Almost everyone has given you excellent advice. My contribution and opinion would be redundant. I do hope that if someday your parents need to move in with you in their old age, that you will grant them the same option - if that’s what they want. Life can be a "circle…
Middle-class? That would be a disappointment if that were reality as savers usually end up with much more. No one in my family ever attended university, but they were always thrifty and they would laugh if I ever had to get a mortgage. Is being fiscally enslaved to your job really your idea of independence? Your myopia seems prevalent among the general population as well. As Einstein once apocryphally said: “Compound interest is the most powerful force in the universe.” Money creates much more money. Meanwhile, your income won’t likely ever become scalable. How did society become so screwed up that not saving was perceived to be virtuous? How is ending up without enough money in retirement and then enslaving the current generation anything to be proud of? $100k is absolutely critical by age 25 for the future. Even with a conservative 7% real return, you’d have at least $1.7M for your retirement - all tax free as you can max out your TFSAs. No wonder Asia is kicking our asses, multigenerational living there isn’t as derided. Their 10% rate of savings and high investment rate will one day make them owners of half the US.
I bet you are a blast at parties.
Give girls that speech when they ask why you’re living at home. You’ll have more action than you know what to do with.
I’m 36 and I have always lived in places with high costs of living. With certain caveats, an adult living with his parents has never been a big deal to me, much less a dealbreaker. My fiance lived with his parents when we started dating. As it was in his case, sometimes it’s the most practical arrangement.
But you have freakin’ $50,000 in savings. Pretty much no one starts out with that kind of advantage. Take this opportunity and get out on your own. Learn to manage your money and start an independent, grown-up relationship with your parents.
I understand you want a house. Do yourself a favor and put it off for a few years, and set your sights on a less-expensive house for your first house. You have little experience with life in general and being independent, which makes committing to a $700k debt a terrible idea. For perspective, I have friends who are 10 years older than you and have household income over six figures and have been saving for years for a down payment and even they aren’t eyeballing $700k homes, though there are plenty of those around and they surely do want a nice home. It’s just not a responsible decision.
BTW, you CAN save money earning $40k and paying $15k in rent per year. Those numbers are pretty much exactly my situation. In addition to rent and food and all that, I paid off $10k in credit card debt and have saved nearly $15k over the last two years.
Yep.
Get used to it. All but a small number of insanely wealthy people have to work for a living, and the odds are overwhelming that you are going to be one of them. That’s as true in Asia as it is here.
And why such a focus on buying a house? Until you’re very, VERY sure your career is stable, a house is more of a liability than an asset. Save money definitely, but you can diversify your savings portfolio in other ways besides owning real estate. Don’t be so quick to knock the flexibility that apartment rental offers!
As for living with your parents - that’s between you and them. Note, though, that parents have a tendency to treat their adult children living at home as minors, which can be very grating after a while. Don’t be surprised to discover after a year or so that you’re desperate to move out, even if it comes at the cost of a declining standard of living.
Don’t listen to these other people. They’re just jealous that you have 50k saved up. They had to go out and get jobs and live with roommates in non-mansion type apartments and scrape by for a few years. That can make people bitter.
You should always strive to be virtuous. All people should. I suggest you move back in with your parents. Don’t pay them rent or help out financially in any way. This will help to maximize your savings. When they die you will have a house and shit tons of money saved up.
Ask your parents, if they are ok with it then go for it. I wouldn’t listen to the bitchfest thrown at you, you have to make your own decisions based on what helps you out financially or personally.
Is it embarrassing, yes. I did it with my first job out of college and when I was between jobs. But it let me get out of debt. Plus I got along well with family so I enjoyed the company (in retrospect I miss it since I moved).
With the economy the way it is people shacking up is going to have to become more normal. Plus US & Canadian culture are not universal in this regard, in some european and asian countries adult kids living with parents is the expected route.
George: Hey, maybe this will become like, a cool thing. Living with your parents.
Jerry: Yeah, then maybe baldness will catch on. Things will all be turning your way.
If I may, I’d like to present an opposing view from a parental perspective.
I have 2 kids. 22 year old daughter and 24 year old son. Both live at home with me, both are in relationships and neither pay a cent to live with me.
My daughter works, is doing a degree online and paying off a car loan while trying to save money. She’s frugal, doesn’t blow her money, but buys stuff for the house without being asked.
My son is unemployed and looking. I’ve been giving him shit for months about getting off his arse and getting a job but his GF is a dead set anchor.
Neither off them have any problems bringing their SO over to stay and neither do I.
I charge them nothing because I want to help them get on their feet as much as I can. All I ask is that they clean up after themselves and do their own laundry.
It seems to me that the notion of kids turning 18 and promptly leaving their parents is a very recent social phenomenon made possible by a unique set of economic conditions among middle-class Westerners in the mid-20th century. A set of conditions which is perhaps now evaporating. So no, it’s definitely nothing to be ashamed of.
Another factor you may wish to consider is that not everyone you encounter will be part of some monolithic middle-class Western culture many people on the Dope seem to feel is the only true way to live. Canada has plenty of cultural diversity. In some of those cultures living with your parents after college is not only the accepted standard, it is the right and responsible thing to do. That is not to say you shouldn’t contribute to household economy however. Sit down with your parents, come to a sum that each of you feel would be a fair contribution for room and board and adhere to that agreement, and things could work out very well for you. Will your living arrangement be seen as a turn-off to women? Well it depends on the type of women you want to attract.
Exactly. Think about buying a house when you have a job, OP! And only when you have a job that is secure for the next 7 to 10 years. Buying a house for the sake of having a house is just stupid. Especially one that costs $700K.
As an andedote I know a woman (early thirties, good looking) who has had a professional job making well over $100,000/year for the past 8 years or so in an inexpensive smaller city. She has lived with her parents about 95% of this time - until recently. She used the money saved to buy an awesome 5 acre piece of land and then had an equally awesome custom built 5000 sq ft home put there.
She has not dated anyone during this time. Personally I love the home but I do not envy the loneliness I would feel if I was her.
not reading ahead because I’m the boss of me
I think that once you’re in control of your in finances and COULD get your own small apartment or whatever, it doesn’t matter. Living with our parents for a little while in order to save up money for a specific purpose is smart.
I think this question summarizes the whole issue. The answer is that the resounding majority of adults realized by the time we were 18-20 that being financially enslaved to our jobs beats the hell out of living with our parents.
Hmm… you are treading on dangerous ground here. I am a 40 year old (well, 42) who has less money in the bank* now then when I was 25. But I also am a single father of three who made it through divorce and bankruptcy without resorting to moving back in with my parents (they offered, and I would have if I had to, but personal pride was more important than temporary comfort). When I first moved out at 18 I didn’t expect to have the same standard of living that my parents had at the time I moved out… that was theirs earned after 20 years of hard work. I started small with an apartment with 2 roomates, moved onto an efficiency apartment on my own, then gradually nicer apartments (as my income increased) until I met my wife and we bought a house together. I was able to do this by understanding that what most people manage to do, I surely could do also. Most people do not live with their parents after college (except perhaps briefly while job hunting).
So, who’s more pathetic… the 40 year old who supports himself and 3 kids through hard work, discipline and sacrifice— or the twentysomething who’s too afraid to face the world even though by all accounts is better prepared than most to do so? If you ask 100 people, I doubt you’d find more than 2 that agree with you.
*I don’t know if you count this as “money in the bank”, but I do have retirement savings and by all accounts am on track to a comfortable if not extravagant retirement. But didn’t start that until age 25 in any case.
The only thing you need to not be enslaved to your job is to be satisfied. You’re the one who seems enslaved to the notion that without a lavish house in the “right” neighborhood and lifestyle “well above middle class” you’re a wreck of a human being. That’s your slavemaster and don’t act like it isn’t one. Several people have tried to explain reasons why an expensive home that ties you down isn’t always a good plan for a person just starting in their career. these have nothing to do with spending the money frivolously, they have to do with be able to move on short notice which is very often a benefit to your career trajectory.
Unless your reason for obtaining money is to swim around in it like Scrooge McDuck, the main reason money is nifty because it buys you goods and services. If all you do is watch it grow while muttering “my precious”, and never use it to expand your own experiences or enjoyment of life, what the hell is it for?
And unlike your own black and white opinions on the matter, it’s actually more than possible to save money responsibly for retirement AND spend it on some things that enhance your life. All things in moderation, including moderation.
P.S. If your income is not enough to meet your expenses, you might have to get a SECOND job (:eek:). I honestly don’t think I know anyone who didn’t have to hold down two jobs for a least a short time in their youth when they were starting out.
To just about anyone you meet…
Has job (or jobs!), has money in the bank, supporting himself = responsible and respectable
Has job and money but still freeloads off of Mom and Dad = irresponsible and contemptible.
And it is freeloading even if you pay something… anything less than what you could afford on your own is being subsidized by them in one way or another.
Here in Peru, if you’re working and contributing to your upkeep (paid for the maid, light, water, things like that) and take care of, at least, your own food, no embarassment.