Once you leave the safety of the place you called "Home" for most of your life, you learn a few things. I'm not talking about living in college dorms, I'm talking about once you leave the dorms (or your parent's house) and you are truly starting to live as an adult.
1. You learn to cook EVERY meal!
Yeah yeah yeah. You know how to make mac and cheese, grilled cheese, and scrambled eggs. You can still eat all of those things, but now you have to make every single meal. Every. Single. One. You don't want to spend money everyday, that'll all just add up. And you don/t want to eat the same exact grilled cheese, that just get's boring. You learn how to use Pinterest and find/make things that sound good.
2. You have to clean...A LOT!
Cleaning is something that you watch your mom or grandma do while you sit on the couch and play Candy Crush on your phone. Not any more! Yeah, you and your roommates can divide and conquer, but they aren't going to clean your room for you. You have to actually pick up after yourself and *gasp* vacuum!! Cleaning is a learned sport but you'll pick up real quick once you start to live on your own.
3. Dishes add up quickly!
This kind of goes along with cooking and cleaning, but once you live without your parents you start to realize that people dishes are the bane on your existence. It's like every time you turn around there is a whole mountain of dishes to clean! Have no fear though, that's why dishwashers were invented. You can't over fill them though, or your dishes won't get clean.
4. Laundry sucks!
You may have learned this in the college dorms, but there you have to pay for laundry. When you live off campus you realize, just like your dishes, you wear a lot of clothes. You only come to this conclusion once you run out of your favorite things to wear. Just stay on top of the laundry and there won't be as much to do next time. Tip: learn how to separate colors and delicates. You don't want to shrink or dye any of your favorite garments.
5. You have to kill all of your own spiders!
Now, I'm afraid of spiders but I can't just call my dad in to kill them. I've gotta do it myself. Killing spiders is difficult because you don't want it to jump at you, or possibly have little spider babies all over the place. Just suck it up and put your big girl/boy pants on and grab a shoe to squish that thing! After you kill one or two spiders you'll get the hang of it and won't hesitate the next time you see and eight legged friend in your bathroom or closet.
6. Getting out of bed to actually start the day is hard!
When you are faced with the choice of laying in bed watching YouTube all day or actually going out to socialize, most of us would choose YouTube. Also, if you're still in college, it's hard to get your butt out of bed to go to that 8 am class that you thought was a good idea. A good way to start getting out of bed when you know you have to get up is to plan everything the night before. Look at the weather and plan out an outfit. Making a lunch? Make it before you go to bed so you aren't rushing to leave in the morning. Also, I know no one wants to, but going to bed at a reasonable time actually helps. Even if you're in bed at 10 and don't go to sleep until midnight, you still need that wind down period to got to sleep.
7. Money management just goes out the window!
While living at home if you needed money mom would give it to you. Now, if you need money you need a job! Yes, you can still ask your mom for money, but if they're anything like my mom, they'll just complain and say the famous mom line: "Does it look like I'm made out of money?!". The answer is no. It's always no. You have to learn that if you spending money comes with earning money. Sometimes you can't help it because you have to eat and buy groceries, but you can't go out shopping for clothes everyday. Unless your making the big bucks. $$$$
8. Time management isn't even a thing!
This is more for those of us that are still in college, but it could still apply. Homework is the bane of anyone's college career. You have to do that 3 page paper for your Monday/Wednesday class but you just don't want to. Instead of doing it right away, you'll do it tomorrow. Well, tomorrow turns into the next day and the next and the next. Then soon you realize that it's almost Christmas and you have 6 papers due. Time management is a learned skill, like most things, but this is one of the most important. It comes with knowing who you are as a person and figuring out how/where you like to learn things.
9. You have to wake yourself up!
Alarms suck. I get it. When most of us lived at home our moms would wake us up and say that it was time to get ready for school/church/work what have you. Then when you move out you don't have the mom-alarm anymore. Phones have a built in alarm system, which is great but it is so easy to hit snooze so many times that it won't wake you up anymore and you miss that thing that you needed to wake up for. Waking up is a hard thing in general, but once you live away from your parents you have get your butt out of bed and do that thing!
