Ladies, I decided to make a list of things that may come up in the course of moving in together, and my own solutions. I have encouraged Matthew to write his own list for the gentlemen and post it, but that's up to him. Feel free to take it or leave it, but I thought they might prove helpful to some!
Turns out, he has just as many clothes as you do.
In our case, we have extremely limited closet space. As in, it barely fit my clothes, and now it has to fit aaallll our clothing. Plus some storage items. Plus a vacuum cleaner. Plus the suitcases and such. Oy. The solution? In the words of my grandfather, it's time to "reduce." This was difficult for me. I had to donate clothing. Don't get me wrong, donating to the Salvation Army or another organization is fantastic. I just wasn't quite prepared. The consolation was we donated together. He donated a few items, and I donated a few items. I even gave up a couple of pairs of shoes. That's love.
There would probably be more room for his stuff if I gave up some books.
Sorry. Not going to happen. Not in my case, anyway. He didn't actually ask me to get rid of them...but I got fairly defensive even thinking about the possibility of losing my book friends. So, we bought more shelves. Which, incidentally enough, also housed the movie collection he refused to give up (not that I asked him to, either.) Stubborn all around, but we make it work.
He eats so much food!
Use coupons when shopping to reduce cost a little. (I suspect there will be a future post on this.) And, when cooking, cook larger portions (generally cook for 3 or 4 people) and save them for leftovers. I also try to keep milk and cereal on hand for "second dinner," when Matthew gets hungry at about 9:30pm.
Goodness, there's so much laundry.
Yes. No solution for this one. Someone is just going to have to do it. One of you or both of you, whichever works.
He says the apartment is too girly.
Well, work that out between the two of you. Matthew vetoed the flowered bed linens. I vetoed the uber manly linens. He buys me flowers to put in my pitchers, and in return I don't put anything sparkly on the walls. And I limit the number of throw pillows. You're welcome.
xoxo Susannah
Stuff. So much stuff in our little teenie tiny house. I'm all about find storage ideas. We have a shelf system in the basement stairwell, homemade shelving in the basement, and extra floorboards in the attic, plus stacked washer and dryer system. We still needed about 3-4 yard sales to make it work.
ReplyDeleteWe try and use wall space and under-furniture space to our advantage since we're in a studio apartment. No attics or basements for us!
DeleteGlad to see someone else making good use of their space!
Haha, too true.
ReplyDeleteI don't find that my boy has that much clothing, but oh! The stuff! Fifteen different (terrible) pots from ex-roommates and probably two dozen computers. ("How many keyboards do you need?" "We have to have at least two of these--the other ones don't work with Sun computers.") Oye.
Also, man can they eat!!! I've found two tricks: 1) He loves simple foods (meatloaf rather than say, lamb with a fig reduction--which is both cheaper and easier to make), and 2) Starch. I can't eat potatoes 7 days a week without looking like one, but a gal can break her bank trying to fill up a boy on meat alone. Add a side of starch just for him (or only have a few teaspoon-sized bites yourself).
I think Sarah could definitely relate to the computer parts and such. Her hubby is more of a techie than mine.
DeleteLove the starch idea! I generally go with pasta or rice. He doesn't really like couscous, but sometimes it's good for the protein. It's hard to keep potatoes around in such a tiny apartment and it's hard to use them all before they sprout too much. How do you do it?
Oh, I can def. relate about the computer parts. I mean, just because you can fix the monitor, doesn't mean we need another one. And seriously, you virtually need an engineering degree to understand our tv set up. Oye.
DeleteAlso, I am a HUGE fan of using starch to "plump" out meals. I'm toying with the idea of posting my corn chowder recipe. Dirt cheap, and filing. :)