Thinking About Moving In? *

This time next month I will have lived with Mike for a year, it’s gone so quickly that I didn’t even realise it has been that long until I started to write this post! We’ve done a pretty good job of living together, if I may so so myself, as we’ve become such a team that everything runs mega smoothly. When you don’t have to ask a man to clean your bathrooms, you know you’re onto a winner!

As lovely have these past 11 months been living in each other’s pockets, it wasn’t quite as I thought it would be as I’ve never lived with anyone other than my parent so I thought I’d share a few tips for those thinking about moving in with a partner…

Have Your Own Space
As much as I love spending all my time with Mike, sometimes it’s nice to have some time out and by this, I don’t mean nights out with friends I mean time out in your home. When I want some time to think, chill or just be alone with my thoughts then I run a hot bath, throw in a bath bomb, light some candles and have an hour to myself. Mike knows to leave me be when I’m doing this and he tends to go on his computer and work on his music as that’s his favourite way to relax.

Make Time for Date Nights
This is the total opposite of my first tip, but despite eating dinner together most nights we still have our ‘date nights.’ This could be cooking a new recipe at home with a film or dressing up and going out for dinner. Even though you’re living together it doesn’t mean you have to stop dating. Every now and again I will plan a date day and we will head out for the day for some fun, food and taking a ton of photos. It’s just nice to spend some quality time together.

Split the Chores
When it comes to living together you become a team and teams work together! It’s unfair if one of you does all of the hard work around the home all of the time so make sure you share the chores. We split the cooking all the time as we both have certain meals we love to cook, and usually, the other person will tidy up and load the dishwasher. I’m a lot tidier than Mike as I like to think everything has its own home so I tend to do the cleaning more but Mike will always mop and deep clean the bathrooms. It also stops arguments so make this a priority. If there are arguments then it may be worth looking at getting a cleaner; this can be as little as £30 a month.

Share the Food Shop
If you’re used to shopping for yourself then it may be worth sitting down and working out a weekly shop together to save money. We now have a weekly food delivery from Tesco with what we want for dinner each night. We also go to Costco and buy our meat to freeze as we find it such better quality for the money you pay. Mike was used to shopping just for himself and I was used to mum filling the fridge so working out what we both like meant it makes dinner time a lot easier.

Don’t Nag Each Other
Sometimes living together can be tough, like the time we couldn’t find a certain shirt and we were both blaming each other to find it was hidden in a drawer with some other dirty washing. Mike had popped the dirty washing in the drawer to save me nagging as I had asked him to tidy the bedroom. At the time I was pretty miffed by the fact he didn’t just take it to the wash basket and nagged him for that, but he had done his bit of tidying the bedroom and now joke that the washing won’t get done if it’s hiding in the drawer!

If you’re looking for help with moving, whether it’s sales, mortgage advice or removals, then The Personal Agent could be what you’re looking for,