no availability in sight.
One person mentioned studios. I saw those…and also saw in person how nasty, unsafe, and littered with bad reviews they were. I want my move-out to be permanent and also sensible. I think these two options are my best bet so far.
To bring up another point: they keep hounding me about helping me see places. I’m literally going to choose a place and sign a lease this week and I’m doing it alone. I need something to say to them to get them off my back, before and after I do it, because I’ll still have a few weeks of living at home until I can move into my new place.
So I suspect you’ll disregard this opinion, which is fine, but $1290 in rent seems pretty high for what you take home. It really sounds like you want something modern and upgraded, which isn’t inherently wrong, but on your budget, those are things you’d maybe want to go without for a couple years. As a renter, you wouldn’t have to buy your own W/D or call a repairman if the shared ones in the laundry room break — the landlord takes care of that. I really find it hard to believe that ALL studio apartments in your area are nasty, unsafe, and unavailable. Again, not wrong to want a one-bedroom, but given your finances, that’s one of those kind of obvious places to save a bit of cash if you refuse to have roommates. Modern studios can even have really decent layouts to give them a one-bedroom feel.
I don’t mind old appliances and white fridges at all. Old places, not upgraded. I started with those first, actually — can you believe those STILL were around 1100/month?
I heard it before I began looking, but I underestimated then and I think you all might be underestimating it now how abysmal and unfair the renting/housing market is now and has been for the past couple of years. Price gouging is insane.
I’ll look again for studios, just to make sure.
I live in a major U.S. city with a higher COL than the area you live in, so yes, I do believe it. I spent the first six or so years that I lived in this city in a desirable neighbor. Specifically, I lived in a historic area with old homes and apartments. It was not unusual to see small vintage studios going for $1250+/mo. Modern studios would be $1500+. And those were just the studios. However, you know what else I found in said neighborhood? The cute, sunny third-floor vintage walk-up one-bedroom apartment that I lived in for over four years before moving in with my boyfriend. It had a great layout, great sized kitchen (I had COUNTER SPACE!), and some charming details (built-in bookshelves! pocket doors!). When I moved in, my rent was a little less than $1100/mo — in other words, a great deal for my location. The building had some pretty mediocre reviews online because tenants usually don’t like their landlords for whatever reason. I was earning decently more than you but didn’t want to pay more in rent because… well, why? I wanted my money to go toward other goals, like finishing paying down my student loan debt (done!), maybe one day buying a place of my own, retirement, travel. I do believe if you look you can find a solid place at a good rate and I’m just trying to show what making some compromises looks like. I got to live in the neighborhood I wanted and still had a great place… I just didn’t have in-unit laundry or marble countertops.
@ron That rent would be over 40% of LW’s take-home. That’s a lot. And that’s JUST rent. I think there are some cities (looking at you, San Fran) where plenty of people sincerely have no choice but to spend more than what’s ideal on housing. LW is not in one of those cities.
That makes sense, Copa. I’m going to visit the $1100 place tomorrow that’s more in-line with my goals. If it’s a winner, it’s the one I’m going with. If not, I’ll do a day or two more of searching that if doesn’t produce, I’m going with the $1290 by the end of the week, as Ron suggests. What’s so annoying is that the $1100 place has no rooms to show, not even model rooms or vacancies. A sample video shows a nice place, but I will only be seeing amenities and grounds tomorrow.
Also unfortunately, my car is in the shop and time is ticking, so my parents will have to take me to the place tomorrow. (Not making this up!) I do genuinely need advice on how to navigate their whole insistence on helping me choose and letting them see places before I sign a lease. Specifically, how to tell them “no” in a way they will back off but not aggravate me or my plans until I move out. You know what type of parents I’m working with here…
Side note: why am I having such a hard time finding private-owned apartments? I searched Zillow and Trulia and all company-owned apartment complexes are coming up…
You… literally just say no. You can say it nicely but firmly. “I will not be needing your help with this, thank you.” If you can find another way to get to the showings, do that instead. (Transit? Bikeshare? Uber? IDK your options.) I have even used phrases along the lines of, “You are my parent but your role as a parent is over and what you are saying to me is inappropriate,” to my dad before when he started scolding me as if I was a child. This was a few years ago, I was probably already in my 30s. I definitely wasn’t at home anymore. I’m so over my family’s bullshit, though, so at this point I’m very assertive with my family about is/is not okay. I don’t remember your past posts about your family the way others do, so while I wanna say the details of our situations are very different, I can relate to overbearing and/or controlling and/or bad boundaries parents. My mom is an immigrant, so with her the clashes were more cultural differences… my dad is just a controlling white American dude, though.
