30 and living at home

[Jamougha]

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2 words, house prices (uk)

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Yah. Ireland now has the highest property prices in Europe, so you can imagine what it's like there. Young professionals are getting together with friends and buying a house jointly. Say 2 people get a loan from their parents for the deposit, buy a 3 bed home and let out the other room. It's their only on ramp to the property ladder.

Right now I live alone and I love it.

[Phil153]

I don't buy it. I just looked up property prices in central London - you can get a quality, furnished, 3 bedroom apartment in the heart of London for 1500 pounds/month. Split 3 ways, that's 150/week. UK average wage is 500 pounds/week, and higher in London. And you can get something far cheaper if you don't need an upscale apartment, or if you live in another part of the country.

There's so much to be said for standing on your own two feet and learning to live within your means, that I don't think property prices justify it at all.

[luckyjimm]

29 1/2 and I'm moving back home this weekend, for the third time in my adult life.

First time I was aged 24. My long-term and very cheap flatshare came to an end and I failed to find anywhere else to live or indeed a job. Also, I was pretty much an alcoholic. I ended up home nearly a year, not working most of that time. My parents live in a dull and not especially pretty village 50 miles outside London. I don't drive and there's nothing to do. I need a lift just to get to the train station, three miles away.

Second time I was 27. I'd quit/been fired from my part-time job, and I'd dropped out of my PhD, and I was a raging compulsive gambler. Again I was home a year. This was one of the worst periods of my life - my parents threatening to disown me, despairing of me, because of my gambling, but me still finding ways to gamble behind their backs, even if it was just spending all day railbirding and playing super-low stakes with whatever money I could get from selling CDs and books I'd bought in more prosperous times.

This time, I'm moving because a six-month temp job came to an end and I didn't find a replacement in time, though I have three interviews in the next few days. And the middle-aged couple I've been lodging with since February - the same people I lived with in 2003-5, and boy was it a mistake to go back - are selling the house so I have to leave. I've looked at a few flatshares but none have been what I'm looking for. And even if you do find the right flat at the right price in the right area at the right time, you have to be chosen above all the other people that look at it. Takes me a long time to find somewhere.

I'm hoping I can mask my gambling from my parents as I don't want any strain between us. Although I've got a laptop, I'm not going to ask them to hook me up to the wireless because I don't want to be playing all through the night, nipping downstairs for cigarette breaks, all the while aware my mother's next door unable to sleep because she knows what I'm doing. Believe me, this would be hell. I actually want my parent's home to give me a respite from my addictions, and be a poker-free place.

It sucks that, when I do find a job, I'll have to spend about 2 1/2 hours a day travelling in total, and it's a pain getting home if I want to go out in the evenings. But it just seems inevitable. In many ways it will be an improvement on where I've been living - at least I'll have the love and attention of my parents, and their dog, and I'll eat better food. I can go cycling in the woods, too, and there's a fairly decent swimming pool at the leisure centre not too far away. For a short while it'll be okay.

The hardest thing, though, is that if you still seem to be like a kid - unable to look after yourself, not able to hold down a job or a flat - your parents keep on treating you like that. It's very frustrating, realising the dynamic of your relationship with your parents is the same as it was when you were 14, because you really haven't moved on!

[luckyjimm]

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I don't buy it. I just looked up property prices in central London - you can get a quality, furnished, 3 bedroom apartment in the heart of London for 1500 pounds/month. Split 3 ways, that's 150/week. UK average wage is 500 pounds/week, and higher in London. And you can get something far cheaper if you don't need an upscale apartment, or if you live in another part of the country.

There's so much to be said for standing on your own two feet and learning to live within your means, that I don't think property prices justify it at all.

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Average salary for male workers in 2006 was £487, but that's before tax. Take-home pay on that would be £363 a week, or £1574 a month.

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=285

Sure, you can pay £500 a month in rent out of that. But you wouldn't be living in the HEART of London - more like zone 2/3.

One big difference between London and continental Europe is the lack of affordable one-bedroom flats. Abroad, the cost of a one-bed flat isn't that much more than a room in a shared flat. In London, you're looking at paying 50%-75% more, I think. So it's much more common for people not in relationships to continue flatsharing with friends or strangers well into their 30s.

[iggymcfly]

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I lived at home after finishing college for 3 months and found it absolutely unbearable. My parents are very kind and generous to me, I just felt completely worthless and unmotivated while mooching off them. I really need to trick myself into believing I'm on the brink of disaster to work hard.

It was easy and financially smart, but like the previous poster suggested it was soul crushing. Of course how it makes you feel is largely a product of you. So, if you are ok with living at home and most people thinking less of you for it then there isn't a downside.

I am spending 11k per year not live at home, and to live alone. That is over half my part-time income (i'm a student). If I wanted to live with others I could trim that number to 4k ish. It seems to me that people with a full time job ought to easily be able to afford to move out if they wanted to (and are willing to have room-mates), unless they are raising a kid/ paying very large debts/ etc.

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I have to agree with this. I've been home for 20 months since dropping out of college and everything you said is spot on except worse since I've been doing it longer.

It's way too easy to fall into the habit of not getting anything done if someone's there to buy the groceries and cook dinner for you, etc., etc. I feel like I have to get my [censored] together now and not let this drag into two full years.

Soul-crushing's a pretty apt description too. You really do feel like a lazy degenerate, especially if you don't have a "real" job. I'd write more, but every word makes me more and more depressed. Basically, I have to get my finances in order and then get out immediately because I can't take this much longer.

[luckyjimm]

Two of the most depressing things about living at home in your mid-late 20s:

* Arguing with your dad about politics

* Being caught watching at porno on the family computer / TV

[Blarg]

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I still think there are excellent reasons to not live at home past 18 (or at least 21-22), and those that do are rightly looked down on by those who stand on their own two feet.

You're not really an independent person while someone who's legally required to love you is providing your food and shelter. Not to mention the bizarre dynamics of being an adult in a family home.

I can't imagine becoming an adult without going through the struggles of having to earn enough money (under the spectre of living on the street), having to manage ALL of your own affairs (with the consequences being that they don't get done) and finding your own way in life without the daily backdrop of a familiar home, people that have to care for you, someone to make your meals, and high school friends. How can you ever build character or know your capabilities if your life is totally safe?

As for the cost of rent, it's not that terrible. I always shared rent with a couple of people, and you can easily have a nice pad for a reasonable price. $1500/month split four ways gets a great place with plenty left over for spending and saving.

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I think it's a tremendously productive growing experience too, but am also happy with the idea common among Asians, that school is important, and so for at least your college years, you should be concentrating on that, not working at McDonalds for peanuts or whatever while trying to compete with people who don't have the burden of jobs. The difference in time and energy for your studies you have when not working is tremendous and more than enough to push a B student to an A student. That can matter a very great deal to the rest of one's life.

Then again, if your kid just screws off instead of capitalizing on the enormous advantage of living at home, it's different.

[Blarg]

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I still think there are excellent reasons to not live at home past 18 (or at least 21-22), and those that do are rightly looked down on by those who stand on their own two feet.

You're not really an independent person while someone who's legally required to love you is providing your food and shelter. Not to mention the bizarre dynamics of being an adult in a family home.

I can't imagine becoming an adult without going through the struggles of having to earn enough money (under the spectre of living on the street), having to manage ALL of your own affairs (with the consequences being that they don't get done) and finding your own way in life without the daily backdrop of a familiar home, people that have to care for you, someone to make your meals, and high school friends. How can you ever build character or know your capabilities if your life is totally safe?

As for the cost of rent, it's not that terrible. I always shared rent with a couple of people, and you can easily have a nice pad for a reasonable price. $1500/month split four ways gets a great place with plenty left over for spending and saving.

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This is too housing-market dependent. In some places, those are the prices you would see 25 years ago.

[Fishwhenican]

OK, here is a view from the other side.

I cannot WAIT for my kids to get older and get out of MY House. Don't get me wrong. I love my kids with all my heart but after they are adults they need to be able to be on their own. I see my biggest mission in life right now is to make sure my kids have the skills they need to be able to survive on their own, to stand on their own two feet, when they become adults. They only caveat to that is if they are in College and need to live at home, that is fine. Of course now that I am in a remote location that is unlikely other than summer breaks.

I just honestly do not understand parents who are willing to let grown children stay in their house indefinitely. I mean come on, grow up, get a job and support yourself!

[Blarg]

I do. It works very well for billions of Asians. I'd say much better than the typically more individualistic, and I think a bit naive, common European/American way of shoving kids out the door as soon as possible. That in itself isn't common for new immigrants or among more traditional people, either, so it's far from universal even here.

The bargain many societies make with their kids is that they support the kids through college, no matter how tough it is, because nothing is too much trouble to get the kids you brought into the world going strong on their own two feet. The payback is not just that you do your duty -- which should really be a labor of love anyway -- and be good parents, but that your children take care of you when you are older, recognizing the very real sacrifices you may have had to make for them, and respecting you and your efforts in general. There are not a lot of Asians in nursing homes. Their families take care of them.

Compare to America -- when you're old, mostly you go off to a home not your own. (If you can even afford that.) Unless you're lucky and the timing is right, you die in an alien environment surrounded by people you don't know, some of whom are asked to do a lot for you for low or minimum wage and are probably less than thrilled about it, and you. There's no love. There aren't a lot of youth around to inspire you and give you energy, and motivate you to get out of bed. And not just that, you are very likely to grow old alone too, as the family doesn't really see itself as bound particularly tightly together throughout the generations, each fate involved with the next. "You're on your own, kids, and get outta here" comes around to bite you in the ass when it's the kids saying the same thing to you when you're old. If you weren't willing to change your life and bust your ass for them, why should they do it for you? They wind up learning from the best at selishness -- you! And so you reap your harvest.