Here are the five bad habits Lauren stopped doing after a year in her first apartment away from home. She shares the items she regrets buying for her apartment here:
Hey guys it’s lauren here from the financial diet and today i’m going to be talking about things that i stopped doing once i started living on my own these are a combination of bad habits and specific circumstances that i was able to get rid of in order to become a more full-fledged and independent adult so i moved out of my parents house in september of 2015 so i
Actually haven’t been living on my own for that long now i’ve written about this on the site a few times but the reason why i lived home for so long was because i was really focusing on saving a lot of money to pay off some of my student loan debt psv was also getting started at that point so it really made sense to save as much money as i could and to live home
For a teeny bit longer now of course this list of things that i stopped doing is really personal and really specific but that’s okay i think it’s still useful to talk about i think that everyone goes through a similar phase in their life when they have the shift from young adult to full on a dull old habits are replaced by new ones that you consciously build for
Yourself and decide for yourself which kind of usher in a new era of your life some of these were as simple as deciding what i want to see for dinner that night how i would grocery shop and how i would cook for myself while others were more significant like taking control of my financial life and making sure that all my bills were paid on time and i actually think
It’s really helpful and useful and relevant in the new year to reflect on the way that you’ve changed and how you want to be moving forward so without further ado here are the things that i’ve stopped doing now that i live on my own number one stop treating the mail like it was a giant pile of garbage to be ignored so when i lived at home i used to be terrible at
Keeping track of my mail and it would inevitably pile up on top of my dresser in my bedroom i knew that i wasn’t paying the electric cable or water bill so i thought that none of it really had to be dealt with in a timely manner obviously that logic is deeply flawed and ever since i started living on my own i’ve been much more organized and diligent with opening
Mail as soon as it arrived because i essentially know that my ass is on the line with every bill that needs to be paid i go through it immediately number two is stopped watching tv constantly i’m especially talking about the 24 hour a day news cycle stuff back at my parents house the tv was almost always on and i honestly didn’t realize how much that stressed me
Out on a subconscious level constantly hearing people talking commercial jingles people i knew was really unnerving and it was especially hard to fall asleep after watching tv right before bedtime and honestly i didn’t realize the effect that it had on me or my ability to get a good night’s sleep nowadays i rarely watch tv and that’s not a humble bribe because i
Still love me some you know game of thrones and some sherlock but it’s on sparingly and because i don’t watch the news on tv i’m more inclined to go seek it out by myself from reputable reliable sources it’s made information a hell of a lot easier to digest and i’m really happy that i’ve made that change number three is i stopped using my parents bathroom as my own
Personal cvs this was a laughably bad habit that i used to have when i lived at home with my parents because they shopped in bulk at places like costco they literally had dozens of extras of things of like shampoo conditioner mouthwash makeup remover etc so then when i was out of the thing that i needed i would just pretty much like sashay down the hall and go to
Their bathroom and grab whatever i needed it was so easy to feel cheap as hell and not want to spend my own money when i knew that i could just grab an extra shampoo from my parents yeah it was terrible and i am deeply embarrassed and it was something small like that that seemed insignificant that really made me feel a huge mooch and like an adolescent just like
Toll frame from their parents as soon as i moved out that stopped and now i buy everything for myself and i feel a lot more at ease number four is that i stopped buying white foods buying light and/or diet foods is such a bad habit and a relic of my old teenage self i thought that my food choices were inherently better because i was eating diet food now clearly
As i’ve gone older i’ve come to understand that that is not the case and i really come to unravel this idea that like eating clean is somehow tied up with being good now i try to simply view food as fuel for my body to listen to what i’m craving and to eat more consciously no more diet coke even though they are so so good and no more light foods living on my own
Forced me to reassess not only what i was buying but how i was cooking in preparing food which feels like an enormous step forward into adulthood number five is stopped buying clothes shoes and accessories mindlessly so moving out of my parents house meant that i had a lot less space and a lot less storage i used to buy stuff without really giving it a second
Thought because i had plenty of closet space and drawer space i was much more consumeristic because i did have to think about what i was buying and this was an obvious bad habit that became clear to me when i lived on my own since we live in such a small place i have to be really critical about everything when i’m bringing home everything has to have a specific
Spot and you really can’t just buy stuff for the sake of buying it for example we can’t have like six holiday candles sprawled across the dining room table so we no longer have anywhere to eat this is new york city and square footage is a precious precious commodity and i’m actually really happy that we drastically reduced our living space because it’s made us
Much more mindful shoppers even if it means not being able to put up super seasonal decorations like halloween pumpkins and easter bunnies now like i said these are all bad habits that i personally have had to come to terms with and this list is certainly not exhaustive there’s still a ton of stuff that i’m working on everyday and a bunch of habits that i want to
Strengthen as i get older but no matter what your life looks like i think it’s really helpful to document these changes so that you can see where you were and how far you’ve come on your personal journey to being the best version of yourself for me i find it really helpful to write it down and keep it someplace visible where i’m sure to see it again it can be easy
To forget the progress we all make and i think the beginning of the year is a great time to set those new goals so as always thank you for watching and don’t forget to hit the subscribe button and go to the financial.com for more bye
Transcribed from video
5 Things I Stopped Doing After A Year Living On My Own | The Financial Diet By The Financial Diet
