As far as life goes, feels like the entirety of it has been striking at once. The situation for the past year: moved across the country with the family, then "moved out" in the sense I am staying in my aunt's home a little over 60 miles south from the rest of the family. However, I am living alone in the sense she is never home as she works out of town. Merely house-sitting more or less. However, I am anxious to actually start my life and fully "move out of mom's basement" (although technically my aunt's.) My plan is to move out, and finally give this whole independence thing a shot. My family has my back and all though which is nice, we're not fighting or anything, and when I pitched my whole "moving OUT out" thing they sounded ok enough with it. In order to do this however, I'm looking for a fulltime job in the area I want to live, and an apartment that works with the salary (aren't we all?) So I can't just pickup a "first job" kind of job, as I'm going to need an actual "big-kid" paycheck; given my skills I am qualified for several, however I feel my biggest drawback is my age, 19.

Given my distance from where I plan to live (about 1 1/2 hours) I don't just want to drive willy nilly-back and forth; I also have a full-time position up here I can't just take a vacation from. So once I get a job, I'd need to move in a snap. Luckily there are plenty of apartments within my hopeful range (under $700/m, $900/m total with utilities) however I am completely clueless when it comes to what employment I should look for.

I am a screwed up nut-case in the sense I have no idea what I want "life"-wise. I mean, I always answer that question with "happy" or "loved" or some other abstract goal; but I have never once had a firm idea of "what I want to be when I grow up" CAREER-wise. It's for that reason I've generalized my skills in the hopes I can pick up something easy enough. What I've got to work with:

*Customer Service, Retail, Sales, Callcenter-Work, Food Prep, and now Merchandise Stocking experience.
*An Associates degree (mainly just my GEDs though, nothing career-centric, like math or english or engineering)
*Completely computer-fluent (all those office programs, along with some Adobe stuff---and touch of HTML thanks to an intro class I took freshman year)
*National Honors Society and Senior Class President on my education record.
*And I'm an Eagle Scout that drives stick; with full-time availability.

Now these are all nice and all, and have at least gotten my foot in the door when it comes to entry level positions; I feel it helped me land my current full-time position. But I am looking for a career possibility job, one that starting out could afford a beat up apartment (accepting a moderate amount of financial struggle on my part;) but have troubles pinpointing where I should start. I've listed what I've got, and I was hoping the Dollars would have some advice where I should start looking. Or good companies that start out well enough to get me going. I've got about $5000 in savings as a cushion (mainly for security deposit + backup-rent for a few months)-- however I still can't just quit the job I have now as it's my only source of income at the moment. However, get the new job, I'd drop my current one, and need to move in right away. It's only an hour or two away though, so "forgetting something" isn't too big an issue, but I can't afford to make that commute every morning is all.

What do you think I should look for? Where are good places to start? Your first apartment paying job? I just need all the advice I can get on this subject.