Adults Living With Parents

[disneysteve]

I am 34 and live at home which I am truly embarrassed by. However, my goal is to save money for a home and it's tough because as soon as I have something saved something else comes up in addition there is no privacy. It's hard for me to date because this is my mother's house and God forbid if I bring some one home...we can't even sit in my room with the door open at 34

Amber, I'm curious, when you say "save money for a home" do you mean buy a home or rent an apartment?

[veronak]

Sorry DS, I want to buy a home

[disneysteve]

I am 34 and live at home which I am truly embarrassed by.

It's hard for me to date because this is my mother's house and God forbid if I bring some one home...we can't even sit in my room with the door open at 34

If that's the case, why not rent your own place? You certainly don't need to buy a house to get out of your parents' house and have privacy?

Please don't think I'm picking on you. Your post is just a perfect discussion point for this thread. I moved out when I was 21. I didn't buy a house until 8 years later after I was married.

I wonder how many adult children today are staying with their parents until they can afford a house, skipping the apartment stage of living that most of us went through at some point.

[Broken Arrow]

Er, perhaps this point includes me as well.

My short answer is because I will be able to save up much faster and with a bigger amount for a house than if I went out and rented right now. Even with a special rent-to-own arrangement, I don't think it's as flexible of an option as what I am getting right now.

However, my current living arrangement also doesn't involve me being under the same roof as my parents or any relatives, so.... Otherwise, it might drive me batty enough to go rent too.

[Staceyy]

I think its fine as long as all parties on in agreement and no one feels taken advantage of. Some families enjoy living with each other. Who am I to say this isn't good.

[disneysteve]

Er, perhaps this point includes me as well.

my current living arrangement also doesn't involve me being under the same roof as my parents or any relatives, so.... Otherwise, it might drive me batty enough to go rent too.

I think that's totally different. You aren't living with your parents or any other family members. Who owns the property doesn't matter.

[Broken Arrow]

Awwww... so I can't play? Actually, yeah, I guess I don't count. That and they approached me with the idea, not the other way around (but I'm really, really glad they did).

[creditscore]

maybe it depends on the culture and the country you're living, because for us it's ok to live with our parents.

[disneysteve]

An old thread "College out of High School is a Waste of Money" just got brought up again and I think a post I made to that thread applies here as well, so I'm pasting in.

I wasn't referring to HS grads. I was referring to College grads, who, presumably, will enter a better-than-minimum wage job upon graduation. There are losts of mid and late 20-somethings returning home to mom and dad after getting their degrees.

Is cost of living an issue? Maybe. So get a roommate or 2 or 3. Get a 2nd job. Make your way in life on your own power. Be an adult. That's life.

I think a lot more of the problem is that people want to graduate right into the lifestyle that their parents enjoy now only after working up to that lifestyle for 20 or more years. They don't want to start out like their parents did at the same age. My first apartment was a roach-infested 1-room apartment. I slept on a sofa bed for 2 years. Was it where I really wanted to be? Of course not. But it was what I could afford at the time in the area I needed to be.

I have a friend who is 20 or 21. She is out on her own with no parental support. We hardly ever see her, but did see her this past weekend. She basically works day and night to pay her rent and bills. She doesn't like doing it but that's what she needs to be doing right now to get by.

I have another friend who is a senior in high school. She will be going to college in the fall and has decided to stay at home and commute. Why? Is it because she and her family can't afford room and board? Nope. It is because (by her own admission) she is a "princess" and doesn't want to share a dorm room with another person. What do you think will happen to her after college? How likely is it that she'll be in any hurry to leave the nest and fly?

We all want a better life for our kids, but I think we sometimes do them a disservice in the process. We all need to learn to make our own way in life, not be babied well into adulthood.

[Scanner]

I agree with Broken Arrow and have brought up this alternative point of view before.

[Well Spent]

My mom and I joke all of the time that friends and family members with adult kids my age make me look so GOOD without really trying. I have a job, I don't have kids that I expect my parents to raise, and I don't use substances. I was just showing off when I started earning more than my parents' combined salaray and obtained a graduate degree with a 4.0 GPA. I've learned to manage my $$ so well that I've actually started a separate family emergency fund, and my hubby has one for his family too.

That's fantastic! You sound like an extremely generous person.

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

I stayed in my mother's home three years after finishing high school and felt guilty for leaving, but I had to leave for mental health reasons. My family went through several years in the 1970s of woefully inadequate employment coupled with geographic/transportation isolation. We were poor, no doubt about it. Two of my three sibs older than me all stayed with our mother beyond high school or lived "at home" off and on. We were pooling our earnings and could barely make it all living together much less on our own. And I promise you we were all very frugal and continue to be so to this day. There were mental health issues in the household, no doubt about it. That is why I had to leave --to get away from the ugly fighting and depression and go to ,eh, a better place. The ugliness and depression inside my own head were quite enough, thank you.

Actually at the time I left, I was 21, the oldest child in the household, with two younger sibs still there, one just graduating high school. I felt they really needed my very small income and we really did try to support each other emotionally, too, but we were a wreck with no one really in a healthy state of mind and we were probably just making each other worse off emotionally. I left for my own sanity, moving out of state to live with friends. Uh, I sent money back home when I could over the next few years. Twice, I found part time work to help with dental work my sister, then my mother, needed.

Now it is decades later and BCHGRL's emergency funds she and her husband are building for family sound familiar. My husband and I see our own emergency fund as being available for extended family needs --especially for times when we may need to go to them, or even bring them to us. (No one is any closer than a six hour drive. Some are around the world.) I think most of both our family members would do the same for us. We may not live together, but our desire to be family never ends. Yet, I have to say, I think I saved myself by moving out of my mother's household.