You imagine that, as an adult, you will start out in a crappy apartment with a couple of roommates, then progressively move to bigger and better places, culminating in a home of your own at some point—probably by your mid-30s. That’d be nice.
My last apartment was a newly renovated large one-bedroom, with tons of light, a fireplace, and a huge kitchen. Next month, on the eve of my thirtieth birthday, I’m moving into a basement apartment (the horror!) that probably didn’t even look renovated when it was first finished. It has one major asset: the cost. To be exact, the rent is $300 per month cheaper than our last place.
Sometimes, with your eye on the larger prize, you have to temporarily trade down.
Oh, screw it—that’s Pollyanna drivel. In reality, it sucks. The new apartment has none of our old one’s charm. It’s furnished with the cheapest countertops, appliances, cabinetry, and flooring money can buy, rather than the early-twentieth-century detailed moldings, tile, and built-in furniture in my last place. It has larger windows than most basement apartments, but you can’t hide the fact that the windows are slightly above eye level when viewed standing. (Granted, I’m only 5'2", but still.)
It stinks and I hate it. But on paper, it’s fantastic. It has a washer and dryer—not a shared coin laundry; its own washer and dryer—tons of storage space, and the rent includes all utilities, plus cable and high-speed Internet. It’s roughly the same square footage as our last place, and it’s in a better location, close to a trendy-ish area, across from a nice park, and a block from the subway. And we’ll never have downstairs neighbors complaining about our cats running around overhead at night, or me being not so light on my feet while doing Yoga Booty Ballet.
It still sucks.
So why are we moving? Well, we’re finally acting like responsible adults.
Like many young adults—especially those living in big, expensive cities like New York—my fiancé and I overspent in our early twenties. I was, by far, the bigger offender, racking up a lot of credit card debt (I’m embarrassed to say how much) before I hit twenty-five. Moving to the big city was a tough transition, and I was not prepared financially or emotionally. Shopping became therapy. I would love to be able to reminisce now about being so poor I slept in a hammock, made a dresser out of cardboard boxes, and ate ramen noodles.
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