What do you need to know when you move out? If you’re the parent of a teen who’s looking at college in the next few years or simply a parent who wants the kids to know how to survive in the wilds of real life, you know that the kids need to know a few things. But what are the essentials of household management? Once you’ve been doing it for a while it’s hard to extract exactly what it is that you do to manage the house. In my humble opinion, here are a few of the basics:
Houses need to be cleaned. Whether you rent or you own, whether you’re in a few square feet in a cavernous mansion, houses do get dirty and it’s good to clean them sometimes, preferably before you lose an important paper or get stuck to the sticky floor. How often you clean them is up to your own tastes and is also a function fo the amount of juice spilled.
Eventually, you’ll probably have to get groceries. You may even need to learn how to cook them. Although I know a few people who can’t abide cooking and have only takeout boxes in their fridge, most of the population will likely need to learn how to cook. Again, what cooking means is totally up to you. You don’t need to learn how to cook like a French chef, but you probably need to know how to open a can of soup. Somewhere in between those two realms, you might even learn how to make the soup for yourself. After a while, you’ll realize that cooking can yield delicious food made just the way you like it.
Know what bills are coming when, and know where you’ll get the money to pay them. Creating a budget is a good idea. However, even if you don’t have a formal budget in a spreadsheet or on the back of a piece of paper, you need to know what bills need to be paid at what times of the month. You’ll also need to know where the money is coming from to pay those bills. If you don’t have any money or you don’t have enough money to pay the bills, you’ll need to reduce the bills or you’ll need to make more money.
Plan your discretionary spending. Again, even if you don’t have a budget it is a good idea to know how much you’ll have left (if any) after those bills are paid. That way you can plan for the spending that you’d like to do but don’t absolutely have to do.
Presentation matters. While I’m not too stuck on appearances, the way you present yourself and your home does matter. Dress appropriately for each situation, and practice good grooming of yourself and your home.
Be prepared. If bad things happen, you need to have a backup plan. For example, I have a stash of frozen meals in the freezer in case I get sick. Plan for bad things that could happen, but don’t dwell on them. Plan for good things that happen too. We like to buy a lot of berries in the summer, so we save for them all year so that we can afford that big outlay of cash in the summer months.
Make friends and get to know your neighbors. People are your greatest allies, and you don’t need to be best friends with someone to have a connection. Chat with the people who run your local grocery store, talk with your teachers, and get to know your neighbors. You never know when you might need their support.
What are the key life skills that you want your kids to know?