Breaking up is always hard; it doesn’t matter if you were the one to call it quits, or if your partner suggested that the pair of you should end the relationship. When you’ve been with someone for a while, much of your life is adjusted to fit around them whether you realize it or not, and so when they’re suddenly no longer around it can feel like there’s a void there—even if you know that ending things was for the best.
When your relationship has come to an end, the best thing you can do is take the lessons learned, use them to make you a better person, and make a plan for moving on and improving your life as a newly single person. Best of all, you don’t need to have stacks of cash to do it, here’s your broke girl’s guide to moving on after a breakup:
Find a New Place to Live
After breaking up, finding a new place to live is often a sensible move. When you share a home with a partner, it becomes filled with memories of them, so when they’re no longer around it can be painful looking around and recalling the ghosts of those memories. Maybe once your partner has left you can no longer afford the place anyway, or perhaps it was their home originally that you moved into, so you have no choice but to leave. Either way, getting your own home is no a bad thing and will give you a safe new space to start again, recover, and build yourself back up.
Look into small one bedroom houses, flats or bungalows. If your budget is tighter than this, you could always rent a room in a shared home. Anywhere that’s your space and isn’t linked with memories of your ex partner is a good thing.
Make your new home feel personal to you, display photos with you and your friends, buy yourself pretty new bedding, and display items that hold significance to you away from the memories of your relationship.
You could also invite friends over, have dinner parties and drinks, and start making new memories to cherish.
Change Your Look
Lots of women change their look after a breakup and there’s a good reason for that. A new look gives you confidence, and looking different can also make you feel different. It can be the boost you need to give you a bad ass new attitude.
Going to the hair salon for a new color can be expensive (I went super blonde after my breakup, and I paid heavily for it), but if you’re confident with a box dye, this can be a cheap and easy way to change your look—then you can just have a professional cut and save yourself some money.
You may even want to try new clothes and styles you wouldn’t normally go for, scour bargain clothes shops or thrift shops and find some pieces without spending much.
You can also have fun experimenting with new makeup looks, you can find great cosmetics at drugstores, you don’t need to go high end. Follow along with some tutorials on Youtube and try new things. The best thing about makeup is if you don’t like it, you can just wash it off!
Maybe your ex partner was controlling and didn’t like you to look a certain way, or maybe you’d just got a little comfortable and stopped making an effort with your appearance. Either way, pampering yourself and putting a bit of time back into you and how you look is always a good thing after you go through a breakup and signifies the ‘new you’.
Go Traveling
What better way to take your mind off your situation than to go to a new place and have fun? You don’t want to do this too soon, the last thing you want is to travel and not be able to enjoy it because you’re still heartbroken and crying every day. However, if you’ve started making progress, then travel can distract you and encourage you to make new memories rather than sitting around dwelling on what’s happened.
Look at last minute deals as a way to save money, you could go with friends or even experiment with solo travel. What better way to build your confidence and prove to yourself that you really can do it alone. You could go backpacking, staying in hostels and camping which wouldn’t cost a lot. You could rent a car or RV and go on a road trip, or go and visit loved ones which live in another town, city or country.
That what I did, and it was so therapeutic. If you do decide to backpack, don’t forget travel insurance!
Enroll in a Course
Improving your education is something that will benefit just about everyone, but when you’ve recently had a breakup and are actively looking for ways to self improve then this is a fantastic option. Not only will it give you a confidence boost, but you could even improve your job prospects and therefore your financial situation long term.
Sometimes it’s negative things happening in life that push us forward to making positive changes like this. You can study anything these days, from online IT auditor degrees to counseling diplomas, certifications in animal care—you name it, there will be a course somewhere.
Have you ever been through a particularly rough breakup? What sort of things did you do to get through it? Let us know in the comments below!
Read More:
