First Apartment Checklist (And What It Costs to Fill Every Line)
Thirty five things an empty apartment needs, sorted into the first night and the next ninety days, with a price on every line.
The lease is signed, the deposit is gone, and you get the keys in eleven days. You take a shower on the first night and the water runs down the tile onto the floor, because the rod is there and the curtain is still on a shelf at the store. A first apartment checklist will tell you to buy a shower curtain. The number at the bottom of this one is $407.02.
What this list is and how to use it
Below are thirty five small things an empty apartment needs, in two columns. The left column is what has to exist before you sleep there the first night. The right column is what can wait ninety days without anything going wrong. There is a price on every line and a total under each side.
Use it in three steps.
- Read the left column and cross off anything you already own or anything the apartment came with.
- Take what is left to your own store and put a price beside each line.
- Leave the right column alone until your first rent payment has cleared.
The bill that arrives in pieces
You budgeted for this move. You knew the deposit, you knew the first month, and you had a number for the truck before you signed anything. The spending that catches people arrives as a run of small receipts inside one week, none of them large enough to stop and think about.
A trash can is fourteen dollars, and nobody writes down fourteen dollars. These purchases never sit next to each other on the same page, so nothing adds them up until your balance does at the end of the month. A bigger paycheck disappears the same way, one ordinary cost at a time.
Here is the test that sorted them. A line belongs on the left if one night without it makes a mess, a health problem, or a trip back to the store at nine at night. A shower curtain qualifies, because water on your bathroom floor is somebody else's ceiling. So does a plunger, because the store is closed by the time you find out you need one. A toilet brush waits, since nothing goes wrong in one night without one. The kitchen waits too. Nothing in it is wanted on a night when dinner arrives in a paper bag with a plastic fork in it.
The whole apartment checklist, priced
The prices come from Target's own site, read on August 29, 2026, taking the cheapest plain version of each item and the store's own label where there is one (checked August 2026). A different store in a different month will hand you different numbers.
| Before the first night | Price | Can wait ninety days | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shower curtain liner | $3.50 | Stick vacuum | $34.99 |
| Shower curtain rings | $3.00 | Spin mop | $29.99 |
| Towels, 2 bath and 2 hand | $12.00 | Broom with dust pan | $9.69 |
| Toilet paper, 18 mega rolls | $13.99 | Bath rug | $7.00 |
| Hand soap, 7.5 fluid ounces | $0.99 | Toilet brush | $5.00 |
| Plunger | $15.00 | Laundry hamper | $8.00 |
| Sheet set, queen | $18.00 | Laundry detergent, 50 loads | $7.99 |
| Pillows, 2 pack | $10.00 | Hangers, 18 pack | $3.00 |
| Comforter, full or queen | $30.00 | Pan set, 3 pieces | $37.99 |
| Kitchen trash can, 13 gallon | $14.00 | Baking sheet | $5.99 |
| Trash bags, 13 gallon, 25 count | $2.99 | Chef knife, 8 inch | $9.99 |
| Paper towels, 6 triple rolls | $14.99 | Cutting board | $6.00 |
| Light bulbs, 4 pack, 60 watt LED | $6.99 | Cooking utensils, 5 pieces | $5.00 |
| Surge protector, 6 outlets, 2 foot cord | $9.79 | Plates and bowls, 12 pieces | $25.00 |
| Flatware, 20 pieces | $14.00 | ||
| Dish soap, 28 fluid ounces | $2.59 | ||
| Sponges, 4 pack | $2.59 | ||
| Food storage containers, 3 count | $4.99 | ||
| Dish drainer | $5.00 | ||
| Screwdriver set, 6 pieces | $11.99 | ||
| Toaster, 2 slice | $14.99 | ||
| Fourteen items | $155.24 | Twenty one items | $251.78 |
What the whole list adds up to
Together the two sides are $407.02, and the apartment is still empty. A bed frame, a couch, a table and chairs, a dresser and a lamp are all still ahead of you.
The split is where this gets useful. Only $155.24 has to exist on the first night, and it buys nothing you would ever describe to anybody: a liner, rings, towels, two kinds of paper, soap, a plunger, bedding, a bin, bulbs and somewhere to plug a phone in. The other $251.78 is a kitchen, a cleaning cupboard, a laundry and a screwdriver set, and every one of those can arrive a line at a time over three months.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes what an average household spends on food at home, and for 2024 it came to $6,224 across the year, or $518.67 a month (checked August 2026). The whole list is $407.02, which is just under four fifths of a month of eating.
That $407.02 also lands in the same seven days as everything else you owe. The Census Bureau put the median asking rent for a vacant unit at $1,531 in the second quarter of 2026 (checked August 2026), so the week you move is the week you hand over a deposit, a first month at something like that figure, and $407.02 of shower rings and light bulbs.
Hold the list against a normal year. The same survey's detailed tables put average household spending on furnishings and equipment at $2,414 for 2024 (checked August 2026). That is a whole year of replacing a blender, adding a lamp, buying towels when the old ones go thin, spread across twelve months by households that already own everything. You are doing a compressed version of that year in one week, from nothing, while also paying to move.
The index for household furnishings and supplies rose 0.8 percent in the year to July 2026 (checked August 2026), slower than rent over the same period. A year of that spending arrives in seven days. The cost of an ordinary adult life is mostly weeks like this one.
Take the list into the apartment before you buy it
Walk the unit one more time before the keys change hands and ask the landlord what stays, line by line, instead of assuming. Bulbs already sitting in the ceiling sockets take $6.99 off. A room that comes with a bed made up takes off the sheet set, the pillows and the comforter, which is $58.00 of the $155.24. If someone sends towels and you already own a plunger, another $27.00 goes.
Two lines account for close to a third of the left side on their own. The comforter at $30.00 and the sheet set at $18.00 come to $48.00 of the $155.24, and both are the kind of thing a relative hands you in a box, so ask before you buy either one.
The right side rewards the same look. The stick vacuum at $34.99 and the pan set at $37.99 are $72.98 of the $251.78 between them, and neither is wanted in a week when dinner comes in a bag. Buy each of the twenty one the week you first reach for it, and $251.78 spreads over three months instead of landing in the week you also pay a deposit.
What to do this week
Write your two columns tonight, price the left one, and put that number on the same page as the deposit and the first month, so all three are visible before any of them is due.
The curtain is $3.50 and the rings are $3.00, and they are the reason to do this in the eleven days you still have. Buy the left column on the way there, and the first night in the apartment is dull.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical, financial, or professional advice.