Do you still live at home? Are you on the fence about moving out and moving on with your life? I’m here to give you a nice reality check. I’m here to tell you that you need to grow up and leave home. Give your parents a break.
Before you start whining or close this window, I know that there are many arguments for why you should stay at home as long as possible.
- Yes, you can save lots of money.
- Yes, you can eat at home most of the time.
- Yes, you can help your family out.
- Yes, you can be a good little son or daughter that stays at home until they get married.
There are so many benefits to staying at home after college and I’m still here telling you to leave. Why? Why should you grow up and leave home ASAP?
Before I answer this question, I wanted to look a few objections to moving out.
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Objection #1: Why would I rent? Isn’t renting throwing money away? Not at all. You’re paying for a roof over your head. If you think that renting is throwing money away then how do you justify property taxes or maintenance fees? How do you plan on living in the future if a roof over your head is a waste of money? Okay, I won’t exaggerate too much here, but renting is definitely not throwing money away.
Objection #2: What if I really like it at home? Visit! If you really miss your family, you can visit them. I visit my family most weekends. I catch up with my parents and go to the gym with my youngest brother. You’re not gone forever when you move out. In fact, your family might actually look forward to seeing you since you’re not always lounging around or waking up hungover at 2pm on a Saturday.
Once you look at these objections, the next thing on your mind will be paying to move out. Moving out is an added expense whether you do it yourself, or get movers. You go from spending zero dollars on living expenses to now having all sorts of bills. Are you screwed at this point?
There are two ways to look at moving out and your new-found expenses:
- I can’t afford rent. Why would I move out?
- Damn. I now have to spend money on rent. This means that I need to hustle to increase my income. I now have a reason to start a business or work harder.
As you may have guessed, I believe in option #2. I don’t feel sorry for myself and I don’t want to be restricted ever. I want to be able to travel. I want to have cool things. I want to eat at fancy restaurants. To do all of this, I realize that I need to work and sacrifice on certain things. This is how I see moving out. You now have a reason to make more money and watch your spending because you don’t want to starve.
Now it’s time to answer the important question…
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Why should you leave home? Why is living with parents after college not a good idea?
Your love life, loser!
Are you confused as to why you’re single? It’s usually not that tough to figure out. It’s because you live at home, you can’t bring people over, and you find yourself watching random movies on a weekday evening. You’re totally bored and limited with what you can do. You don’t even want to shower at night because your parents might yell at you for making noise.
It could be even worse. What if you’re dating? Living at home sucks. Do you think your girlfriend wants to see your parents in the morning (if she’s even allowed to sleep over)?
If you care about your love life at all in your 20s, you need to get out and live on your own.
Give your parents a break.
Your parents have worked hard for so long. Why stick around and cause them any more stress?
I’m always shocked when any of my friends in their late-20s that live at home talk about inviting friends over for drinks. Do you really think that your mom wants to clean up after her 29-year-old son? Not a chance. Leave your parents alone. Let them relax on a Saturday night.
There’s more to life than waiting for the weekends.
When you live at home the routine is fairly simple. You just try to get by with your week, counting down the minutes to the weekend. You eat the same food and do anything possible to kill time.
I say that there’s more to life than waiting for the weekends. Your 20s should be fun. You should work hard and enjoy yourself as much as possible.
There are nights where I have friends over and we end up playing Wii/chatting until 4am. There are other nights where I’m up all hours blasting music and thinking of blog ideas. Then there are nights that I can’t speak of in a public forum.
There’s more to life than being bored.
Are you ready to move out? Before you leave any excuses, please remember that if your situation is unique, you’re the anomaly.
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While you’re at it, just think of the other people you’ll impact if you move out.
It’s a crowded rental market out there currently, and rents are soaring in many areas. When you join that crowd, you’re only going to make things worse for everyone already in that market.
So there are a lot of people hoping you’ll stay put and not exacerbate the financial woes of millions of financially stressed renters. As things are, it’s going to be a very long time before renters see any light at the end of the tunnel, but in the meantime we really don’t need the rental market to get worse than it is now.
That’s one way to look at it. I never thought of that perspective to be honest.
As a landlord, I’m unfortunately rooting for higher rents. It helps build wealth quicker and provides a better safety net for my family.
The good thing is, many of us have the opportunity to become homeowners or stay as renters if we want to.
Good point Sam. For my condo, I was able to increase my rent that I charge this year. My friends that own property were also able to do the same, without any upgrades. One of my older friends is always upgrading his units to increase rent. But I have zero handyman skills.
As much as I want to live on my own, it’s not the best choice. I want freedom so bad but I also want to save a ton of money that can go towards a down payment on a house rather than rent. My situation is great right now. My parents don’t want me to contribute to their monthly bills. They also want me to save as much money as I can. Yes my social life and freedom suffers but I rather save money. I can have fun in a couple years.
Jordan, are you a guy or a gal?
I’ve delved about the topic on how females find it easier to live at home with their parents than men, given society’s pressure for me to provide for a family.
Thoughts?
I’m a girl. I agree that girls do find it easier to live at home. I think guy’s want to be independent and do their own thing without their parent’s monitoring everything they do.
this kind of mentality i why most neve get ride of there mortgage I live at home and planning to do so until I am around 27 and can buy a house with cash wasting your money on rent makes no sense because it is almost impossible to save up a down payment let alone buy a house fully once you get on the treadmill of paying rent building up any amount of equity is almost impossible especially if you are a Spender in other areas that is why the majority of middle-class Western society is a slave to a mortgage and as far as I’m concerned if you have debt you have no wealth you have negative wealth which is not a position I intend to be in until I am in my late 50s or longer on top of that most of you idiots didn’t get vasectomies and we’ll end up having kids either because you’re too stupid to know it’s a bad financial decision or because you’re too stupid to put on a condom when you’re drunk and then you better hope you make an obscene amount of money and even then your odds of ever getting out of debt are slim if like 50% of the population you divorce the lovely woman you met because of living alone then your finances go straight to hell and unless you’re an extremely successful businessman possibly a surgeon your life is basically over go pack your yourself on the back for growing up and moving out you will probably be paying for it for the next 30 years
I have to completely disagree with you on that. For saving up to get ahead, moving home after college is a great option. Id rather be a home owner after college because I am planning on most likely staying near family and friends when I move out. Im fine with it. I also don’t give a fuck about a relationship. If one comes up, good I’ll move out before then, otherwise I’m staying put. There’s no incentive for me to have kids either being gay and all.
Nobody’s stopping you from living at home after college! It makes sense to save up. I just don’t want people living at home in their 30s as the world passes them by. Don’t act like you’re never going to fall in love either. It happens to the best of us.