Apartments

I’m continuing to talk about the things on my bucket list.  I’m currently looking into getting some licenses so that I can work as a waitress.  I’ve been in a bit of a funk lately and I’ve decided to take after my friend, Amanda.  Amanda works countless hours every week and has two or three jobs, last I checked, but she may just be down to the one now.  She is always busy, but she’s independent and has a schedule to keep.  I think the best way for me to get busy again is to get more work.  And I really like talking to people, so I think waitressing is a good complement to retail.  I actually like retail, to be honest.  And really, all of this is to earn money so I can have fun, save for grad school, and start being more independent.  I’ve mentioned a couple of times that Larissa and I want to get an apartment together, which I think would just be awesome.

Anyway, I was sick yesterday, so I started looking at apartments online because, what else am I going to do?  Nothing too productive at least.  And since I was looking around for apartments, albeit online, it gave me more drive to go for this dream of sharing an apartment with Larissa.  I think that next August/September is a good goal, since I would be back from my summer job by then.

The only problem with sharing an apartment with someone is that you’re not sure of the amenities the other person would want, since Larissa and I have only discussed this in passing and that discussion is more about “wouldn’t this be awesome?’ rather than anything concrete.

Here are the most important things to me, as far as amenities/layouts/locations go.  Or rather, these are ideals, since, as I said, this isn’t in the concrete stages yet, but more in the “this is the best idea we’ve ever had” stage:

• The apartment needs to be located in the metro area or south-metro area because of our current job locations.  I don’t have a car as of yet, so if public transit becomes a necessity, it has to be doable.  Going north would get a bit hard as far as public transit goes, at the moment (I mean, you don’t know what the city will do with transit in the coming years, right?).
• The apartment has got to have two bedrooms.  That’s really all there is to it.
• At least 1.5 bath or jack and jill style sinks.
• Air conditioning:  This is probably lower on my list of amenities, but it’s generally included.  I did live in the sorority house for three years and it didn’t have air conditioning and it was just fine, but these are kind of ideal amenities, I guess.
• Balcony:  A lot of people don’t like balconies, but balconies/porches are dream housing attachments to me.
• Kitchen separate from dining room:  This depends.  Sometimes the kitchen is really small when it’s like this, and sometimes portioning off a bit of the living room for a dining room is totally doable, it all really depends.
• Dishwasher:  I’ve lived without a dishwasher for a while.  I want a dishwasher.  End of discussion.
• Internet:  This would be something to look into, but twenty-somethings going to grad school/twenty-somethings going back to undergrad need internet.  It’s nice if it’s included, but I guess that depends on a cost comparison thing.
• Washer/Dryer/Laundry facilities:  Ideally, the washer and dryer would be in the apartment.  Otherwise, on-site laundry facilities are a must.
• Health facilities:  I just want to be able to walk over to the fitness center and get on a treadmill.  I guess this depends on if I go through getting my 24-hour fitness membership or not, since if I have one of those, I should be going there, right?
• On-site parking:  I don’t really care if it’s garage parking or not, but I plan on getting a car/Larissa has a car, so two parking spots are necessary.
• Pool:  On-site pools are awesome.  Again, this is ideally.  I can absolutely live without a pool.
• Storage:  My main issue is always storage.  I must have it inside the apartment or outside the apartment.  Storage just has to be there and ideally there would be inside and outside storage.
• Small dogs/large dogs:  In a near distant future, I really want to get a Pomeranian or some sort of small, but adorable dog.  Usually the fees for small dogs (less than 25 pounds) aren’t too bad, but Larissa already has a dog (technically two) and I believe they are both over 25 pounds, though I’m not sure.  In any case, regardless of my Pomeranian ownership, a dog amenity is necessary in Larissa’s case.

You’ll notice I did consult some of Larissa’s needs in my amenities list, but these are more things I know she’ll want or need.  Things like a balcony or a fitness center?  That’s just my personal preference.

I’ll probably model this after my discussion of stemware I like, where it trailed over into multiple posts.  There is one other thing that’s important, though.

Both Larissa and I will be doing school at least some time in the near future.  School definitely costs money.  So really, above all else, the apartment has to be affordable.  The nice thing is that with a two bedroom/non-family situation, the rent is split in half.  Say a unit is $750 per month, for instance.  There is also a pet fee of $200 per pet (non-refundable) and up to two pets.  If this were in the near future world where Larissa had her dog (I think one of them may stay at her mom’s permanently, but I’m not sure) and I had the future Pomeranian, there would be a $35 per month fee as well (it would be less for only one pet).

So, for a normal month’s rent (ignoring the initial pet fee), that adds up to around $820 per month.  That’s actually only around $410 a month each, which isn’t a bad price at all.  If you include groceries, that probably goes to about $500/month or something, but totally not a big deal.  And then with electric and heat, it’s probably about $600 or so…  I’m not actually sure of the exact numbers.  (It would also be much less for me if the future Pomeranian wasn’t with us at the time, but this is all speculation.)

So, I think that living with Larissa will be pretty good and I think we can do it cost effectively.  I’m pretty excited and we’ve got time to shop around.  Anyway, starting tomorrow we will look at nice apartment layouts I’ve found so far with all the ideal amenities.

Look forward to it!  This is the type of stuff everyone expects a Post-Grad to talk about, right?