Lame question: are you paying for it alone? Because it seems like it could be really expensive.
Walhalla I live with my girlfriend in a 3-bedroom, 2-bath, 1300 square foot + balcony apartment that’s $475/mo, plus electric. Apartments aren’t all that expensive.
Mini Pizzas!
English Muffins
Pizza Sauce
Shredded Cheese
Pepperoni
Cut the muffins in half, I’m sure you can figure out the rest.
Fish sticks and french fries make for a quantity of cheap meals, as does a loaf of bread and an assload of lunch meat.
Oh, and I don’t know how crime is where you live, Jing, so be protected.
Good luck.
Apartment prices are gonna fluctuate depending on the location, Aldred. They might be expensive in Canadia, but not in San Angelo, Texas. I can most likely find a bigger and cheaper apartment in Georgia than I could in New York. So, if it’s expensive, who knows, a roomie might not be bad. Besides, that gives extra income in terms of lowering the rent for both of them, splitting any and all bills if not covered, possibly food expenses (that most likely is dependent on your roomie), etc.
Generally speaking, regardless of how cheap/expensive the cost of living is, the average rate of pay for jobs in that area should reflect that. If my apartment was $900/mo, which is about double the average price around here, then most jobs in this area would pay around $10.00/hour starting, rather than the $5.25 minimum wage. That’s how it works.
Roommates can be cool, but it’s not a good idea to just room up with someone out of a newspaper ad or something. Makes me paranoid just thinking about it.
Pasta and stir-fry’s are the easiest meals to make. My rule with spices is stick to a few you know. Then start experimenting with combinations until you get one you like.
If you can afford it, I know a good chicken recipe:
Marinate the chicken with about a tbsp or soy sauce for each leg/breast.
Then sprinkle with paprika and a dash of nutmeg.
Bake at 425F for about 10-15 min. each side.
Leave some fat on so it’ll bring the flavour into the meat while baking.
Leaving the fat on is only for when you didn’t plan ahead and marinate ahead of time.
You’d be singing a different tune if you lived in California, especially southern California. A 3 bed room place in California could probably run at least $1500 a month, at a least, probably more. The costs of living varies gretaly by location. Like at school, I’ll see places for rent that are 2 be room with 3 or 4 people for about $500-$600 each, plus utilities. Hell, if I could get a palce as cheap as you Alred I would have moved out a while ago sicne I can afford what you are paying, espcially for a place that big. You just have to take into account that area changes the price greatly. Hell, one of the guys I worked with moved the St. Louis just because California is too expensive. He could get a bigger and nicer house for less there than he could here.
Wow, shit’s expensive in CA! Minimum wage is $6.75 over there, do most jobs start out there or higher? That’s crazy.
I used to live in Phoenix, AZ, and it wasn’t that bad. On average, apartments were $500-$700 (2 bedrooms), and most jobs started you around $9/hr, so it made up for it.
For me, when I was living on my own, things were both good and bad. Good was when I got my first apartment, and the bad thing was that I let a couple friends crash there for a couple of nights and they moved into my house while I was at work…there were some fun times, but I got arrested twice for parties I didn’t even attend(which is really fucked up.)
Then I tried a different roomate. He was so lazy he paid a chick to clean our apartment(not to mention due to our conjoined paranoia we lived in six different apartments and a country house). Then this chick came into the picture, fucked both of us over and we went our seperate ways.
I then got my last place with my stepbrother and my best friend from high school. We threw some wicked parties(me and my friend turned 21 2 days apart from one another and had a weeklong party, starting with 4 bottles and capping the week with a keg). Man, the pranks we pulled on the first person to pass out(which was sometimes me if I worked till 1 am) included Antiquing, covering someone in shaving cream, there was some other pranks that were more extreme(the first person at one of the parties to pass out got teabagged, at another party, someone got pissed on, but sometimes, there were consenual pissings).
But through all of this, I learned a lot. Never buy more than a couple packs of smokes at a time if you got roomies(and if you and/or roomies smoke), because they will smoke them while you’re at work. I also learned that five years of restaraunt work pays off when it comes to cooking your own meals. And most Importantly, never get too cocky about your situation. You can lose everything in the blink of an eye. The last one is the reason why I moved back in with my mom.
But I’d have to say my favorite thing to cook was Beer marinated grilled chicken with Jack Daniel’s grilling sauce. And this now concludes my Reader’s Digest condensed version of my three years out on my own.
I edited it, and it doesn’t really look much different 8p. What Gives??!!
Jeez. A friend o’ mine (19) has been living with his bro (20) for like 5 years now. The heaviest partying ever in their apartment was last weekend, seeing he has a birthday and they moved to their present apartment too, so it was a joint party.
Yes, it’s HELLUVA FUN to have a party in a small apartment with 20 people around, but the clean-up process is HELL.
Is thankful for the fact my friends know how scary his parents can be so there’s never ever any trouble whenever I’ve held a party– (Twice. But both were with around 10 persons anyway…)
Now, if when (if) I move out it’d either be a medium-sized shared place (With a roomie/friend/…who knows?) or a single apartment with the bare necessities…
But you never know what you end up with. Heck, I still have that half a year in the military, so who knows what’ll happen during that time and my studying plans? I might study over here in HElsinki and live where I do now. Or I could go COMPLETELY SOMEWHERE ELSE and live there. (YAY! TAMPERE UNI! HI SAL!)
And what’s the talk about spices and food? Life isn’t an Earthbound MMORPG! Or is it? O_o;
Man, I’d read what the hell you wrote but you make it kinda stupidly difficult since you dont know what the enter key is.
Living on your own teaches you all sorts of valuable things, like how to properly clean a house, do the cooking and washing and also how to masturbate, possibly the most important skill a woman could ever have. Men dont give a fuck about your orgasms. Men are going to be too busy to help you with your problems and you wont have time to bitch, there is dinner to make!
Keep it up Shal. Just you keep it up. 
I also get to live on my own starting in three days time. Yay univeristy at last and not seeing any of my friends again ever. ;_;
Hmmm… Well I don’t think I can give you very many good tips…
I had my own apartment until I messed up (didn’t go to school n stuff), so my mom made me move back home, and I have “cooked” “food” that have actually DISAPPEARED ON IT’S OWN! O_o
So, no, no tips from me.
Or actually, I’ve got one…
Don’t do like I did
I know what it is, but I’m not thinking about that at 2 in the morning. I was thinking about the fact that I could barely hold my eyes open as I was typing my run-on paragraph.
And I fixed it today. So there
Ohmigosh, so many people posting! >.>
Ever heard of nutrition? =P
Actually, I’ve been waking up to an alarm for about five years already, so that won’t be a problem. And right now I only have lectures twice a week or so and most start at 1:15pm, anyway.
People only ask for cell phone number in this country for some reason, so I always say I don’t have one. =P cough I’m also paranoid about best-before dates; I even have a post-it on the fridge with a list of the dates for everything. And thaaank you! ^^
Ne, my parents are paying the rent (it’s not a lot for an apartment this big) and I’m paying the rest (electricity, broadband (<3), phone, food… gwah. x_x).
I don’t do the party thing and I can’t stand mac n cheese (eeeugh!); mostly my “oh damn I forgot to cook need something quick”/laziness food is pasta salad (with olive oil + red wine vinegar + spice) or sandwiches.
Lots of thank yous for all the advice and recipes. <3 I’m going to try as many as I can because they all sounds very interesting so far.