20+ People Shared What They Wish They’d Known Before They Started Living on Their Own

Living alone is an important step in every person’s life. And it’s no secret that when you still live at your parents’ place, you tend to idealize the notion of becoming an independent person and having your own place. We’re sorry to break it to you, but not everything is always so peachy. So if you’re thinking about moving out or feel like remembering those new emotions you had when you gained your independence (like feeling like you needed an adult but were actually the only adult in charge around), you should check out these comments that we compiled for you.

Thanks to Bright Side, you can read people’s thoughts and feelings about starting to live on their own. Maybe you’ll find a couple of tips on how to do it in style.

• When something goes south...you’re the adult in charge. lumpyoldpillow / Reddit

• My best friend and her boyfriend got so bad with their dirty dishes, they actually gave half their dishes away so they’d be more motivated to clean the dirty ones instead of just grabbing a new dish. Made me laugh so hard when she told me, but hey, whatever helps, right? urbanlulu / Reddit

• I had to go to the store at 9:30 on a Friday night to get a plunger and stuff for the drain. Not ideal! CatoTheWeen19 / Reddit

• Clothing is optional, paying utilities is not. KiKiKi_123 / Reddit

• Cooking for one is tougher than cooking for more than one. If you want to avoid too many leftovers and/or food waste, you need to focus more on what you cook and then get used to freezing some of it. feckless_gobsheen / Reddit

• That you talk to a wall more often than you realize. Unknown / Reddit

• You can be as weird as you like. I LOVED living on my own. To entertain myself, I sometimes would set up my place to play “the floor is lava,” and other times, I would put my duvet over myself and crawl around my flat pretending I was in a cave, trying to avoid hitting anything on my way around. MashedKebab / Reddit

• That you have to kill/remove any invading insect yourself. I began to strongly regret moving out of my parents’ home when I encountered my first flying cockroach. ShinraKokotsu / Reddit

• That on your first couple of nights, you’ll stay up very late questioning if you heard a noise or not. gldn32 / Reddit

• You’re going to be living in a mess at some point. And you won’t care one bit until you invite someone over. dryc**socks / Reddit

• If you leave a piece of cake in the fridge, the next day, it’s still there for you. AKMaroon / Reddit

• How much you’ll miss it if you ever have someone move in cardboardroof / Reddit

• At my old apartment, a guest told me my bathroom door didn’t work. I had to reply that I had never used the door before. Forgotwhyimhere69 / Reddit

• That cleaning your house every day means you still need to clean your house every day. XoGossipgoat94 / Reddit

• How fast you can clean up your mess at home if someone is coming over 🤣🤣😉 Interesting-Barber-4 / Reddit

• Oh God, a while back, I woke up around 3 AM to the sound of male voices coming from the living room. I had a genuine moment wondering if this was how I was going to die. It took me a couple of minutes to gather my courage and go check what was happening. Apparently, my cat had walked over the keyboard of my laptop, and it had started playing a youtube video. HenkieVV / Reddit

• You have to do the dishes. Always. Every single time. I just did them 10 mins ago. I hated it. Jesshua / Reddit

• If you hear a bump in the night, you’re the only one there to inspect. skyburnsred / Reddit

• Your dog starts talking back. Street_Combination_6 / Reddit

• You get fat because you don’t want to waste time and dishes to cook only for yourself, so you eat processed food. Odin_Allfathir / Reddit

• No one’s there to help you open jars. pencat5 / Reddit

• EVERYTHING is where you left it. I pretty much never lose anything anymore. I used to live in a household with 4 other people. Things would get moved around all the time, often with good intention, but it would result in me never being able to find half my stuff as it wasn’t where I thought I left it. athanc / Reddit

• Make a spare set of keys and give them to someone you trust. FaceFirst23 / Reddit

What do you remember about your first time living on your own? Were you scared or were you free from all those annoying rules you had to follow at home before?