Living on your own and not with your family can be a huge learning curve for many. Now that your Mom and Dad aren’t around to cook and clean up after you, you need to do it yourself. If you’ve never done your own laundry, cleaned, or cooked before, it can be confusing to start each of these tasks. Below are a few tips the Interrobang has, that covers the very basics of what you need to know to get you started living on your own. As a reminder, these are mainly suggested tips and some may vary depending on the circumstance.

Laundry

For starters, not all garments are machine friendly. Always read the tag before washing any article of clothing in order to prevent ruining it. Look up online what the symbols mean, there are plenty of charts that will be useful. Now that you have confirmed your clothing is machine friendly, it’s time to sort. Divide your light and dark coloured clothing, to prevent the dye from your dark clothing, transferring onto your light coloured clothing. If an item of clothing has a pattern that is both white and dark coloured, put it with the darks, not the lights. Before washing, check the pockets to make sure they are empty. Wash your clothing with cold water when you can and always check the tags to make sure that your clothes can be washed on cold water. When drying clothes, use the low heat settings to prevent shrinking. Before and after starting the dryer, clean out the lint trap as it can be a fire hazard.

Cooking

The first step is to always wash your hands before and after handling food. Taking a day out of your week to plan and prep your meals will make life much easier. Prepping your meals will make cooking easier and prevent you from giving up and eating out. Websites like YouTube and Pinterest will have hundreds of thousands of easy and quick meals for you to make, that show you step by step what you need to do. It’s also useful to have a measurement chart handy. Whether you print one out or keep it saved on your phone, the chart can be very helpful. One important reminder to keep in mind when cooking with meat, poultry and fish, is to wash your hands right after touching raw meat. Avoid touching other objects if you can. Don’t forget to wash the utensils and surface area that was used when prepping your meat. Always make sure the meat is fully cooked before eating.

Cleaning

Cleaning is easy, but can be time consuming. It might be easier for some people to break up their chores over the course of the week and not leave it to one day. There are only a few products that you actually need. First o , you should have disinfecting spray or wipes that are “multi-surface” cleaners. These are used to wipe down countertops, bathroom sinks, tubs and showers. A sweeper mop, like a Swi er, is a quick and easy way to clean tile and hardwood floors. Having a vacuum is also very useful and speeds up the cleaning process. Also keep a dry cloth on hand for dusting. Be sure to shake the cloth outside in-between rooms, so you actually get rid of the dust and you’re not just moving it to another room. Lastly, get a letter tray, this way you can organize sheets of paper lying around and keep your living space more cleanly looking.