7 Things No One Tells you About moving to a new City

Hey everyone ~

I know it’s been a while since I last talked to all of you. Nick and I were back home in Michigan to visit family and I swear I lost track of the days so posting became super hard for the blog. But I am back and ready to get back to everyday life. It’s so crazy to think that we are basically through with July and almost through 2020. Who else is ready to kick 2020 to the curb and embrace 2021? Anyways, the past 3 weeks at home in the mitten (Michigan) were absolutely amazing. We really haven’t been home for that long since before we left for the east coast last August! It was nice to relax, catch-up with everyone and just forget about the world events for a while. We are only a month away from celebrating our first year together on the east coast and it has me reflecting a lot about the journey it took to get here from graduating in April to working in our hometowns for the summer to packing up the Volvo and driving 13 hours to a whole different state. I thought today would be a great time to talk about moving on and starting a new life in a new city and new state because believe me, I wish there were a few things I would have known before moving out here!

You will feel all sorts of emotions

Obviously moving is a huge adventure and you will definitely be excited, but leaving the only state you’ve ever known will be really difficult. Think of when you left home for college, take those feelings and multiply them by 10. That was your first time leaving the only home you’ve ever known and yes where it’s super exciting, it can be absolutely terrifying, overwhelming and at times exhausting. The same emotions become heightened when you move to a whole new city and state. Regardless of all the overwhelming emotions you will feel, above everything else you will feel an excitement like never before!

Finding a home is no easy task

Before Nick and I even found our place in Jersey City, we lived with my aunt and uncle in Fairfield, Connecticut for 5-6 months before being able to move. Half that time spent in Connecticut was spent working hourly jobs while job searching in NYC, commuting long hours back and forth once we had jobs and saving as much money as we could to afford a home close to the city. Like all great adventures, finding a home can take time. Not only are you paying rent (which is ridiculous out here) but you are also having to save for all the different fees (luckily we didn’t have any extra fees besides our deposit) and move in expenses. Finding a home, especially in NYC/Jersey City, can be a b*tch! An apartment could be on the market one day and gone the next or an apartment could be the perfect place on paper but when you view it in person it can be a dump. I think Nick and I were fairly lucky with our apartment searching; we only viewed 6 different apartments before signing with the building we are currently in. It can be a long and grueling process, but believe be the end goal is so worth all the viewings and searching we did.

Making a place feel like “home” takes time

When Nick and I moved, it took us a long while before our apartment and city started to feel like our new home. Even to this day we are still working everyday to make our home feel like our home. Everyone experiences this at their own pace. In a weird blessing kinda way, I feel like being quarantined in our 480sqft apartment has really forced Nick and I to put a lot of time and effort into our place in order to make it feel more like our home and not just somewhere we are squatting until we figure out our next move.

Making friends is hard and will take LOTS of time

Back in Michigan we left a lot of really amazing friends behind and I think that was the part that scared me the most about moving. I was scared to not only loose touch with the friends we had back home, but I wasn’t sure how exactly we’d make friends. New York and New Jersey are filled with so many people, so you’d think it would be easy, but everyone has their own groups or your own schedules so it can be increasingly difficult to find people you vibe with. It really took us a few months to really get acquainted with the people in our area and grow a relationship, so just be patient and you will find your group!

You will get lost and look like a tourist

Especially in a city like New York, you will get turned around and go uptown when you meant to go downtown or vice versa. You will probably walk 6 blocks in the wrong direction. When you move somewhere new, it will take time before you learn the layout of everything. I am still whipping out my phone to find my way around town and I’m sure one day I will figure out exactly how to get from point A to point B, but until then I will happily look like a tourist trying to find my way around town.

It’s going to cost you a lot more than you realize

I knew that moving was going to be expensive. Moving from Michigan to Connecticut wasn’t super expensive, but moving from Connecticut to Jersey City, was a pretty big financial investment for both Nick and I. Not only did we have to pay for our rent and deposit for the first month, but purchasing furniture items like a mattress and bed frame along with gas for driving back and forth to New Jersey back to Connecticut; all of that can really add up. Before you do any kind of moving whether you are moving to a city or not, just be prepared financially to handle all of the little loose ends that will come up. Some good advice we received before moving was to make sure that you save up double maybe even triple what you need for rent in order to be able to stay afloat after putting down your security deposit, extra fees and first months rent.

You will change a lot

I mean this in a good way. Moving out of state really forced Nick and I to take charge and become real adults in order to get to the place where we wanted to be. I also believe living in a new area has given us some new points of view on how we view the world since we now live in an area where there is a lot of cultural diversity around us. You will learn lots of new things about yourself when you move somewhere new. I’m not exactly sure how to describe it, but you will see a lot of things differently than you did before and you will learn just how far you can really push yourself in a new setting!

You will miss a lot of random things about home

Since moving there have definitely been a lot of things I miss about Michigan. I miss being close to our friends and family, driving, Coney hot-dogs, all the lakes, the list could go on forever. One of the biggest things I miss, especially being stuck inside because of Covid, would be backyards. I know random right? I remember going onto Instagram and I would see friends hanging out tanning in their yards or just hanging out and the closest thing I have to that in the city is my fire escape outside. Don’t get me wrong we love it out here, but there are definitely a lot of random things you will miss about your home state.

You won’t love everything about your city

The amount of fire trucks and cop sirens that go past our block everyday is honestly amazing. I did not think I would hear nearly this many sirens when we moved. I think some people expect that when they move somewhere new they need to love everything about their new home but the truth is no home is perfect. Hell there were thing about Michigan that I didn’t love. You just have to decide on whether those little things are deal breakers or not. If you really love the area you are in then those small annoying things can easily be looked over!

I hope you all enjoyed reading this post and I hope you gained some new information that you can bring forward with you no matter where you go. If you have any points to add to this post, I would definitely love to hear your experiences moving to a new place. I will talk to you all again next week!

XX,

Hannah Rose