Young people are refusing to move out
Filed under: Property, House and Home, Families, Budgeting & Planning
Moving out from home is a vital part of growing up. We flee the nest, find our financial feet, and make our own way in life. Of course, if we do it at a tender age, we're not going to move into a swanky new pad. The chances are we have to give up our comfortable home and parental TLC in favour of cheap, grim, shared accommodation. The sharing of a house with six people and only one shower is an important rite of passage.So what's going on, and why is it such a disaster?
New figures show one in five adults aged 18-34 are still living with their parents, because they can't afford to move out. Apparently it's the huge cost of buying their own property that's putting them off, coupled with high living costs. They can't afford their dream property, so they are simply staying put in their family home.
But this is just patent nonsense. Unless they are Paris Hilton, nobody can afford to buy a home when they move out. That's what the whole shared accommodation thing is all about.
You move into a nasty place, learn to live on your salary, turn the heating off when you run out of money, and work hard at putting a bit of cash aside for your own place. You have the incentive to learn how to budget, and to be a bit tough on yourself, because you're so desperate for a decent place - whether you're renting or buying.
If you are sitting snug at home what's your incentive to do any of these things?
You just continue to leech off your parents, driving them into a financially perilous retirement, and spending your salary on rubbish and trinkets. You don't learn how to budget, and you have no real reason to save enough to move out.
Parents may think they are doing the right thing by letting their kids stay at home, but in the long run it's not doing anyone any good. They need to get on with growing up financially, and you deserve some time off for good behaviour.
Of course there's an exception to every rule. There are kids who need to come home again, if they have run into serious debt or financial difficulty and are simply getting deeper into trouble by living away. That way the family home can be a bolthole while they rebuild their finances and their lives.
But a bolthole for a few years is not the same as a comfortable bed for a couple of decades.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
2-02-2010 @ 12:49PM
Jim Jones said...
It's the first of the safety generation finally having to confront growing up. They lived in an age of wearing padding when riding bikes or not toy recalls all in the name of safety. Their parents played it safe with them and now they are expected to do anything but that.. These kids have been given the world at home, why go anywhere else?
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2-02-2010 @ 3:51PM
Jen said...
Why move out when living at home can be so fun! jk jk
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2-17-2010 @ 5:21AM
Judith Oliver said...
But where does the money come from? It can only be taken from savings which were intended to support us parents in our retirement. Will those children still living at home be prepared for us to move in with them when our homes are repossessed?
2-16-2010 @ 7:09PM
Mitch said...
I completely disagree with this statement. I understand the means of teaching our children responsibility over their finances, but forcing them to live in crummy homes just to teach them that lesson is bad parenting in my opinion. It seems like the parents are just giving up teaching that lesson altogether, and are throwing their children out to solve the problem. I think people need to consider that some youths can't afford accomodation, period. And a dirty, run-down flat is NOT accomodation. Hopefully others won't take such drastic measures until neccessary.
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2-16-2010 @ 8:28PM
nan said...
It's not a simple as that in many cases.
My son lost everything when he and his ex split up. She left him in thousands of pounds of debt and the csa crucified him. He lost his car because it broke down and he couldn't afford to fix it, which meant he lost his job. He had to fight in court for two years to see his sons as she disappeared with them, changing their names online without his permission. The family courts were so biased towards her they refused to listen to his side.
Now we have them staying alternate weekends after many months of hard work letting them see we weren't the 'bad' guys. (She told them we were dead and he beat them up - it is actually the other way round but no-one listens).
Now he can't get work because the immigrants are favoured first. The jsa is not enough for him to live on so we share the costs, albeit I have to pay the most out of my pension.
He would love his own place and so would I, but there is no way either of us can do it, short of a lottery win.
My advice to anyone reading the initial comments is, don't judge without knowing the facts of each case!!!
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2-17-2010 @ 8:43AM
stef said...
I understand your bitterness towards family "law" well. The CSA is a despicable organisation, fuelled by a government looking for excuses not to pay out money but to seize it from someone else. Guided by the twin evils of feminism and political correctness, it delights in victimising men to the point of driving men into poverty. Unfortunately the courts are also puppets to such a mentality, thus your experience, as with many others, that a man is guilty until proven innocent, purely on the say so of the mother - and if he is proven innocent, well he can be bled dry anyway. Fathers 4 Justice - please come back - we need you!!!
2-16-2010 @ 8:35PM
Sam said...
Let's not forget most Uni leavers (21+) are coming out with a degree and over £20,000 worth of debt. Most want to work a little and start paying it off before they push themselves further into the red. It's unfair to compare those adults and those of previous generations where university fees were minimal in comparison.
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2-17-2010 @ 9:56AM
Tom said...
Let us also not forget that a large amount of people who go to University, do so to avoid getting a real job, borrow money to enjoy a good social life then bleat about their Student Loan being such a weight around their neck. On top of that most of them come out to no jobs because, incredibly as it may seem, there are not that many jobs that require a degree in Sports Science or Media for example. The real world is tough and and good parent can see when their child is struggling and needs assistance and also when they need shoe-horning out to make something of themselves. Keep it reall , everyone!
2-16-2010 @ 8:39PM
nan said...
PS,
I always believed that's what families are all about, supporting each other and communities are supposed to be about helping out your neighbours too.
Such articles actually reveal what the media tries to push on everyone. Why? So they can sell?
If more families supported each other and communities helped neighbours out maybe the drugs and crime problems would not be so high? Maybe the police would not be so stretched.
The big problem is NOT teaching that families are there to support.
Kill that support system and the communities and we have what we see around us today.
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2-17-2010 @ 8:43AM
stef said...
Unfortunately, the problem with "communities" and "neighbourhoods" is that it implies a sense of common identity between groups and peoples. If someone is excluded from that for whatever reason (ethnic group, language, culture or whatever) then the haridans of the equality movement are out to destroy you for "prejudice" or "not respecting" or some other PC bullshit. If you act to defend others around you then the law will descend on you for transgressing that law. The result is that people cannot be seen to act communally for fear of being accussed of "excluding" someone who is not accepted in that community; similarly nobody will help each other because it is safer not to see or hear others. Ah, the joy of a PC world in which only individuals exist and every individual must be respected - collective thinking definitely not allowed!
If interested, read up on the theory of "anomie." I think it was postulated by Durkheim (or possibly Weber) in the 19th century. It predicts what we are seeing today.
2-16-2010 @ 9:25PM
scaranda said...
What goes around, comes around. I now have my 85 yr old mother on the point of coming to stay with me (and I sincerely hope to be 'lumbered' for many years to come). My neighbour still has her 27 year old son at home, and she seems quite happy about that. Oh, I forgot, it's just the whingers who're newsworthy and important, isn't it?
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2-17-2010 @ 2:25AM
Anne said...
I charge my daughter a horrendous commercial rent to reflect the quality and cost of what I am giving her and save it up for her - that way we keep the money in the family rather than giving it to some already wealthy landlord. And she learns budgetting. And she is warm and comfy. And the money she gives me is ready to give it to her pension fund or to buy a property at some point. Less what I deduct to cover the real additional cost to me of her being here. Especially hot water.
Makes sense to me.
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2-17-2010 @ 1:41PM
Mary Cook said...
Families are there to support, but the role of parents is to teach independence and self sufficency to their off spring. They are not there to featherbed them and create a dependency culture.
Life is hard and if parents overprotect, how wiil kids grow up into responsible adults? Perhaps the high divorce rate demonstrates that a lot of people will not stick at anything and tend to put their own needs first.
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2-17-2010 @ 4:28AM
jan said...
I strongly believe that if you have children and they don't earn enough to move out then there is nothing wrong with them living with you. Yes let them pay their way, but we brought them into this world and what are families for if not to be there for each other. Later on down the line when maybe they meet some who they want to share their lives with, then yes, let them save some money so that they can rent or buy something together. Live is hard enough as it is, and we have lost community values, lets not lose our families too.
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2-17-2010 @ 4:32AM
sheena said...
Who wrote this??!! Is it any suprise that parenting skills and social behanviour amongst young people are now at an all time low? Sons and daughters can live at home without aggravation to anyone else living under the same roof. They can go to work every day, have balanced social lives and, believe it or not, still save and spend wisely. Our grown up children help to run the house and understand responsibility - for this I don't mind cooking a meal for them!
This article pleads a level of ignorance. The family unit provides essential security for young people and older generations too - enjoy the concept instead of ripping it to shreds!
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2-17-2010 @ 4:42AM
Lois said...
Why is a flat assumed to be 'dirty and run-down' ? OK it might not be straight out of Ideal Home magazine, but the amount of dirt in one's home is surely under one's own control. Cleaning materials aren't THAT expensive.
I left home at 18 and had my own place, which was only a 1 bedroomed flat but somehow I managed to keep it clean and tidy and all by myself! But then I valued freedom and independence more highly than feather beds and roast dinners.
Yes things are bad at the moment. Getting a foot on the property ladder has never been so hard, and we all want to help our families. But there's a difference between supporting someone through a lean time, and taking away their ability to ever support themselves at all.
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2-17-2010 @ 4:47AM
Trevor said...
If you love your children you will teach them to face the big outside world not pamper them, remember unless you can be sure you will outlive them, you send them into destuction.
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2-17-2010 @ 5:00AM
denzilfair said...
Whether the support is needed at home or away, if you love your kids your gonna do it...a room with a bed or a bit of cash to help finance their own home doesn't matter either way. A lot of Euro countries have children living at home until such time as they take over the family pile...it's only because we are manipulated into believing that we must all have our own property...more taxes for the government...that we don't have extended family living.
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2-17-2010 @ 5:40AM
LB said...
This is a hard one ! Yes it is right to give them a kick up the backside to jump out of the cosy nest but equally as a parent it is your job to support them to . Three of my four kids have left two at an early age the third needing a little nudge,but all the while we as parents have hovered round in the background disguising help. Oh the extra shopping that was buy one get one free (didnt need the second one) or "Ive been having a sort out, do you think you could make use of those.......?" . The the odd sunday dinner disguised as a family get together often meant that I knew thay had had at least one decent meal that week. Its tough growing up financially but we all have to do it.
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2-17-2010 @ 7:31AM
John said...
You say "nobody can afford to buy a home when they move out."
That's the crux of the matter, and the failing of this country; the inability to provide affordable accomodation.
Is it the future which awaits my children; a lifetime of debt, just so they can pay the inflated price of a pile of bricks.
And why not look at the bottom of the social pyramide, comparisons with a clever Hilton heiress, are misleading. We have reached the point where the concept of home ownership has drifted out of reach of more and more people.
Please allow kids to grow up the way which suits there individual needs, we've spent twenty years telling them what to do, let them chill out for a few years.
Please don't spend your time foisting your opinions onto others, it would be better if we all spent more effort spreading real values, and not just monetary values.
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