When I got married at 15
- Had a huge fight with my parents, wrote them a nasty (really nasty) note, took off with the boyfriend, borrowed some money from a family friend and moved into a rat infested motel in Palos Hills.
Things went downhill fast from there. If I could have done it all over…
Lets see. I went away to college when I was 19. But my official home was with my parents. I dropped out of college and joined the army at 21. I was away for 4 years but my home of record was at my mother’s house (dad was dead by then). I got out of the fulltime army and went back to school and stayed in my mother’s house. I stayed there after I graduated and started my entry level job. At about 27-28 I was spending most of my time at my future wife’s apartment but most of my stuff was at my mother’s. We were officially married when I was 31. So I was out from 19-25, back from 25-28, mostly out from 28-31 and completely out after 31. I still have a bunch of crap in Mom’s basement.
When I turned 20, my mom decided to move from where we were in LA down to El Segundo, which was much closer to her job. I was working about a block from home at the time, so there was really never a question that I wouldn’t be going with her.
But just in case it wasn’t clear, she told me flat out that I wouldn’t be going with her. 
The draft. I graduated hs in '67 and had no money at that point for college.
So, off I went.
Currently 21 and about to graduate from college (where I have been living on my own for the last four years and been home only for breaks)… the plan has been to live at home and work for a year (so financially independent but living at home to save up), and then start law school in fall 2007, at which point I doubt I’d ever live at home again. My new-ish relationship increases the possibility that I’ll live somewhere else next year as well, though. So either 21 or 22 for “leaving the nest”.
Planning to find my own nest when I get my undergrad diploma–where depends on where I want to head for graduate school (or if I’ll take a year off to work, or…) I’ll be 21-22 at that point.
I launched as soon as I could. I went away to college, about 100 miles from my mom’s house, but was nowhere near independent (and still came home for summers and breaks and stuff). I graduated in summer 1993, and less than a year later I couldn’t take living with my mom and brother anymore and I moved into a large SFH with 4 other people. I was 22, and completely responsible for myself. That only lasted 6 months, though, because I realized that I’m not really the roommate type, and in fall 1994 (shortly after turning 23) I moved into my own apartment.
I left for 4 years while I was in the Navy and then I came back for 2 years while saving up a lot of money for college. My Fiancé and I got an apartment together when I was 24. I have actually never lived alone in my life.
I lived at home until 18.
In the Navy I shared a Coop with 120 other electricians and IC* men.
I had an apartment with 3 friends for a while towards the end of my enlistment.
Back home with my parents.
Into the Apartment with my Fiancé.
Two Houses later, I know share with my wife, 2 kids, 2 cats and a hermit crab.
Jim
IC = Internal Communications (Phone Guys)
When I got pregnant at 15.
I went away to college at 17, lived in the dorms for one year, then lived alone until I was 25.
Graduated high school at 17, moved to Austin to go to college, never came back except to visit. Got married at 19, which I see now with 20-20 hindsight was not the best possible thing for me to have done.
I ultimately moved out almost two months after my 19th birthday, when my brother tried to put me to work in his computer store. Didn’t work out, though–his partner started coming in every day and didn’t leave me anything to do.
Actually, not an easy question to answer. At 20, I was going to school and living with my dad, mum and two of my older sisters in a four bedroom house. My dad left and I quit school to get full time work and pay my 1/4 share of the expenses. So, technically, I paid my own way from that time forward. The first time I didn’t live with somebody related to me was when I was 26 though.
Peace - DESK
I informed my parents that I wouldn’t be attending my senior year of high school. All my friends graduated the year before I did and I hated school so I just wasn’t going to go. Luckily, my parents agreed to send me to Germany on a foreign exchange for the year. Then I lived with my mom very briefly before starting university, lived in the dorm a year and then spent the summer after my freshman year with my mom. That summer was all it took to convince me to never move back. So you could say I left home when I was 17, or you could say 19. Financially speaking, my parents paid for university in terms of tuition, books and rent. So financially I left when I was 23.
I split the January after I graduated from college (I was 21, a couple months shy of 22). After working in Camden a few months, I got a job in Philadelphia in September, rented a room in a shared house in December, and shifted base.
As for why…long before I graduated I’d decided I’d had more than enough of my mother’s foul temper and the fights with my older brother. My friends had been urging me to move for some time.
My brother, on the other hand, lived with Mom until he was 34, and then she moved out on him (into an apartment complex for the elderly).
When I was 17 (late 2001), I moved from Adelaide to Sydney. I wasn’t going to Uni or for any other particular reason. I was just sick of my mother and made the decision to move out one day. She drove me over to Sydney, where I moved in with a friend and no job, and I stayed there until January 2004. I moved back to Adelaide and in with mum for about seven months because I was out of work, then moved out again to live with hubby a few suburbs away after I’d gotten a job again.
I’ve never had a better relationship with my mother than since I left home.
I’m 27 and three months, and still living with my mum - my salary is so-so and I live in London :eek: . I’ll be moving out in a couple of weeks though, as I can’t stand it anymore! I did live in college for the five years that I was there, only moved back when I graduated. Unlike my younger sis who left home at 18 and has bounced back and forth three times, once I go, I’m staying out.
(And FWIW I was financially ‘lightweight’ at uni and have been totally independent and rent-paying since I graduated. I can take care of money, I just can’t feed myself!)
I half-left and half-was-kicked-out at 15, and never looked back. I am now on good terms with my mother again, but it took years.
I moved out at 15, and never went back.
Single mom with some undiagnosed mental problems was my primary motivation.