Moving Away at 18

[Unregistered]

I fully intend to, when I'm 18, move away. My girlfriend lives in Ohio. We met via Internet but I absolutely trust her. We've shared pictures, called, and texted, and when I'm 18 I will have known her for 4 years. Im not worried about that. My family is decent, but I feel like I can't trust them with anything and I have a lot of trouble talking to them about anything. And, since I'm female and so is my girlfriend, my parents wouldn't exactly approve because we're Christain. I just really love this girl. I'm already saving money for when I move to Ohio. My concerns are how exactly should I do it? Should I save for a plane or save for a car and drive there? What about college? Would we stay in an apartment? Is there anything else I should be concerned about?

I'm not sure whether this was the correct section to ask this, so I hope it's alright.

Thank you!

[ccsmod8]

RE: Moving Away at 18

Hello there –

Thank you for getting into contact with us here at the National Runaway Safeline and posting your questions on our public forum. After reading though your post, it certainly sounds you’re going through a lot at home if you’re considering leaving home because you believe that your parents wouldn’t accept your relationship. Sounds like you’ve got a plan to leave, but you just have a few more question about it. We don’t have a guidebook or survival kit that we give youth that are leaving their homes so we don’t have exact answers to your questions, but we can try to answer them the best way that we can.

So it seems like your main concern here is that you don’t know how much money you should have before leaving and if you buy a car vs buying a plane ticket. Like we stated earlier we don’t have a guidebook to running away or living outside of your parent’s home. It might be a good idea to do some research on that specific state that you’re traveling to and calculate the average cost of living. That way you can reasonably figure out how much you’d be spending a month and how much you would need to survive on your own. The same with looking for specific colleges out there that are going to be starting up and offering classes that you would be interested in.

Now as far as buying a car or buying a plan ticket, you are legally able to buy either whenever you want since you’re an adult. The things you want to keep in mind when using them is how you are going to make payments on them every month in the future. This would also depend on if you were able to find a job right away upon moving there. So thinking about your income and what you will be able to pay for, should allow you make your decision on whether you want to buy a car or buy a plane ticket. In short, you might want to consider your long term plan before moving or leaving home. Little issues like long term housing (how long can you stay with your girlfriend or what if you break up), transportation, financial stability, and access to food/clothes, school, etc. Having a solid plan about what you are planning on doing it might be a good idea so that you can think about what is reasonably possible for you to do and want isn’t.