Freeway - Moving into your own flat

Moving into your own flat

Here, in the north of Sweden, the distances between villages and cities are huge. Linnéa Egnor, our friend, has 70 kilometres to our school in Örnsköldsvik and it takes about one hour to go there by car. We have 50 kilometres to Örnsköldsvik.
That’s the main reason why so many young students move into their own flats when they are going to study at the Upper Secondary School. Mostly it’s the youths, living in the countryside, who move into the cities when time has come to go on with the studies. This is exactly what we had to do. We moved from home at the age of sixteen.
This means a lot of lifestyle-changes! Suddenly you realise how hard it can be to run a household, and you look at the prices in the supermarket in a whole new way.
-"What? That’s far too expensive!". As a matter of fact, the first year it was hard to manage on our own. The whole year we were short of money almost all the time, but now we have learned how to economize.
Many students live together with some of their friends or their boy-/girlfriend. In our case Jennie lives with her boyfriend and Dordi lives with two of her best friends.

Now, how can we afford to get an apartment of our own? Well, the municipality helps to finance the rent, so if you are clever you can put your housing-grants together, like we did, and live in a bigger apartment. Living together has both benefits and disadvantages. For example, even the smallest things can cause arguments and disagreements. That’s when you learn to respect each other! This last year has been tough for both of us, but we have also grown as persons.
Dordi’s two roommates in their living-room.

Do the dishes, laundry and clean the apartment are things that you must split up between the person with whom you live. It is hard but in most cases you’ll do fine and everyone is happy. For Jennie it’s easy, she has a dishwasher. But in Dordi’s case her two friends have to do the dishes all the time, to be honest. On the other hand she is the one who cleans the apartment most of the time. You really grow up fast and quickly you become a little more responsible for your acts.
Here you can see a part of Dordi’s kitchen

The kitchen in Jennie’s apartment What about the economy then? The hardest problem is housekeeping - there is almost never enough money! You must look twice at your money to afford living. You notice fast that you have to give priority to certain things, while stuff like ice-cream, vegetables and candy have to go. One thing that is very common is that when you visit your parents you take some left-over food with you back. A smart way to survive! The microwave might be the most important thing in a Swedish youths kitchen!

Both of us have a microwave, we think it would be terrible not to have one.
When you live together, your co-habitee’s friends become your friends too, so in a way you increase you circle of friends, which is lovely! Because of this you don’t see much of Dordi in the evenings, she is always somewhere else!
All of a sudden you also have many neighbours to show consideration for. Late nights loud music can be irritating, but on the other hand sometimes it’s you who irritate your neighbours! When you live without your parents you can decide when to sleep, eat, study and go out.
Sometimes when you feel a little tired and sick of everything you long for home, it’s really nice to come home just to relax and be around your family. A positive thing with seeing your parents less often is that when you see them you appreciate them more than you did before!

This is Jennie’s living-room

Our own opinion about moving out early is that it is necessary in the north of Sweden.
It would be tough to take a bus 100 kilometres every day just because of school.
Sometimes there are no buses that fit your schedule. You also get more freedom to do whatever you want and it is closer to things like discos, cinemas, hockey, bowling and cafés. But one thing that we know for sure is that we are welcome home whenever we wish to move back! We have heard that it isn’t common for youths in England and Italy to move away from home at the age of sixteen, is that right? Here it’s a natural thing to do if you want to keep studying. But in the south of Sweden it isn’t, they move out when they are about eighteen or twenty years old. That’s just because the distances aren’t so huge in the south as they are in the north. Next year, our last year at Parkskolan, we will live in Örnsköldsvik as we do now. Then, after graduation, we have to move once again, this time maybe to the south of Sweden where most of the vocational trainings, jobs and Universities are.