Moving out of childhood and into adulthood involves more than simply turning 18 and getting an apartment. Your age might technically make you an adult, but that alone usually isn’t enough to make you feel like one. So here are three simple things you can start doing right away that will move you into the real world of adulting.
Clean Your House on a Schedule
When you were a kid, you probably got scolded fairly often for not keeping your bedroom clean and not doing chores around the house as often as your parents wanted. That’s pretty normal for most kids and teenagers. Kids just want to have fun, and there’s nothing fun about washing dishes and doing laundry.
But you’re an adult now, and there’s nobody to clean up after you. So take some initiative, get some cleaning supplies together and start cleaning up your place. If things have been piling up for weeks or months, it might seem overwhelming at first. So don’t expect to clean up the whole house in a day.
Instead, give yourself an easy cleaning schedule where you devote just five or ten minutes per day to cleaning up one area of your home. If you stick to the schedule, you’ll start to see some real progress by the end of the week—and you’ll feel pretty good about yourself, too. Then you can increase the time spent cleaning on occasion to tackle those bigger cleaning jobs as needed. The important thing is to give your home attention each day so it doesn’t get to be a huge job later.
Invest in Cookware—and Use It
Many people go through their entire childhood without ever cooking an entire meal from scratch by themselves. If your parents did all the cooking in your home all these years, then you might have no idea where to start. But don’t worry. Learning to cook might seem a little intimidating at first, but once you get a couple of good recipes nailed down, you’ll start to really enjoy it. You might even love it so much that you’ll prefer cooking your own meals to eating out.
Invest in a basic set of stainless steel, Teflon, or ceramic cookware. Be sure to research options and pricing and pick the best fit for you and what you’d like to use them for. You’ll want to have one or two frying pans, one or two saucepans, a large pot, basic utensils, and a few plates, bowls, forks, knives, and spoons. That should be enough to get you started.
You may also want to look into cooking classes. A beginning cooking class can give you basic skills to help you in the kitchen as well as give you an idea of what equipment and supplies you’ll need. Once you’re armed with the knowledge and equipment, you’ll be able to follow recipes and create your own if you desire.
Upgrade Your Mattress
Upgrading your bed or mattress is another way to start adulting like a pro. Your body probably outgrew your old single bed years ago. So if your feet are still hanging off your bed when you stretch out, or if your springs are shot, then it’s time to get a new mattress or even upgrade to a larger bed. A larger bed—typically a queen mattress is big enough—will give you the room to stretch your body after a long day of work instead of cramming yourself onto a twin.
If you can squeeze a little extra out of your budget, consider splurging on yourself and getting one of those premium mattresses for ultimate comfort. If you’ve never slept on a high-quality mattress before, you don’t know what you’re missing. Once you experience sleeping on a better bed, you’ll never want to go back to small, cheap beds again.
They say that adulting is hard, but it’s really not too bad if you just take it one step at a time. Everybody else struggles at first, so don’t take yourself too seriously. Pick one of these three tips and just get started with it. Then pick another. Before you know it, you’ll look back and see that your childhood is far behind you and your adult life is in full swing.
