Ponderances

[gemfyre]

I feel a bit calmer now. Just hope I can stomach dinner.

I'm seriously thinking I'll settle for a cheaper computer and struggle for a while and get the heck out of my parent's house. At the moment what I most need is independence. I think it's possibly one of my main problems, my dependence on certain people.

I'll hafta find some people I won't throttle to live with me. Anyone wanting to move out? Somewhere not too far from the city preferably. Reasonably cheap, I'm thinking maybe a place that already has some furnishings and that has bills included in the rent. Bills scare me.

Moving out will answer a few important questions for me.

Comments

[shadowshifter.livejournal.com]

luck -- there's not many places like that (bills included in rent -- you shouldn't have -too- much of an issue finding places furnished or partially). specially round near the city is rather on the pricey side (have checked when looking for houses).

ever considered studvill or something like that? they're cheap but a bit dodgy (imo) and last i checked most bills were included in the rent. you jes gotta hope then that you get decent housemates. on the upside youll be a little closer to people and things and uni and half hour away from the city (unless that's too far?) and less from freo.

[gemfyre.livejournal.com]

ugh no, not studville.

Anything but that! ;)

[lotus79.livejournal.com]

Live with *anyone* for long enough, and you'll want to throttle them, trust me ;)

Bills aren't that scary :)

If you can find a good place, with good rent, just put an extra $10 a week or so away for the bills. With three of us here, we usually pay $25-30 a month for electricity, and about $30 for the phone bill (my share. Luke pays more because he calls mobiles and STDs a lot. Though our PB is on the high side because of all the net calls.)

And an unlimited net connection is prolly about $25 a month... you can get by for a while by signing up for free hours deals and then cancelling them before they charge you ;) Either that or "borrow" your parents connection. I did that for about 18 months before primus noticed there were two 'puters connected to them at once ;)

And there's always Murdoch's modem pool--I just discovered that I have about 100 hours credit there just from what they've added to my account.

If you can get Centrelink, you can have them deduct money for bills from your payment before you get it--I do that, and so when the electricity bill comes (bi-monthly) I usually only have to find about $20 for my share. Oh, and both Telstra and Western Power give discounts if you're on govt. assistance.

so yeah, the best advice I can give here is make a budget, double all your estimates to be safe, and be prepared to live on pasta and 2 minute noodles for a month or two until you get your finances sorted. And get your parents to go through their pantry and find all the stuff they'll prolly never get around to eating.

Rent assistance is helpful, too, if you can get it--but if you're sharing, don't tell CLink that--get the RA paid into one person's account, you'll get more that way. In my case, I get all the RA, and L&T pay me their share "under the table", then the rent is paid from my account.

This turned into an essay, lol. I won't preach anymore, but if you find this advice helpful, just ask... I have heaps more busybody advice under my hat ;)

[gemfyre.livejournal.com]

Well for starters, if I move out I'll be getting about twice what I get now. But I'll also have rent, bills and food to pay for which I don't at the moment.

I'll save a lot on petrol, which will be great.
I will see people and have a social life which will be fucking brilliant.
I will be able to have a quiet study area.

I need to buy a computer. I was getting up enough money for one then all of a sudden my funds plummeted and I had to delve into the computer fund, which sucks ass.

But, I'm thinking it might be worth the poor, starved artiste lifestyle for the peace of mind it should bring me. And it will answer a few questions about problems I have.

[lotus79.livejournal.com]

> Well for starters, if I move out I'll be getting about twice what I get now. But I'll also have rent, bills and food to pay for which I don't at the moment.

Yep... and they're always more than you think. Plus you have Bond to worry about--you can get $200 as a bond loan (and pay off 10 a f/night from your YA), but you might have trouble finding the rest. (My Dad paid for mine, otherwise I'd never have managed it)

And the rest was basically my reasons for moving out, too :). Independance is underrated--even when I had no phone, no internet, and no food, I wouldn't have gone home.

I may have some computer parts that you can have, if you wanna save a bit by putting it together yourself. I'm pretty sure I still have the tower from my old 'puter, and I may have a HDD or two (prolly only a couple of GB each though), not quite sure. And then there's my old CD burner ;). Let me know if you're interested, and I'll get Luke to go up in the roof and see what's there.

[jassalol.livejournal.com]

I can lend you a computer (either a 486 or a P2 300) if you need it. Neither are much good for games/multimedia, but they'll do the basic stuff... web-browsing, word processors, irc/icq.

[firvulag.livejournal.com]

I can get a pentium for you for keeps, but it will be worse than the P2 jared is offering.

[gemfyre.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I will start looking around.

Maybe grab a quokka.

Wow, Julia actually gave some useful advice. The units she used to live in in Maylands aren't too bad a price.

[leemur.livejournal.com]

If you are worried on the money issue, there is a few ways to get the full amount of Youth Allowance. It's a fairly drastic measure, but drastic situations ussually require those.

When I was 24 and studying, I was pissed off that, despite being 24 and not having lived at home for years, I was still considered dependent on my parents, and my payment were reduced because of that. So I inquired about claming indepedence from my parents, and found that, as long as your parents are willing to go along with you, it is a relatively painless process. It takes a week or two, and you need a place to move out to before hand, but generally it is quite easy.

I helped two of my current housemates with this earlier on this year, and they said it was suprisingly easy. Both of them were actually told by the people at Centrelink what to write on their forms to get accepted.