I Decided to Rent a Place on my Own!

I've recently made a pretty major (major for a 25 y-o single female Singaporean person) decision in my life which was to move out of my parents' place and rent a place of my own. It's been two weeks now since I've moved out. I didn't want to share much of it because I'm not sure if my decision would be responded with negative comments - it's very unconventional here in Singapore to move out before marriage. Yet, I kind of wanted to share this milestone in my life.

(a very inaccurate depiction of what really went on in the moving out process)

I was also hoping to take some time to adjust to my "new normal". While I take time to slowly adjust, here are some key decisions on how and why I made the call to move out and why it was easy for me to part with a good sum of money every month to rent a place.

Before I made the decision, here are some factors I considered. I'm going to share my thought process in order and priority because one does effect the other.


Push factors: the majority had a lot of to do with monetary factors and time-cost factors

• I was living in a very inconvenient place in Singapore without a car - 1-hour travelling time from everything 
• My new workplace was very inconvenient as well and it didn't make sense to me to buy a car
• The journey from work to home had no amenities, so that added on to the inconvenience (I justified this by using my travel time of 1.5h to and the hassle to change public transport 3 times, then I did a calculation of my per hour rate as a full-time employee and did a monthly summation)
• Travelling was also mentally draining in that aspect
• Food at my parent's place was pretty expensive and because my parents don't cook, I always spent money for breakfast lunch and dinner
• Getting a cab from any online hailing platform was a game of luck and chance in my neighbourhood - I've experienced this roller coaster during my client meeting consulting days, especially scary during peak hours lol
• I also really wanted my own space and independence at this point but I didn't want to just marry some random person only just to move out lol

Personal Considerations

• I made sure I knew my spending habits were within a month before I moved out (this was easy at least for me, because I'm always someone who enjoyed saving money and I've been pretty prudent with money all my life)
• I made sure I had savings for rainy days suppose I get unemployed 
• I was already pretty independent at this point when it came to household chores - I make my own bed, clean my own room, paid my own bills (THANKS TO HABIT TRACKER YEA I'M GONNA SOUND LIKE A BROKEN RECORD LOL)

Affirmation 

• I spoke with some of my friends who moved out and how it had benefitted them both monetarily and emotionally, they also shared with me what to look out for when it came to renting a place on my own - cost, market rate, what to consider etc. 
• Many were supportive, for most parts - my brother! Also, I made sure to affirm my parents that I made a logical decision and I'll visit them every week(asian things)

Choice of Place

• And when the universe didn't align enough, the place (I'm renting a common room) I liked most (still bit of a sucker for nice interior..) and proved the most convenient (20-min bus ride to workplace and close to amenities) was actually owned by a friend of mine I met during my architecture days (I was a architecture student for a semester in NUS before I quit - I'm sounding like a never-ending broken record for 7 years already) - so I also didn't pay any added agent fees lol. 

I actually made the decision to move pretty quickly after doing my own extensive renting research haha. Here's a peek of my place - more about my living progress next time :)

(I stay with very artistic owners x))

(those cushions are pictures of their two dogs hahahah)