Living On Your Own

Lehu Pierre A.

Description

Striking out on your own after a lifetime of living with your parents is equal parts exhilarating and intimidating, but most of all, it is awkward. There is so much that people expect you to know that no one ever bothered to tell you—stuff you actually need to know to avoid bankrupting yourself through overspending, poisoning yourself with bad cooking, or drowning in a rising tide of dirty dishes and unwashed laundry.

 

But you don’t have to learn all this the hard way. “Living On Your Own: The Complete Guide to Setting Up Your Money, Your Space and Your Life” is the cheat sheet to help you take your first steps into adulthood with confidence.

 

Whether you’re moving into a college dorm or into post-college life, “Living On Your Own” gives you money-, time-, and trouble-saving tips, shortcuts, and lifehacks to make your transition smoother. Covering everything from the basics of budgeting to home cooking on the cheap to how to not catch an STD, “Living On Your Own” is an invaluable road-map to early adulthood.

Sujets

• Young Adult Nonfiction
• Personal Finance

Informations

• Publié par: Linden Publishing
• Date de parution: 01 juin 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 8
• EAN13: 9781610352369
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

LIVING ON YOUR OWN
THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO SETTING UP YOUR MONEY, YOUR SPACE, AND YOUR LIFE
LIVING ON YOUR OWN
THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO SETTING UP YOUR MONEY, YOUR SPACE, AND YOUR LIFE
PIERRE A. LEHU
Living On Your Own
Copyright 2014 by Pierre A. Lehu. All rights reserved.
Dedicatated to my parents, Pierre and Annette Lehu, for lovingly kicking me out of the nest .
Published by Quill Driver Books An imprint of Linden Publishing 2006 South Mary Street, Fresno, California 93721 [phone] / [phone] QuillDriverBooks.com
Quill Driver Books and Colophon are trademarks of Linden Publishing, Inc.
ISBN 978-1-61035-212-3
135798642
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lehu, Pierre A.
Living on your own : the complete guide to setting up your money, your space, and your life / Pierre Lehu.
pages cm
Includes index.
ISBN 978-1-61035-212-3 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Home economics. 2. Life skills. 3. Finance, Personal. I. Title.
TX147.L435 2014
640--dc23
2013045033
C ONTENTS
Introduction
Part One: How to Find the Right Place to Live
Chapter 1: Can I Afford to Live on My Own?
Simple Steps to Creating a Budget That Works
Chapter 2: How to Choose Your New Neighborhood
Safety, Lifestyle, Location
Chapter 3: Nailing Down the Apartment You Want
Now That You ve Found It, Here s How to Make It Yours
Chapter 4: Moving In
Get into Your New Place without Losing Your Mind
Part Two: How to Take Care of Your Home
Chapter 5: Utilities
How to Set Up the Services You Need and Save Money on Your Bills
Chapter 6: Housecleaning
How to Impress Your Friends with Your Housecleaning Acumen
Chapter 7: Doing Dishes
Simple Steps to a Cleaner Kitchen
Chapter 8: Laundry
Washers, Dryers, and a Whole Lot More
Chapter 9: Home Maintenance
How to Keep Your Things from Falling Apart
Chapter 10: Funishings and D cor
You Can Be Stylish on a Budget
Chapter 11: Electricity
Circuits, Wiring, Breakers and More
Chapter 12: Plumbing
Everything from Unclogging Toilets to Fixing Leaky Faucets
Part Three: How to Take Care of Yourself
Chapter 13: Health
How to Take Care of Yourself and Work with Your Doctor
Chapter: 14 Cooking
You Are What You Eat-and Cook!
Chapter 15: Living Arrangements
How to Get Along with Roommates and Neighbors
Chapter 16: Dorm Life
Becoming Familiar with a New Environment
Chapter 17: Sex and Relationships
Understanding the Physical and Emotional Aspects of Relationships
Part Four: How to Take Care of Your Money
Chapter 18: Banking
Checking Accounts, Saving Accounts, Credit Cards, and More
Chapter 19: Taxes
How to Prepare for the Different Taxes in Your Life
Chapter 20: Legal Issues
How to Deal with Law Enforcement, Contracts, Jury Duty, and More
Index
I NTRODUCTION
When you buy a new electronic gadget, do you ever bother to read the instructions? Maybe you do, but I suspect most of us just plug it in and hope it works. I know I m like that. I always assume I ll be able to figure out how to operate the device once I turn it on. And it seems that most of the time this fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants approach works out pretty well.
Except when it doesn t. While there are a lot of smart gadgets these days, most other aspects of life aren t so user friendly. When you re living on your own for the first time, this realization can hit hard-there s so much to learn and be aware of, but what are the rules and where are the instructions? Why didn t anyone ever tell you all this stuff? How are you supposed to know that the dyes in certain clothing can stain your other clothes in the washing machine? Or that there are more germs in your kitchen sink than in your toilet bowl? Or that when you verbally request the power company to hook up power to your apartment you ve just entered into a legally enforceable contract?
Taking care of the basic, day-to-day necessities of life involves a little bit of knowledge on a wide range of subjects. Sure, you can research the answers piecemeal on the web, but the fact is that when you re new to living on your own, you may not even know what questions to ask.
The purpose of this book is to ask and then answer those questions-not all of them, because that would be impossible, but enough to give you a solid foundation to proceed with your life and to do further research if you need to. Living on Your Own is designed to be a step-by-step learning program, with four major parts:
How to Find the Right Place to Live : This part explains everything you need to know about creating a budget and conducting a smart search for your new home.
How to Take Care of Your Home : You will learn the ins and outs of dealing with utility companies, becoming competent at basic home maintenance, doing the laundry and dishes, and handling all the other household tasks you ll one day become an expert at.
How to Take Care of Yourself : Living on your own won t be much fun if you don t take care of your mind and body, so this part of the book covers the basics of eating well, staying happy, and learning to interact with your roommates and neighbors.
How to Take Care of Your Money : You may not have a lot of it right now, but it s never too early to learn how to wisely use and grow your money. And it s just as important to understand how to avoid getting into trouble with the IRS.
Life doesn t come with a manual, but you might think of this book as a starter kit of sorts. I ve experienced everything described in this book, either directly myself or through watching my two children move out and live on their own. As I witnessed their questions and struggles, and remembered having the same issues when I moved out of my parents home, I started wondering, How come nobody ever writes all this stuff down? That s how Living On Your Own came into being.
Although I recommend reading this book cover to cover, I realize that s not what most people will do. And that s OK, because if you run into an issue that has you throwing your hands up in dismay, you can turn to the appropriate chapter. But as I mentioned earlier, many times we aren t even aware of the questions to ask as we navigate our way through the obstacle course of life. So I encourage you to at least thumb through the pages to familiarize yourself with the book s contents.
And after that, go enjoy this wonderful time in your life. Make smart decisions, keep on learning, and have a whole lot of fun as you set off to conquer the world.
- Pierre A. Lehu
P ART O NE :
H OW TO F IND THE R IGHT P LACE TO L IVE
CHAPTER
1 C AN I A FFORD TO L IVE ON M Y O WN ?
Simple Steps to Creating a Budget That Works
L OOK BEFORE Y OU L EAP
This book will try to answer all your questions about living on your own, everything from big topics such as how to pay the rent to lifestyle satisfaction issues such as how to get your dishes sparkling clean. But before we get to all that, you have to ask yourself the very first and most important question: Right now-can I afford to live on my own or will I crash and burn?
The good news is that there s a straightforward way for you to answer this crucial question: You need to take a realistic look at your financial situation by assembling a personal budget and doing a bit of math. Sure, it involves a little bit of work, but your personal budget will be a critical key to successfully living on your own. It will tell you how much it s going to cost you to live on your own every month, which you can then compare to how much money you ll have coming in through your earnings or other sources. If the two numbers are fairly close and you ll be pulling in a bit more money than you ll be spending, you can go ahead and make the jump. But if your money supply won t meet your expenses, then it s on to Plan B, which, more likely than not, means you re staying put.
It s true that until you actually do move out on your own, the numbers you enter into your budget will be a bit rough around the edges ( Chapter 2 , which involves conducting some research, will help you firm up these numbers). But if you make sure to pad the expenses-and trust me, they ll be higher than what wishful thinking will encourage you to put down-then you should arrive at a budget you can trust when making your go/no-go decision.
Think of Your Budget as Your Friend and Advisor
You may think that making a budget is worse than doing an eighth grade science project, but this chapter will demonstrate that it s really not at all difficult to do and that the sense of control you get from doing a budget feels good. More than that, it gives you peace of mind. Competence, control, and peace of mind-not a bad combination, is it? And all achievable through the financial clarity of a simple budget.
Plus, creating a budget can actually involve some fun moments. Why? Because this number-crunching assignment comes with a built-in reward-a brief trip to fantasyland. I know this sounds strange, but hear me out: To make a realistic budget, you have to picture yourself in a new environment, an environment that you get to customize (to one degree or another) to your personal liking. So you say to yourself, Here I am in my new apartment. Let s see, where am I going to put the TV? True, as soon as the word television pops into your brain, the budgeting process requires you to consider the cost of purchasing a TV (not to mention paying your monthly cable bill!), unless you