Apartment blues

My roommate is moving out at the end of August. She's decided she's had enough of New York, long commutes, her ridiculously small salary, living in the living room and dealing with the crazy ex. And she misses her family. So she's quit her job and is planning to go to graduate school, like everyone else without a job in journalism. She seems pretty happy about her decision and I'm glad for her.

Now my problem is what to do. My unemployment is about $400 a week. The federal government takes out taxes, which seems ridiculous, but whatever. Plus I have to pay about $150 a month for COBRA. I'm estimating this will leave me with about $1,250 a month. My rent is $1,050 a month. My cell phone (I have no home phone) is about $100 a month. That leaves me $100 to pay for gas, electricity, internet, food, outstanding credit card bills, car insurance and any other unexpected costs. You don't have to be a math genius to figure out that's not going to work.

My lease, is through the end of April. So I went to find out what it would cost to get out of my lease, because if I don't get a job locally I'll have to move — either for a new job or in with my parents. These are my options: 1) find someone they approve of to sublease my apartment. They have to go through a background check and the apartment complex has to sign off on them, but they keep my security deposit and I'm ultimately responsible for the apartment and its rent or 2) use the "emergency exit" clause, which is a penalty of two months rent (I have about $3,000 in my savings account, so that would wipe that out), plus I have to give two months notice. How can anyone give two months notice when they get a new job in a new city? So if I were to give notice now, I couldn't move out until Nov. 1, plus I'd have to pay two months rent on top of that. What a scam...especially since the apartment complex is always claiming to have a waiting list for its apartments.