When E got the call that he’d gotten his dream job last fall, we couldn’t have been more excited. E was employed, and we were California dreamin’! All the work that moving across the country would entail hadn’t occurred to us yet, and the reality didn’t actually sink in until we in the thick of planning our move in April: how do we find an apartment when we’re living 2,000 miles away? Do we need a renter’s insurance policy? Why is shipping SO expensive? We don’t even have that much stuff!
In light of our experience, today I’m going to be sharing the information I wish we’d had when we started planning our move two months ago. It’s a step-by-step guide to finding and furnishing an apartment, setting up necessary services in your new home, and getting all of your stuff where it needs to go. Everyone’s moving checklist will look a bit different, but all of the basics are here. Let’s jump right in!
- Decide where you’re going to live. If you’re able to live in the same city as your place of work, great! For us, that wasn’t an option so we researched several nearby cities before settling on one. Our main criteria for choosing a city were:
- Safety (my top priority!)
- General affordability and “bang for your buck” in terms of apartments
- Distance to E’s place of work
- Does the city contain shops and places that we frequent? (Whole Foods, Target, a farmer’s market, a few green spaces, and several churches in particular)
- Research apartments and/or condos that fit your needs. We used Apartments.com and Trulia for most of our research!
- Make a list of your top choices. Our top qualifications for apartments on our “to-tour” list were that 1) they have availability around our desired move-in date and that 2) they fit into our monthly budget for rent–with no exceptions. This is a good starting point for narrowing down your options. However, you might also have other qualifications for your ideal apartment beyond affordability. Here are some ideas for qualifications (beyond availability and budget-friendliness) to help you narrow down your choices:
- Are any appliances or amenities a must for you? (Dishwasher, air conditioning, in-unit laundry, gym, pool, etc.)
- How does the neighborhood that the apartment is located in rank in terms of safety within the city?
- Distance to frequented shops and places? (In particular, if you don’t have a car, consider the ease with which you’ll be able to run errands.)
- Distance to your workplace? No one likes an hour-long rush hour commute!
- Are there any special deals on rent if you sign a lease of a certain length?
- How is the apartment rated online? (Take online ratings with a grain of salt, but for instance, we nixed one of the places we were considering after reading dozens of complaints about the manager!)
- If you have a car, is a parking spot included in the rent? Which, if any, utilities are included in the rent? (These can drive the true monthly cost of the apartment up or down by $100+/month!)
- Plan a brief trip to tour your top choices. Generally, this trip should take place 4-6 weeks before you’d like to move in. Most apartments and condos should have a good idea of their availability around your desired move-in date by that point in time. We planned our trip for one month before our move. The trip doesn’t need to be long; 2-3 days should give you enough time for tours.
- Book tours for your trip. After buying plane tickets and setting up lodging for our trip, we called our top 10 apartment complexes and booked tours for during our trip!
- Keep track of apartment details on your tours. With 5 tours scheduled per day, I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep track of all of the details of each apartment without writing them down. We made a one-page list of details for each apartment and filled it out after the tour, and it was so helpful. Our list included:
- Price (sometimes the price online isn’t up-to-date, so be sure to ask again!)
- Lease length options/flexibility
- Water temperature and pressure (nobody wants one of those annoying “I’m-only-freezing-cold-or-molten-lava” showers!)
- Feelings of safety (we came back at night and walked around)
- Volume (screaming children? Frequent airplanes? Train station one block over?)
- Management friendliness
- Electricity (do switches and outlets actually work?)
- Closets and storage space
- Appliances and amenities (do they actually have what they claim to online?)
- Utilities (be sure to inquire what’s covered and what isn’t, if that information wasn’t available online)
- Gas, electricity, water, Internet, and garbage are the big ones
- Parking (is it covered parking/in a garage? Is it actually close to the apartments?)
- Choose an apartment. Now that you’ve gathered all of your information, it’s up to you to decide the best fit! But again: don’t go over budget. There are so many unexpected costs involved in moving and setting up a new home that you’ll almost definitely regret it if you do.
- Send in your background check information, application fee, and security deposit. If you haven’t committed any crimes and have a semi-decent credit score, you don’t need to worry about being approved, but you still have to do it!
- Purchase a one-way plane ticket out to your new home to arrive on your move-in date. Don’t wait until the last minute. Buy a ticket as soon as you’re certain of where you’re moving, so that you can be certain that you’ll be getting there on time to move in and start your new job.
- Research renter’s insurance policies and purchase the best one for your needs. Do I actually need a renter’s insurance policy? Not always, but they’re generally inexpensive and will save you a LOT of money in case of a fire, break-in, or other unexpected emergency. Researching insurance policies can be overwhelming; there are dozens of options out there! Ask your parents and friends who already live on their own for recommendations. Then, email an agent in your future city to ask about pricing. Shop around, because prices vary widely. Tip: if you’re also looking to buy auto insurance, ask about discounts if you bundle renter’s and auto insurance. We saved a few hundred dollars on our auto insurance policy this way!
- Set up any utilities that aren’t covered in your rent to start on your move-in date. Start by asking the management of your new apartment which companies service their complex. Sometimes, there will only be one option. When you call the companies to set up your utilities, be sure to tell them to turn on service starting on your move-in date.
- Research banks in your future city and open a new account(s) if necessary. E and I opted to open our joint bank accounts at the bank that his personal accounts are with, because there are more branches and ATMs in our area. It’s super convenient to be able to walk in and talk with a banker in person, especially in your 20’s when you have lots of big financial decisions to make!
- Start planning how you’ll furnish your apartment. Straight out of college, you’ve pretty much got two options for furnishing your apartment (unless you lived in an apartment during school and already have some furniture): IKEA or Craigslist. Since we wanted to have furniture ASAP instead of waiting for weeks for a good-looking Craigslist posting, we opted to buy everything from IKEA. This is how we planned our apartment furnishings:
- Before choosing our apartment, we set a furniture budget and I picked pieces from the IKEA website that looked high-quality and fit into the budget.
- While still in Minnesota, we visited the IKEA store to ensure that we liked the pieces I’d picked in person as much as I had online. We made a few revisions to the list.
- Once we’d picked our apartment, we downloaded the floor plan and copied it into PowerPoint. Then, Eric overlaid the furniture (to scale!) from the revised list to make sure nothing was awkwardly large or too small.
- The day after we arrived at our apartment, we picked up the smaller pieces from IKEA and ordered the larger ones to be delivered once we were back for good.
- Order furniture ahead of time if necessary. Luckily, IKEA has a next-day delivery service, so you can literally walk into the store, pick your pieces, and get them tomorrow. However, if you’re ordering from another company or buying used, do your research so you’re not stuck without a dining room table for a month after moving in.
- Research the most reliable and cost-effective ways to move your possessions. The hard part of moving when you’re straight out of college and don’t own much isn’t packing; it’s figuring out how to get your stuff from point A to point B. If you have furniture, buying space in a moving van or paying for a moving container might be your best options. We had no furniture, so for us the best way to get our stuff from Minnesota to California was to ship a few big boxes via FedEx, have the local bike shop flat-pack and ship our bikes, and cram ALL of our clothing into a few suitcases to take on the plane with us! (We definitely utilized Southwest’s “two free checked bags per person” policy to the max!)
- Pack your possessions. Tip: spend the extra $10-$20 to buy heavy-duty moving boxes instead of using normal cardboard boxes. FedEx will only ship heavy-duty boxes, and even if you’re not shipping with FedEx, your possessions will thank you big-time!
- Ship any boxes, bikes, and other large items no more than one week prior to your move-in. Especially if your apartment has a deliver-to-your-door policy! You don’t want your boxes sitting out in front of what isn’t actually your door yet for days before you arrive. Plus, if you made a signature required for delivery, you don’t want to have to pick everything up from the post office if the delivery man misses you three times.
- Meal plan for your first week, make a grocery list, and make a list of essential household items to buy immediately after you move in. I.e., you’ll need a shower curtain if you want to take a shower. You’ll need a garbage can so that your kitchen doesn’t turn into a cockroach haven. And you’ll need food because, food. You’ll be exhausted by the time you arrive, so plan in advance!
- Arrive at your new home.
- Sign the lease. Read carefully!
- Walk into your new home and feel AMAZING. Congratulations! You made it!
So there you have it: a complete, nearly 2,000-word guide to moving across the country when you’re fresh out of college. Having a checklist like this would have made our lives so much easier–so feel free to print this post out and use it as one if you’d like!
But I’d love your input, too! If you’ve moved before–especially if you were young when you made your first “big move”–what advice do you have to add?