Siobhan’s Emma Guest Post…

Today we have the very lovely Siobhan Emma‘s post about growing up and moving out, something I’m yet to experience!

Let’s face it…until we move out from the comfort of our parents house, we’re not really proper grown ups are we?  We get fed, watered, clothes washed and ironed, rooms cleaned; the list is endless!  Even when you move into student accommodation at uni, there’s still a massive support system there for you 24 hours a day, whether that be in the form of parents or university student liaisons to help with any problems, or even to spare you a bit of extra cash when you went out on that night out with all of your course mates when really, you should have saved it for that month’s rent.

Moving out though into the big wide World, full time job in tow…and dare I say it…a boy!  Now that’s a big deal!

The reason I am talking about this?  Last week my boyfriend and I agreed to move into our very first house together!  I have done my time living with parents and living in grubby student digs, but this is all shiny and new!  I’m moving into a house with a conservatory, in a lovely, quiet cul-de-sac.  It’s not the biggest house in the World.  The rooms are pretty small, but they’re big enough for a couple moving into their first house…and did I mention it has a conservatory!

We should be moving out in the next couple of weeks, so by the time this post goes live, we will be mid way through our preparations.  It’ll be the week before we move in and hopefully we will be organised!  Since starting the hunt for a house I’ve learnt quite a lot, and want to share my experience so far with you as no doubt there are plenty of you out there who may be thinking about moving out in the near future.

Before you even think about anything else you need to save save save!  Without saving you’re going to struggle.  Have in your mind an idea of how much you’re willing to pay for rent each month, as this will help you figure out how much you need to save.  We decided our absolute limit for our monthly rent would be £550.00, so with that we decided to save up £3000.00 before starting the hunt.  As we’ll be renting privately this means approximately £1000.00 is for our bond and first months rent, and then we have £2000.00 for all of the essentials we’ll need.  You may not need to save up this much depending on how much you already have, but as this is the first time we’re moving out we need everything from a washer, a mattress and everything in between.

Don’t just look on the obvious websites when you start your house hunt like Right Move.  Look on smaller websites such as the one we found our house on, Open Rent, and keep your eye out when out and about for ‘To Let’ signs on houses.  This is how my friends found their house and it is a beautiful place!

We were extremely lucky with our house.  We fell for the first house we viewed, however, for others it may take a bit longer.  Whatever you do, do not settle for second best.  Make sure you pick the perfect house for you.  When I viewed our house it just felt right.  I loved it, and after meeting the landlord a couple of times now, he is a really genuine, down to earth guy and I just know he’s going to be good to us.  If it feels right, then don’t pass on it.

Once everything had been agreed and we had given our definite yes we started looking for everything we wanted for the house.  We started by listing everything that we wanted, and getting ideas for prices, and I think out of the excitement of having our very own home to move into, we went a bit over board and went a bit over our budget!  So we then went through our list again, got brutal and only kept things on the list that was absolutely essential for when we first move in, and anything else can be purchased as we go along.

If you can get as much as you can for free as possible.  For example we’re getting a free bed, so we just need a mattress, and we possibly have a free dining table as well.  At the end of the day you don’t need everything brand spanking new when you’re first moving out.  As long as you’ve got the essentials to start off with, then you can upgrade to fancier items when you can save up for it.

That’s pretty much where we are at the moment with moving homes.  No doubt there will be plenty of more learning curbs over the next couple of weeks.  Maybe this could be my pre moving in post, and then I could do a post moving in post on my own blog for you all.  Let me know if that is something you’d like to see.

A big huge squidgy thank you to Haydn for handing her blog over to me for this post.  I hope you enjoyed my rambles; if you did then come take a look at my many other ramblings over at Siobhan Emma.

Until next time…

Disclaimer – The photo of the houses above is not my photo and sadly not the one of the houses I was moving into.  Trust me…if I was moving into a Notting Hill House I would be making a song and dance about it.  Instead this is a lovely photo found on Pinterest