Moving in with Your Parents Could Be the Most Financially Responsible Decision You Ever Makefeatured
A quarter of adults between the ages 20 - 34 are still living at home with their parents.
Whether it’s down to youth unemployment, low wages, or high rental costs, many young people have little choice in the matter. For these people, living with mum and dad is the only option.
But then there’s boomerangs like me. We have jobs and the cost of rent doesn’t exceed the amount of money we make each month, but although renting isn’t completely out of our reach, property ownership is. We could afford to live away from home if we wanted to, but we don’t want to be at the mercy of landlords for the rest of our lives. We’re thinking ahead. We don’t want to live payslip to payslip. We’d like to have a place we can truly call our own but paying rent each month leaves little left over for saving for the future. When the time comes to put money into a workplace pension scheme, things will get even tougher. And don’t get us started on saving for life’s other milestones such as a wedding or children. So if our parents can afford to let us move in for a while, moving home is quite simply the most responsible option. It’s a no-brainer.
We shouldn’t have to move in with our parents to save money for a house but when you look at the state of the UK property market it’s easy to see why so many people do it. In fact, in some parts of the country it takes aspiring first-time buyers more than a decade to save for a deposit while paying rent. Sod that!
Although the media might accuse us of ‘living the life of Riley’ and sponging off our parents while they ‘drive themselves into debt’, obviously, for most twenty-somethings, it’s far from an ideal situation. I mean, who wants to abide my mum and dad’s rules when you could be living alone, with friends, or with a partner?
Don’t get me wrong, independence feels amazing. I remember how great I felt when I got my first full time job two years ago and started renting a place with my friends. But I soon realised that unless I started saving money, I could be looking at a financially unstable future.
If moving in with your parents for a while will help you save for life’s great milestones, then do it. There’s no point in independence for the sake of it. Sometimes you need to swallow your pride and accept help.
