For those of you who moved out of your parents place and got an apartment. How much did it cost per month, and what job did you get to support yourself? Include a rough time period for context.
I never had an apartment. I never left home until I went to college. Then I split the bills with my sister at my deceased grandparents house for a short time then bought a house and got married. I I guess I missed out on the single man’s life. With all the fun and struggles that came with it.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: 400m,

I got married in 2005. We had a one bedroom apartment in off-campus married student housing that cost us $500/month, with utilities included. When we moved in I was making $800/month working as an intern in the IT department of a local orthopedic company about 30 hours a week. My wife was unemployed. Things were really tight.

I ended up getting more hours (40+) and a small raise, and my wife got a job in a day care. We were both still full-time students that first year, too. I graduated the next May and got brought on as a full-time contractor at the company I was already working at. My wife still had a semester to go. We managed to save up enough money to pay off the few school loans I had by the end of summer, and put a small down payment on a house by November.

The house we bought was a dump, but it was cheap (mortgage payment with escrow was $547/month), and we put a lot of work into it to make it decent. We still live there almost 20 years later. It's paid off, and while it's not exactly huge, our kids are now approaching the age where they're going to start moving out, so before long it'll be too big.

It was 1989, I moved into a 2 bedroom apartment with my wife and her older sister. Rent was $500 a month and I worked a full time, minimum wage job and a part time, minimum wage job to make ends meet. My wife was pregnant with our daughter so she worked part time while she could. It was paycheck to paycheck and we have very little. I ended up joining the Air Force in 1990 and made more money out of basic than I did with my two jobs.

It was still rough for the 4 years I was in the Air Force. I recall one time after basic where we were loading chemical bags for those going to the gulf (this was early 1990 after the Gulf War kicked off and was over). I recall wishing I had 50 cents to buy a soda from the vending machine. The only time I ate out was when I had some money from a TDY trip.

I got out in 1994 and started working in the chemical plants in January 1995. It was 1997 before I really made enough to lift comfortably. In 1998 I bought my first house, the one I still live in.

1979. I was 19, married with a son. Huge three story home that used to be a well to do neighborhood, turned into six apartments.
Twelve foot ceilings, huge rooms. 160 per month!

1980...was working for my Dad, 1 Bedroom Apartment was $395.

Washington State / Redmond fall of 1988. Rent was $450 a month for a 1 bedroom apartment / I was making $10 an hour as an Electronics Technician.

No rental history so I gave them my Moms name as a reference and said I paid $20 a week rent- Mom lied and said I paid reliably.

It was 1 block north of what was to become Microsoft.

quote:

Then split the bills with my sister at my deceased grandparents house for a short time then bought a house and got married.

Grammar!

My first apartment was a barracks/dorm. I guess technically I was paying for it so it showed up on my annual "Total Benefits" document they gave out.

In the early nineties my first apartment was $375 a month for a one bedroom, one bath. It was fairly roomy, definitely not efficiency size. It’s hard to believe that any apartment was that cheap.

Fall of 1966 in Knoxville Tn I was a Junior at the University of Tennessee. Shared an apartment with 2 others from my hometown. We all got draft notices the first day classes started. I was allowed to finish the term and began a 3 year Army stint in Jan 1967.

1972; just married and our 1 bedroom furnished apartment was $165/mo. I was working part time as an engineering intern while i finished up my BSME. My newlywed wife was delivering sandwiches to professors on campus while she finished her graphic design BA.
We had a 10-speed bike (a wedding present) and a VW bug that occasionally ran.

On my own, $100 month, utilities included.
1976.

Had a few "roommate(s)" gigs before, and did not like that one bit. Was not worth the difference in cost.

I worked whatever job I could to stay afloat.

Restaurant (kitchen/cook), roofing, galvanizing/foundry, construction laborer/trim carpenter, and a metal fab/manufacturing plant that made stamped steel street/highway signs, flat screen print signs, reflectors (button style for highway signs) and other parts, and autobody and paint shop.

Been doing it on my own the whole way. No regerts.


"They call me the Breeze..."
JJ Cale

$385/month. 90% sure there were things living in the nasty carpet. Tiny kitchen, big den, big bedroom. Train tracks outside the bedroom window. Grad school and graduate assistantship.

'73, Atlanta area. Somewhere around $140-160 a month.
I was making $175 a week.

I got my first apartment in 2005, just after my junior year of college, after living in dorms for the prior 3 years.

It was something like $450 per month, water and electric included.

It was a 2 bedroom 1.5 bath apartment of about 1200 square feet, but it was old and run down. Still had the original wood paneling walls from the 1970s or so when it was built. Probably the original carpet too.

No central HVAC, but it did have baseboard heaters for the winter, and I bought a couple used window AC units off Craigslist to put in the living room and my bedroom, which made it bearable.

The reasons I lived there were:
A) It was cheap, and I was a semi-broke college student. Less than half the going rate for apartments at the time.
B) It was directly adjacent to my college campus, so I could walk to class.
C) A friend was the on-site manager, and I knew he tried to pack the place with decent tenants like me, rather than the usual problematic folks that run-down apartments with super cheap rent attract.
D) Because we were friends, I didn't have to sign a lease, and he had knocked something like $75 off the rent each month because I would occasionally help him with basic repairs.

I lived there for my senior year of college, as well as for the first year or so of my subsequent LE career. Then I moved into a nicer but smaller 1/1 apartment at like $900/month + utilities.

quote:

Originally posted by Shaql:

quote:

Then split the bills with my sister at my deceased grandparents house for a short time then bought a house and got married.

Grammar!

My first apartment was a barracks/dorm. I guess technically I was paying for it so it showed up on my annual "Total Benefits" document they gave out.

Fixed

Technically, it was a duplex not a true apartment. Just a 1-bedroom and this was mid-1990s just outside Purdue. I remember the POS landlord, but I don't remember the price.

My first true apartment was in Midland, TX. It was the 2nd nicest apartment complex in Midland and it was $800 per month. It was one of their larger 2-bedroom units and it was 2nd floor of a 2-story apartment (important in a minute). The memorable thing about it was I found it in November so I had no idea the douchebag mgmt company put the same sized AC in for every size apartment regardless of top floor or bottom floor. The AC could only cool 25 degrees cooler than ambient so when it hit 115 in the summer it was 80 degrees in my apartment.

1987 a Studio Apartment in Chicago about 4 blocks from Wrigley and 2 blocks off the lake.
It was quite run down for the area actually but it was only $400/mo if I remember correctly.

1982, French Quarter Apartments in Wichita Falls TX, shared a 2 bedroom with my older brother.

Our rent was $275 per month. I stocked shelves at Target while attending Midwestern State University.

First real residence for me in 1975 was a trailer outside of Gwinn on Horseshoe Lake. $100 a month and all utilities included. First actual apartment was on Via Mazzini in Aviano IT in 1976. I bribed my landlord with booze from the Package Store, making my rent $200. Only utility was the occasional "bombola" purchase to run the stove.

My first apartment was at college, with roommates. My parents paid for it, while I worked to pay for food. I have no memory of what it cost other than being a small fraction of what on-campus housing cost.

Upon graduation and getting married we moved into a 2BR typical apartment in 1982. I think we were paying around $300/month but it may have been a little bit less.