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Moving out in your 20's

The stresses of your first flat

By Terri AllenPublished 3 years ago 3 min read
3

Your first flat is a huge move to make in your adult home. You will spend years of time thinking about ways you are going to decorate and furnish your home. The biggest bit of advice I can offer you is to not rush it no matter how quickly you want to have your own space and to save as much as you possibly can. I could also warn you to expect the unexpected because not everyone in the world is your friend.

So when I first heard that I was being offered a flat from the council I was ecstatic but of course with a council flat there is a huge waiting list. The previous tenants need to give four weeks notice (this is when the council phones you to let you know that you are being offered accommodation) and then it is anywhere between two and six weeks for the council to prepare any damages that may have occurred in the property.

I was left waiting for this flat for way longer than the two and a half month expected time. I was waiting so long that I ended up emailing the council to ensure that I hadn’t been forgotten and the flat that I had previously been offered was given to someone else.

Within a week from my email at 8am I was awoken to a phone call asking me to come to a viewing the next day, luckily I had a single day off in between my busy working week. The next day I was in the flat, fell in love immediately and signed the contract. In the next few days my savings would slowly start to dwindle.

There is so much to buy for a new flat, why had no one prepared me for this (they had). I had to buy paint, paint brushes, tape… man I don’t even want to think about it. I don’t think I looked at my bank account in weeks, only when I had to transfer money from my savings account into my current account.

Laminate flooring. Disgustingly expensive. Then my mum decided to recommend a ‘family friend’ who offered to put the laminate down in my living room and hallway for £80. Word of advice, just hire a professional.

So after a devastating encounter with a cowboy builder who claims he knows how to put down laminate (but my experience with him shows otherwise) my best friend and her boyfriend helped me out by finding a man who would come and see the damage. This man would eventually come and fix my flooring just in time for me to move in the next day.

Now the worst part of this whole experience wasn’t the laminate flooring guy that cost me an extra £200 when I had to buy new laminate, it wasn’t the carpet guy ignoring my calls and forgetting that he was meant to come to my house to do my flooring TWICE and it wasn’t the fact that I had to move into my flat for a week and a half without any flooring in my kitchen, bedroom or bathroom. The worst part was that I had to work basically every single day for the whole month in between trying to move out of my mothers house.

I could never see my friends, my boyfriend or just spend a day relaxing on my day off. This made it very hard to get time to do stuff because it had to be worked around my work schedule.

It is so worth it though, among all the stress and worry I feel great knowing that I have my own flat and my own independence to do what I want and furnish my space how I want to. I like what I have done with the place so far, not getting my couch until October but I am a bit materialistic in the sense that I didn’t want to buy a used couch.

I had the savings to buy everything that I wanted including a beautiful washer dryer that I can control through an app on my phone and I can get notifications when I am at work to let me know that my cycle is done and the machine has been turned off.

There are ups and downs to every life event but you need to push through and work hard to get to where you want to be.

I did it, so can you!

house
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About the Creator

Terri Allen

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Nice work

Very well written. Keep up the good work!

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