Finally. We have been in our tiny apartment way too long. I am excited to tell you that my boyfriend and I just got our lease renewal and we didn’t sign it. That’s right come October 1st we are moving. After the market crashed in 2008 we could no longer afford our old apartment and had to vacate ASAP. We moved to our apartment as a temporarily solution and now six years later we are finally moving out.
Choosing to move was an easy decision, but now comes the hard part. Now I actually have to move. We need to start looking for an apartment, shop around for movers and pack up all our stuff. I am extremely excited to move into a bigger apartment in a better neighbourhood. But let me tell you…moving is a lot of work.
It’s time consuming. Searching Craigslist and reading the real estate section of the Saturday newspaper is fun, but it’s time consuming. I would rather spend my weekends lounging around, working on my tan, reading a good book but I have to find a new apartment. Then there’s the time it takes to actually go out and look at all the potential new apartments. Yep, moving takes lots and lots of time.
There is a scene in the Sex and the City movie when Carrie and Big decide to buy a home together and she tells them they are looking at lucky number 34. I truly hope my boyfriend and I don’t have to look at 34 apartments before we find the right one.
Decisions need to be made. As a true Libra I have a hard time making a decision. Sometimes I know what I want and once my mind is made up there is no stopping me because I get fixated on an idea. However choosing the best apartment and picking one over the other is not a decision that I seem to make very easily.
Thank goodness I can narrow it down to three and I’ll leave it up to my boyfriend to pick the best one. That’s one of the great things about being in a couple, there is always someone to help you out.
It’s expensive, really expensive. We haven’t even moved yet and we’ve already started spending money. The costs of buying the Saturday paper and travelling around on the weekends to visit apartments is adding onto my weekly expenses. Since I live on a fixed budget with a small amount allocated to personal expenses it means I have to cut something else out of my weekly expenses. Right now I am cutting down on my eating out. I am cooking at home more, which I don’t really like because I’m not super great at it; but I’m doing it in the name of a bigger, better apartment.
Last time we moved (six years ago) it cost us $750 so that’s what I’ve budgeted for our moving expenses this time. Then we have to factor in the costs of new furniture. We need a new kitchen table with chairs, a new bed frame and a new sofa (we’ve had ours for almost 10 years). Thankfully we aren’t moving until the fall which gives us time to save so we can avoid charging any moving expenses onto our credit card.
Have you moved recently? What kind of costs did you incur?
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