You yearn for the freedom to do what you want to when you want to. No more parents breathing down your neck, telling you what you can do and where you can go. Or even more importantly, who your friends should be.
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But not so fast. Before you take off into the big blue of freedom, there are a few things you should consider quite carefully. Freedom is great, but like all good things in life, it comes at a price. And, at this stage, becoming part of the world of adults may carry quite a high price tag.
You may still long for the sound of your parents' nagging, especially when you feel lonely, broke, hungry, hung over and far away from home. Freedom is great
Getting a job. Working full-time is not easy – even for an eighteen-year-old. Eight or ten hours a day on your feet or in an office is no joke. That is, if you can find a job. Most school leavers who have no specific training do not earn big salaries and have difficulties making ends meet. The secret is to take whatever you can find, and not have fixed ideas about what you will or won't do. And when you get a job, hang on to it, as there aren't that many going around. But working a 40-hour week seriously cuts into your fun time and your energy levels. But what else can you do?
Paying clothing accounts. You like to wear the latest and greatest fashions, but now paying for it has become your problem. And when buying labels, R1000 doesn't go very far, but it takes a long time to pay off. And the parental credit card is no longer coming to the rescue. Maybe the time has come to look at clothes that are not so expensive, or to buy stuff you can wear for more than one season?
Paying rent. Living on your own is not cheap. Seriously. Renting even just a room could cost a fortune, depending on the town, city or area in which you choose to live. Obviously a back room in Bitterfontein is going to cost less than a flat in Rondebosch. But rent will have to be paid, wherever you live, and chances are it will be quite a chunk of your salary. And when you were staying at home, you never even gave the roof over your head a second thought. Or the pool, or the washing machine, or the domestic help. They were all just there.
TV, hi-fi, DVD player. Your parents have these things – you don't. And they cost money. Lots of money. And you've always just taken it for granted that you can watch endless DVDs at home over weekends with your friends. Or satellite TV. On your own in a flat, DSTV is not going to be the first thing on your priority list. It comes in somewhere behind the mattress, a table, food and washing powder.
Taking sexual responsibility. Well, this has ultimately always been your responsibility, but now that you're living on your own, chances of sexual encounters are probably higher than when you had to sneak someone into your parents' home. Avoiding pregnancy and STDs should now be high up on your priority list. In fact, right at the top.
Eating properly. You sat down to your mother's meals daily – and felt you had a right to complain when there was chicken for the third time in a week. Living on your own, you would kill to have cooked chicken put down in front of you three times a week. Living on takeaways is both unhealthy and expensive. It takes some organising and budgeting to feed yourself properly – vegetables and fruit included. And no, beer and a pie won't do day after day. And then there's the dishes and the grocery shopping.
Getting your laundry done. You are used to opening your cupboard and there everything is lying cleaned and ironed. No more. Now it still lies on the bathroom floor where you left it last night. And the shirt stinks. Washing and ironing are time-consuming things. And laundries are expensive. Bottom line is that you won't impress the new assistant at work if you have sweat stains under your arms or grease spots on your shirt.
Sorting out housemate hassles. Your flatmate has not come up with his part of the rent and the landlord has now phoned for the second time. Or his girlfriend, who laughs like a donkey, seems to have moved in, without your being consulted in any way. And he eats your food, and has just left his job. You don't have these problems at home.
Being broke is your problem. It's ten days to the end of the month and you have all of R87,60 left to see you through. And R40 of that has to be spent on transport to get you to work. When you lived at home, you could just smile nicely at one of your parents and get a "loan". You could still try that, but it's not guaranteed to work any more. If you spent all your money on an expensive weekend away just after your last salary cheque, why should they fork out money because of it?
Getting around. There's no more saying "I need to be fetched at midnight." Getting around is now your problem. Bumming lifts, getting taxis, queueing for buses, or in exceptional cases maintaining your own car – it's down to you.
I'm so lonely. It's Sunday lunchtime, your parents are 400 km away and you feel lonely. You didn't think of organising anything for the day and now it's just you, the quiet flat, the dirty dishes and the laundry. Life is hard sometimes and freedom does come at a high price.
The incredible connections. You didn't think twice about using your parents' landline to call friends and use the internet. But it costs a lot of money to get your own. A lot more than you thought. And a cellphone bill can hurt quite badly as well.
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