Moving out of home: tips for your new joint

School has ended, summer is in full swing, and you, like so many other people your age, are elbow deep in boxes, packing tape and piles of take to the new place , leave at mum s place and I can t believe I ever owned this! . Moving out of home for the first time is a lot of things scary, exciting, freeing, messy and just a little bit awesome. For the first time in your life, there will be no one to tell you to clean your room, asking where you were the night before, or bugging you about studying. But with everything so new, a few tips could help right? Between our NCPIC team, we have moved hundreds of times, so here are the collective things we ve learned about first time moving.

Tip 1: Choose your flatmate, don t let them choose you

One of the toughest parts of moving out of home is the gamble you take on who you live with. Let s be honest, few of us are rich enough to cough up for a place all to ourselves and this means we end up sharing a living room, bathroom and usually a common wall with at least one other person. A good tip is to make sure you choose your flatmate from a few options, as opposed to them choosing you from a group of people. This way you can ask questions, learn more about them and choose someone you think you can actually live with. Good questions to ask include how clean they are, whether they ll be working or studying and as a result when they need the shower, how hard they party, if they have a boy/girlfriend, and their use of marijuana or other drugs.

Tip 2: Forget beanbags and milk crates furnish like royalty

With little money in the bank and all these new expenses, plastic milk crates can seem like the best furnishing option unless your mum and dad are willing to fork over the big bucks but this doesn t have to be the case. Two of your best options for finding good stuff, is to checkout Gumtree or go for a walk in better neighbourhoods on council cleanup day you ll be surprised at the quality leather lounges people give away for free!

Tip 3: Don t volunteer to be the household admin

Sometimes if you get stuck paying the household bills you get exactly that stuck paying ALL the bills yourself. When short straws are being passed around and the household is looking to nominate someone to collect the cash and look after the bills each month, politely head to the bathroom if you score this job, you ll be forever chasing money and getting more and more broke.

Tip 4: Fresh house, fresh start

Moving out of home and officially becoming an adult, is a good chance to have a look at yourself and your bad habits and start afresh by leaving them behind. If, during school, you found yourself smoking the odd bong (or more than the odd bong), now is the time to put your weed and bong in the Throw away pile and resolve to live a healthier lifestyle. With money tighter and bills to pay, smoking weed can be a habit that really affects your lifestyle.

Tip 5: All s fair in love and cleaning

There will always be someone who is the messy person in the house if that person is you, you can basically skip this tip. To ensure everyone does their part and no one takes advantage of another person s cleaning-skills, set up an agreement or roster on day one that ensures everyone knows what their job is, when and to what standard it should be done this will save a lot of house wars!

Tip 6: Pizza can get old

This may be an obvious one, but you d be surprised at the people who don t think of it. If you can t cook anything edible, get your mum or dad to teach you a few basics before you move. Pizza may have been fun between home cooked meals while you were living under mum s roof, but if pizza is all you eat, you ll be craving meat and vegies in no time.

Tip 7: Dealing with housemates

It is inevitable that at some stage you ll have a bit of an argument with your housemate whether it s because his girlfriend stays over too much, her weed is stinking up the furniture, or the pizza boxes are piling up. Resolving conflict quickly and peacefully means you can continue to live together comfortably. Put the issue into perspective, approach your housemate calmly and make sure your request of them is reasonable.

Tip 8: There s nothing wrong with a night at home

Finally, while moving out of home and the associated freedom can be really exciting, sometimes when things go bump in the night, when pizza is getting old, or when you just can t be bothered to wash you sheets, heading back to mum and dads for a night or two is ok. Felling homesick is really normal but if you just can t to admit it, you can always say you re visiting so your mum and dad don t miss you too much!