Even when you think you’ve planned for most expenses, there are always a few that pop up – seemingly out of nowhere, right? But then also they seem wildly obvious when they are happening.

When I moved into my apartment in England this year, I was a little surprised by the annual water bill that was all due at once at the beginning of the year (because how can they possibly know how much water I’m going to use?)

Sidenote: There is actually an astonishing amount of estimating in bill payment in the UK. The beginning of the year guess at how much the water bill will be for the next year was only the first. It’s sort of like American healthcare credits that base what you have to pay for the year on what you made the previous year and then, surprise, come tax time, if you guessed wrong you owe a ton of money. Or perhaps you get a bigger refund.

Why is so much of life just spinning a mystery wheel of expenses and guessing?

My gas bill here in the UK is also a random guess. They take a set amount out each month (it was £41 a month until the tariff increase and then it jumped to £98, which is sort of insane really) and assume that this will probably work out because in the summer you will use less and build up a credit and then when you use more in the winter, it will pull from that pool? It is all very, very weird. Just charge me the flat amount I use each month. So bizarre.

Anyway, that rant aside – the very basics of setting up a kitchen and cleaning supplies too me super by surprise when I moved into my apartment this time.

So if you are moving into your first place, or moving abroad and leaving most things behind, this post is for you – plan for £200-300 in really stupid but necessary purchases.

And this is coming from a woman who shopped heavily for as many of these items as possible at Poundland and then just slowly upgraded them over the next several months.

You need plates, bowls and utensils. That is not super surprising.

But perhaps you’ve read all the tips that cooking at home is cheaper than getting takeout every day.

In the long run, yes.

In the immediate short run – heck, no. Setting up even a basic kitchen is no joke of an initial outlay. Hopefully there is a thrift store somewhere near you that you can scavenge some of these things from, but as a person who does some very basic cooking, I found these items pretty necessary and was able to obtain them from a combination of Poundland, Ikea and Tesco:

• Large mixing bowl (ideally two)
• Pot (two is also a good idea here, but you can make do with one)
• Pan
• Spatula
• Wooden Spoons
• Whisk
• A good sharp knife (this is unexpectedly quite costly but I’d suggest splurging on it)
• Cutting board
• Measuring Cups
• Oven Mitts
• Cookie Sheet
• Some kind of pan that can go in the oven

But then surprise, you probably also want/need:

• Aluminium Foil
• Plastic Wrap
• Some kind of Tupperware (though this can be scavenged from other plastic pots and also is easy to find in Poundland)
• Dish Soap
• Sponges
• Dish Towels

I also pretty quickly added (though this was able to wait for several weeks past the initial shop):

• Rolling Pin
• Trivet
• Tongs
• Strainer
• Grater
• Potato Masher (I think this might just be me, as I found I was making unusually large quantities of things that needed to be mashed and so this £5 investment became worth it)

But then, the real unexpected kicker, the grocery run to be able to cook:

• Oil(s)
• Salt
• Pepper
• Flour
• Sugar

Essentially all the things you’ve taken for granted are just somehow in your cabinets. Or that you’re used to picking up one by one, staggered, as they run out. This grocery run was really the one that had me going WTF. Because kitchen stables are expensive.

And on the same shop, I also picked up exciting items like:

• Garbage Bags
• Cleaner Spray
• Laundry Detergent
• Hand Soap
• Toilet Paper
• Paper Towels
• Tissues

And then, once all that was sorted, I was able to do a fairly normal grocery shop on top of it – with the exception of that fact that every spice or seasoning had to be bought for the first time too – making most new recipes requiring anything more than just salt or pepper quite expensive.

On the plus side, after this initial totally WTF shop, life does begin to settle in and you get to go back to normal, staggered grocery shops. And your spice rack will slowly become a far more useful resource, recipe by recipe.

But if you’re struggling to make ends meet and people are telling you to just cook at home and you don’t already own this stuff. Tell them to take a hike. Because the cost of this was unexpectedly exorbitant to me.

As an additional side note though, I’ve decided that a bucket filled with consumable things like garbage bags, sponges, aluminium foil, soap, etc. is a pretty kick butt housewarming gift for new homeowners and is now my go to. Slap a little bow on the handle and it’s festive and functional.

What costs caught you by surprise last time you moved?