Best Tips on How to Move Out at 18 and Start Living Independently

Moving out at 18 and starting to live independently can prove a formidable task for any young woman or man. Obviously, till that time, you were living in the comfort of your parents’ home.

And at the age of 18, after graduating from high school, it’s a common practice to move out. Understandably, some young women and men move out only after completion of their university degrees, but this is a small figure. We will be looking at reliable tips on “How to move out at 18 and live independently?”

Number of People that Move Out at 18

The number of people who move out of parental homes is on the decline in the US, says a report by the Pew Research Center. By July 2020 or during the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, about 52 percent of all people in the age group of 18 and 25 years were residing with their parents.

This is a sharp increase of about five percent in the number of young adults living with parents in January 2020, reports Pew Research Center.

However, on average, about 90 percent of all high school graduates move home between 18 and 20 years of age, says a report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The majority of these young women and men- about 52 percent, move within the state where their parents live while the remaining relocate elsewhere, with a very small percentage- about one percent, leaving abroad for studies.

The remaining 48 percent usually move out for higher studies within or outside the same state. This is because they wish to study a specific course from a particular university.

However, well into 2023, the number of young women and men who leave their parental home or return is expected to increase exponentially.

This is partly due to loss of employment in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, closure of colleges and universities, or merely to be together as a family even as the scourge shows no signs of ebbing, with more and more mutants of the virus infecting greater number of people in America and elsewhere. Additionally, lots of young Americans are returning home from foreign countries to escape the virus.

Obviously, moving out at 18 is one of the biggest steps in your life. In fact, it can define your entire life, which includes your career, personality development, finances, social status and lots more.

Therefore, moving out at 18 to leave independently has to be done only after a lot of careful thought and necessary action. If you think that you are capable of moving out at 18, then follow the article for some of the best tips on how to move out of your parent's house at 18 and start living independently.

Therefore, I will discuss all the necessary steps on how to move out of 18 and start living independently.

How To Move Out at 18 and Afford It

1. Plan Well in Advance

I would suggest that you start planning to move out at 18, at least three to four years before you reach that age and graduate from high school. This means, around the age of 14 to 15 years.

There’s an old axiom that says: “Failing to plan is planning to fail.” Surely, you don’t wish to become a failure in life, career, finances, social and personal life at a later stage when you move out at 18.

Therefore, you need to think about what career you’d love to follow, which place you wish to live after moving out, the kind of social status you want and so on.

There are several ways to do this and get it right. When you plan, moving out at 18 becomes a lot simpler. You’ll know exactly where to go, what kinds of jobs to look for, how much pay to expect and the type of people you wish to socialize with. Planning also plays a major role in deciding your future lifestyle ad well as personal life.

2. Find a Job for 14-Year Olds

In the US, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) allows people of 14 years to work at specific jobs. These would mainly be jobs during school vacations or sometimes, they could be part-time but daily ones. Finding a job for 14-year-olds is fairly easy if you check some specific websites, especially job boards.

There are several reasons you should take a job at 14 years of age. The first is that you’ll earn some money which could be put in a savings or investment plan. The money will prove useful when you’re moving out at 18.

And your savings or investments would have grown by then, which means you’d get more from that money. Secondly, you’ll also learn the habit of saving and investing. This is a highly essential life skill that you’ll require as you grow up.

Working earlier in life teaches you to be responsible towards work, others and, of course, yourself. Again, this is yet another life skill that will prove very handy when you move out at 18. And other than learning the value of money, you’ll also realize the value of time. Because jobs for 14-year-olds pay by the hour. This means you’ll know how much value an hour has.

Skills that you acquire at the age of 14 can help define your career path, too. You’ll be meeting several people at this age, and some of them will impress you enough because they’re working in some field you love.

Therefore, when you move out at 18, you too could try and join such a profession to build your career. Finally, by working at 14, you also get an opportunity to develop some contacts independently or through your employer. These could prove useful when you decide to move out at 18 and start living independently.

3. Get Yourself a Superb Side Gig

At the age of 14 or a bit older, there are several side gigs you can get for yourself. Actually, FLSA rules and regulations require an employer to get special permits when they hire a 14-year-old or lower age person.

However, there are several work-from-home side gigs that you can get for yourself before you move out and start living independently.

One such superb side gig is blogging. Now, blogging isn’t something difficult to learn and do. You can learn a lot about how to create a blog by reading excellent articles and going about it by watching videos on YouTube.

To open a blog, you will need a domain name and web hosting. You can easily get these for just $9.99 per year or a little more.

You might wonder what topic you should blog about. Honestly speaking, there’re countless topics to open a blog. It could be on some subject from your school or high school curriculum where you’re an expert. Or your blog could be about your favourite sport or some hobby.

The other best side gig in my opinion, is to start a vlog. A vlog is actually a video blog. It’s possible to open your own free channel on YouTube and start a vlog. Again, select the topics or niche for your blog depending on your top subjects or hobbies, movies or just about any other subject.

You can make a lot of money from a blog or vlog. The first source of income is by subscribing to Google AdSense, which is free. They will display ads on your blog, and when someone clicks on these ads, you get some money.

There are other ways to make money from a blog and vlog. These include selling your own merchandise, affiliate marketing and sponsored posts.

A popular blog will ensure you have some money and a source of income when you move out at 18.

4. Find a Place to Relocate

The next step is to find a place to relocate. This is one of the important things to know when moving out. Most people who move out at 18 usually remain in the same city or town where their parents live.

That’s understandable because they have social links there, plus the security of returning to their parent’s home if any emergency or crisis arises. That’s because moving out to other places is a very emotional affair because it involves saying goodbye to old friends and relatives.

However a major reason that most teens that move out at 18 years choose to live in their own city is because finding a job and commuting for work is easier. They’re well acquainted with the local transport systems and areas.

At the same time, if you’re thinking of moving out to another city and state, choose carefully. The best thing to do is find out which are the best cities and states to move out.

Personally, I chose Boulder in Colorado while moving out at 18. That’s because the city has a low crime rate, is relatively inexpensive and has excellent healthcare facilities.

Here I would suggest that you look at cities where retired persons relocate. Here you’ll find plenty of jobs as a younger person. Honestly speaking, there’re no good places or bad places to relocate.

Yet, it’s best to study which places have the highest employment rates and pay scales as well as lower cost of living. That would help you in the initial stages when you’ve actually moved out.

Getting jobs nowadays, especially during the new normal after the Covid-19 pandemic can prove to be a hassle for lots of persons of 18 and above.

5. Build a Healthy Credit Score

A healthy credit score is perhaps the most important part of your financial status when you decide to move out at 18. If you’ve held a credit card during high school, ensure that you’re paying off all dues on time.

Now it’s worth remembering that having some dues on your credit card doesn’t actually spoil your credit score. Instead, it can build one, provided you’re paying the dues on time.

You can also build a healthy credit score by having some investments in your name. Most teens falsely believe that investing is for the wealthy and working people. Actually, that’s not true to a very great extent.

There are wonderful apps that you can use to start investing. In fact, some of these apps allow you to start investing with as little as $5. You can invest in stocks, exchange-traded funds, Mutual Funds, currencies and cryptocurrencies, as well as commodities.

Also, ask your parents to open a bank account for you as a joint holder before reaching the age of 18. All these steps will help you develop a healthy credit score, which will be useful for moving out at 18.

6. Find a Job

You might have some savings, and maybe your parents will give you some money when you decide to move out at 18. However, this money isn’t going to last long unless you’re getting millions of Dollars. Therefore, the best thing to do is to find a job before you move out at 18.

Nowadays, finding a job is fairly difficult. However, thanks to various job boards and LinkedIn, you can easily apply for several online jobs as well as offline jobs at the same time at the location where you wish to live when you move out at 18.

To do so, you’ll need to take several steps. The first and most important one is to create that killer profile on LinkedIn. You might wonder why I’m speaking about LinkedIn. The reason is simple. LinkedIn is the largest networking website for professionals from various fields as well as fresher candidates.

When you create that amazing LinkedIn profile, you can also search and apply for jobs that will appear on your page. At the same time, employers in your area and across America can also view your profile and learn about details such as your education, skills and other important things. They can then offer you a job.

At the same time, create superb profiles as a jobseeker on various job boards such as Indeed.com, Monster.com, ZipRecruiter, Glassdoor.com and other reputed ones.

Apply for jobs that you have skills for and which you would love doing. Here, it’s worth knowing that your first job is always the stepping stone to a long and successful career. Therefore, choose your career wisely.

In Conclusion

These six steps would help ease some of the problems you might face while moving out at 18 and living independently. The process isn’t difficult, provided you give it a lot of thought and start well in advance.

The steps that I have written about are meant to take care of your financial and social life as well as your career when you decide to move out at 18 to become independent of your parents.

Millions of American teenagers as well as their counterparts around the world, move out at the age of 18 to 20. And most of them do so successfully by following these simple steps. You, too can be one such a teenager.