Mov­ing Up: Pretty but Prac­ti­cal 

An apart­ment; a place that feels like home, free­dom from pub­lic safety an­noy­ing fresh­man, an es­cape from Gan­der food, and the abil­ity to light a can­dle again (legally). This dream that every col­lege stu­dent stum­bles upon is luck­ily in your reach. If you have been fol­low­ing along since the be­gin­ning of Mov­ing Up, then you are al­ready one step closer to mak­ing this dream a re­al­ity. If you don’t know what I am re­fer­ring to, don’t worry! You can still catch up by read­ing the past ar­ti­cles (just re­mem­ber to come back ). If you are ahead of the game and have been fol­low­ing along since the be­gin­ning, thank you! Al­though your jour­ney is far from over, at least the stress of find­ing an apart­ment is. Now, a new pro­ject be­gins. What is it that you might ask? The task of re­mem­ber­ing every­thing you now need for your new place. But be­fore you freak out, just like find­ing an apart­ment, Mov­ing Up is here to help you along the way!  

So, what should you buy first? Be­fore you get too ex­cited and pur­chase every­thing on your Pin­ter­est Board or in your Ama­zon cart, you need to re­mem­ber this. Buy what you need, not what you want. I know, that’s not what you wanted to hear. How­ever, it is far more im­por­tant to have dishes, a bed, and a place to sit, than what­ever decor is in your shop­ping cart. Now this does­n’t mean don’t ever buy any­thing deemed “un­nec­es­sary” for your apart­ment, but sim­ply wait. So, what should you buy first?  

• Ar­eas to fo­cus on:  

• Bed­room 

• Kitchen 

• Liv­ing room 

• Bath­room 

• Clean­ing 

To start off, let’s talk about your space, the bed­room! This is the area in the en­tire apart­ment that you get to make com­pletely yours. It is your safe space, and it is im­por­tant to make it feel like home. Af­ter talk­ing with an anony­mous MU stu­dent who had just moved into their first apart­ment, she said, “My ab­solute fa­vorite part of hav­ing my own apart­ment is get­ting my own space. It is such a nice change from the dorms and be­ing con­stantly five feet from my room­mate.” By far the most im­por­tant item to buy is a mat­tress un­less you like sleep­ing on the floor. There is no need to go out and buy an ex­tremely fancy, over-the-top mat­tress. How­ever, a bed is an in­vest­ment pur­chase, like many items you buy for your apart­ment. This mat­tress will move with you to what­ever the next stage in your life is. So, it’s im­por­tant to find a com­fort­able, de­cently-priced bed that will last. An­other item I rec­om­mend hav­ing in your room is a desk/​van­ity. Hav­ing a place to be able to sit down to work on home­work in a quiet set­ting is cru­cial for suc­cess in school. It is also great for ad­di­tional stor­age for school sup­plies, books, etc.  

Mov­ing on to the kitchen, my fa­vorite part of the apart­ment. Luck­ily, in this area, and the fol­low­ing, you alone don’t have to pur­chase every­thing your­self (un­less you are liv­ing alone, then un­for­tu­nately you do. Sorry!). If you are like me and ab­solutely love bak­ing and cook­ing, then this area is fun for you. How­ever, even if you want to pur­chase every bak­ing ac­ces­sory, please don’t. Fo­cus on the ba­sics: pots, pans, plates, bowls, sil­ver­ware, and cups. Don’t worry; I’m not a mon­ster. Then, AF­TER you buy the ba­sics, pur­chase a few ex­tra kitchen items that you en­joy. Like a cup­cake tin, or an elec­tric mixer, etc.  

Near the kitchen is the liv­ing room. The big items here are a couch and a TV. As men­tioned pre­vi­ously, these are in­vest­ment pur­chases. So yes, try to find a good deal, but also a prod­uct that will last you a cou­ple of years or more. I rec­om­mend search­ing on Face­book for the mar­ket­place for both or shop­ping around black Fri­day or Memo­r­ial Day to get some ex­tra deals. For me, I pur­chased my TV at Wal­mart around Memo­r­ial Day and was able to get a de­cent price for a qual­ity TV. How­ever, I found my couch at Bob’s Dis­count Fur­ni­ture Store. They had a wide se­lec­tion and were de­cently priced.  

In the bath­room, the main things to fo­cus on are tow­els, shower cur­tains, bath­mats, and, of course, toi­let pa­per. Al­though this area of the apart­ment is­n’t as fun as oth­ers, it is nec­es­sary. Sim­i­larly, clean­ing sup­plies are an as­pect that is eas­ily over­looked. It is a good idea to have these handy be­fore mov­ing in to clean the apart­ment be­fore of­fi­cially putting every­thing away. Some items you’ll need are: 

• Vac­uum/​broom  

• toi­let bowl cleaner 

• toi­let bowl brush 

• Windex 

• pa­per tow­els 

• Clorox wipes  

• Dust­ing sup­plies 

Ok, so now that you know what you need to buy, the ques­tion arises: Where? As a col­lege stu­dent, money is­n’t some­thing that you should be spend­ing care­lessly. Luck­ily, if you have a room­mate, the cost of every­thing can be split up be­tween you two. Money can be a chal­leng­ing sit­u­a­tion to talk about, but it is im­por­tant to be open and hon­est with who you are liv­ing with to dis­cuss who will pay for what or if you want to split the cost of some­thing. No mat­ter your fi­nan­cial sit­u­a­tion, I rec­om­mend look­ing into mul­ti­ple ar­eas to find the best deals. Each item’s price varies through­out every store, so it is worth it to know your op­tions. Stores to shop at:

• Amazon  

• Walmart 

• Ikea  

• Thrift Stores  

• Dis­count Fur­ni­ture Stores  

• Face­book Mar­ket Place  

• Target  

• Garage Sales  

• Ask fam­ily and friends if they are sell­ing any items they no longer use 

As you are cre­at­ing the list of every­thing that you need in your head, it might seem daunt­ing. How are you go­ing to get every­thing? What if I miss some­thing? Does the list ever end? Stop. Be­fore you spi­ral even fur­ther, take a deep breath, and hear me when I say you don’t need to get every­thing be­fore you move in or even at the be­gin­ning. Feba Jame­son said, “Once I re­al­ized I did­n’t need to buy every­thing all at once, the mov­ing sit­u­a­tion be­came a lot less stress­ful. It also helps to spread out the cost of every­thing over time.” You have time. Your apart­ment will nat­u­rally fill with every­thing you need as time goes on. It is ok to live a cou­ple of days, weeks, or months with­out cer­tain things. On my first night in my apart­ment, I slept on the floor with a blan­ket be­cause my bed had­n’t ar­rived yet. And my room­mate and I sat on the floor for a month be­fore we even bought a couch. Al­though it does­n’t seem ideal, those are the mem­o­ries you will re­mem­ber in the fu­ture.  

Al­though your bank ac­count is hurt­ing a lit­tle bit more since start­ing this ar­ti­cle, you are al­most to the fin­ish line! Yes, you read cor­rectly; there are still more steps to come. The jour­ney of get­ting an apart­ment is long but well-re­ward­ing! On the bright side, af­ter buy­ing all the ne­ces­si­ties and re­search­ing for the best prices, hope­fully, you have some ex­tra money to splurge on your Pin­ter­est board!  

Want­ing to know more? Check back to Mov­ing Up for more need-to-know con­tent about life off cam­pus and to learn about the next step!