My Money Story: Part IX

June 29, 2018

Today is the day it gets real — I’m submitting my notice to vacate my apartment.

While I know this is what I have to do, it doesn’t make it any easier.

Yes, I know there are much worse things going on in the world and having to move out of an overpriced apartment in an area that I love doesn’t register high on most people’s difficult scale. But, for me, this apartment is so much more than an apartment. It’s a safe place — something I hadn’t felt in a while when I moved in. It’s also part of an identity, the future life I’d imagined when I moved here. Which, by the way, also included being wealthy and successful and moving out of the 1st-floor studio and into the 3rd-floor one-bedroom that overlooks the neighborhood. Oh, how times have changed.

The thing is, none of that matters. Yes, to me, at this moment it feels incredibly important. But, in the grand scheme of things, it’s just a blip on the radar. Trying to hold onto this apartment, while putting myself further and further into debt, isn’t going to help my future — or my present for that matter.

I have to keep reminding myself that moving out doesn’t mean that I can’t still have the life I imagined. Maybe this is just a stepping stone to something even better — something so awesome that I don’t even have the capacity to imagine it yet.

Also, where I live does not make me who I am. Although, it seems as if I’m struggling with this identity thing lately.

Now, to the practical side of things. What date do I put on my notice to vacate? Which day will my life veer from the originally planned course?

It probably won’t surprise you that I’m trying to stay as long as I possibly can. Ideally, I want to stay until August 5th, because it would give me an extra weekend to have a garage sale and sell more things. Plus, I’m nowhere near ready to let go.

However, I got a big dose of reality when I actually crunched the numbers.

As it turns out, I’m paying about $80/day to live in this apartment. Which means if I stay until August 5th it will cost me $400 (5 days of prorated rent). So, in this time of many changes for me, the plan I had is now changing. I have to move out at the end of the month. D-Day is July 31st.

In the meantime, I’ve sold a couple more things in the past week. Aside from begrudgingly selling college textbooks online, I also sold a Pottery Barn table lamp and an 8 cube storage unit from Bed Bath & Beyond.