10 Benefits Of Living Alone In Your 20s
While many of us miss out on the chance to live alone due to expensive rent rates or meeting your other half straight out of Uni, there are many benefits of living by yourself. Living alone doesn’t mean you have to be lonely or become a crazy cat lady, but it does help you become independent and gives you the freedom to do what you please. Whether you’ve just graduated, broken up with your boyfriend or just can’t face moving back in with your parents, here are 10 benefits of living alone in your 20s:
1. Peace and quiet
After three or four years of living in noisy student accommodation with several other housemates, moving out of your own will give you the peace and quiet you crave. You’ll no longer have to ask people to turn their music down or impatiently wait for their guests to leave so you can get some sleep. While socialising is fun, having a quiet place to come home and relax is one of the major benefits of living alone, especially for introverts.
2. Total privacy
Another benefit of living alone, is that you have total privacy to do whatever you want in your own personal space. If you want to walk around naked, lounge in your PJs all day or have outrageously loud sex, you can do so without worrying about the other people you live with!
3. The TV is all yours
Living on your own means no more having to watch your favourite shows on your tiny laptop screen in your bedroom. There’ll also be no-one to fight over the remote with and you’ll have the freedom to watch whatever you want, when you want. Want to binge-watch an entire Netflix series in one day? Go ahead – there’s no-one stopping you!
4. You’ll learn a lot about yourself
One of the main benefits of living alone in your 20s, is that you will come to understand who you really are, what fulfils you and what you want from life. When you spend time alone, you’ll learn to live with yourself and you’ll realise what really makes you happy and what you can actually live without. Living alone is a sure path to self-discovery for young adults!
5. The only person you answer to is yourself
When you live alone, you have no-one else to answer to but yourself. When you’ve had a rough day at work and want to just come home and be alone, you can do so no questions asked. If you can’t be bothered to cook and want to order a takeaway, there is no-one to tell you otherwise. You can also go to bed whenever you want without having to take someone else’s schedule into account. If you live alone in your 20s, you get to be the boss of you!
6. All the food in the fridge is yours
When you move out on your own, gone are the days of writing your name on all your items in the fridge in a bid to stop your housemates stealing your food. No housemates means all the food in the fridge is yours and you don’t have to share it with anyone. This is a huge benefit of living alone in your 20s!
7. You’ll learn how to budget
Once the student loan has run out, money will be tighter if you choose to live alone and you’ll have to work for what you want in life and learn how to budget. For many 20-somethings, there is too much month left at the end of their money, but at some point you’ll have to start paying your bills on time and making sure you have cash set aside for emergencies like a real adult. Learning how to budget is a crucial life skill and as such is one of the major benefits of living alone in your 20s.
8. You will actually become more sociable
Living by yourself in your 20s doesn’t have to be lonely. In fact, when you live alone you’ll actually have to make more effort if you want to spend time with other people. If you want to meet new people, you’ll have to put yourself out there and if you want to spend time with your friends you’ll have to keep in contact with them in order to arrange places to meet. Although you’ll enjoy your alone time, one of the benefits of living alone is that it makes you value and appreciate people more!
9. You can be as clean or as messy as you like
If you are a bit of a clean freak and hated cleaning up after other people at Uni, living alone means you can keep your home as clean and tidy as you like. While this also means there is no-one else to blame if you make a mess, a huge benefit of living alone in your 20s means you can keep your space however you want it and you can avoid other people’s clutter!
10. Gain confidence
When there’s no-one around to things for you, you’ll learn how to be independent and realise how many things you can actually do by yourself. While fending for yourself can be challenging, particularly if you’re scared of spiders and the only help you’ve got is your vacuum cleaner, but it also helps you become self-sufficient and grow stronger emotionally. This can in turn build your self-esteem and build your confidence, which is a huge benefit of living alone in your 20s!
These are just 10 of the benefits of living alone during your 20s. Can you think of any others? Leave them in the comments…
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An English graduate from Yorkshire, currently living in Teesside. A lover of TV & film, music, tattoos and travelling!