I’m looking for very practical advice on staying clean, organized, and functional in a shared living situation that I can’t leave yet.
I’m 21F living with my fiancé in his family’s garage to save money and pay off debt. There are 6 people in the house and 4 animals. Our space is small, poorly ventilated, and we have very limited storage. We’re trying to build an additional room in the garage, but the garage is currently packed with items and can’t be cleared yet.
The main issue is sanitation. One bathroom (the only one with a shower) is frequently very dirty, and cleaning is inconsistent. The house overall has poor cleanliness standards, and I don’t want to be the sole person cleaning up after everyone.
Because of this, I’m struggling to:
Shower consistently
Keep clothes clean and stored
Maintain routines
Eat well (very limited food options; food stamps recently cut off)
Study or function day-to-day
I do have a gym membership and can shower there, which helps, but I’m looking for low-cost, realistic strategies to make this situation survivable until we can leave.
Specifically, I’m hoping for advice on:
jCreating a personal “clean zone” in a very dirty house
Budget hygiene systems (portable shower kits, storage ideas, cleaning shortcuts)
Frugal ways to eat healthier when you don’t control groceries
Laundry and clothing storage solutions in tight spaces
Mental tricks or routines that help when your environment is chaotic
Moving out isn’t financially possible right now, so I’m focused on harm reduction and survival. Any frugal, realistic tips from people who’ve lived in similar conditions would be appreciated.
TL;DR:
Living in a crowded, unsanitary house to save money. Can’t move out yet. Looking for frugal, practical ways to stay clean, organized, and functional until we can leave.
How to stay clean and functional in an unsanitary shared house when you’re broke and can’t move out yet
byu/DayAccomplished2651 inFrugal
Posted by DayAccomplished2651
8 Comments
How does your fiance feel about this? He should help you do a deep clean of the house once a week or so to avoid the mess building up.
For clothing and laundry storage I would get two tote containers. One will store dirty clothes and the other clean.
Do laundry and then immediately put it away in the clean tote.
Shower as much as possible at the gym. If you have friends that have places, see if you can shower and do laundry there. This might give you a break from your current situation.
Also, spend time at the library. Again, cleaner than home.
Wear slippers in the house. Wear an apron when having to spend time in the kitchen. This will help keep dirt off of you. Maybe have a pair of old sweatpants also as your house clothes when being in shared spaces. This will keep your clothing underneath clean.
Get your own cutting board and knives to prepare food. Keep in one of those dishwashing tubs and keep that in your space. Maybe in a container.
You might be able to get the totes and container on a no buy page so you dont have to spend money.
Organize your clothes into outfits as soon as they are clean. Fold them up as an outfit and store them in a clean bin. They won’t pick up gross house smells and will be easier to pull out and not get dirty by having to set down again that you would have to do sorting through them to find an outfit each day.
Making a consistent habit of getting up going to the gym, showering there, go to the library to study before going back can help. Spending as little time as you can in the mess will mentally help a lot.
Try to add a handful a frozen veggies to every meal and pay attention to portion sizes if you don’t control the groceries at all and not knowing what is normal there its hard to say more than that.
For cleaning try to keep your own things very minimal the less you have the less you have to keep clean and the easier it is to navigate a messy house with it while getting to a space that can be kept clean.
When my boyfriend was living in a nasty house in college, we basically stayed in his room, and protected that space at all costs. We kept our food in there, our dishes, our TV. Only venturing out to use the bathroom and kitchen when needed. I was also kind of an asshole about messes. If someone left dishes in the sink, I’d just throw them to the side and do my thing.
For the shower, you can get a shower caddy for like 5 bucks to take all your stuff with you, and maybe also could get a shower mat for underfoot that you could also take with you in and out of the shower.
Can you control groceries at all? Honestly, canned fruit and veg isnt horrible. Plus its cheap and keeps fine on the shelves. My favorite canned things are corn, beets, peaches, pears, pineapple, artichokes, and tomatoes. Also I love canned chicken and tuna. I make tuna salad or curry chicken salad with it. Just add mayo, salt, and mixins! Serve on bread, with crackers, on salad, or however you like. You could also lean into crock pot cooking, can make chilis and soups and tacos in it no problem. Thriftstores often have crockpots for sale. And beans and canned tomatoes are also cheap. If you cooked in a crockpot could do so in your room, and just need to go out to clean it (keep your own sponge if you like).
Lastly, my suggestion is a place for every thing. Every item you have should have a home. Even if thats a box under the bed. It’ll help you keep tidy in a small space. Like, clothes all get folded and put into this basket, electronics all go in the box, food is kept on this part of the shelf. And then make sure stuff goes back every time.
Make sure youre on the same page as your fiance for this stuff, this will only work if youre both marching to the same beat.
I suffered through this for a year. Make your room an oasis. Don’t cook. Buy a mini fridge and a kettle and a microwave for your room. Scrub the tub but leave the rest. Wear headphones a lot. Move as soon as possible. It’s horrific living with pigs when you are a neat person. The universe will force you into a better situation more inline with your values.
For mental health: frame this as an adventure. It’s like a camping trip. It’s only temporary. Get your financial goals in place so you can leave ASAP.
Can you pick up additional gig work? Aside from earning more money it gets you out of the house more. Treat this space as a sleeping crash pad only. Any awake time should be out of the house as much as possible: at work, on campus, at the gym, at the library. You get the idea.
You can wear flipflops or shower shoes or water shoes while in the bathroom and the shower. In fact, that’s recommended when you’re sharing a shower with a lot of people.
Tossing this one in here since you mentioned ventilation. If you can find an inexpensive air purifier or want to build a Corsi-Rosenthal box, that might make your area feel cleaner.
In terms of personal cleanliness, one of the coolest things I found is a folding bathtub, to use in your living space (r/frugal doesn’t allow affiliate links but do a search, you’ll find them.) They fold down to ~2″ thick, all you’d need is 2-3 gals of warm water and you’re clean (I speak from experience here.) Also, repacking things into consistent-size boxes and stacking them can save huge space, Home Depot sells them pretty cheap.