Moving back in with your parents as an adult. 

Moving back in with your parents as an adult can seem like a huge step backwards, you may feel like you’re losing your independence and you may experience ridicule or teasing from friends or other family members. Luckily the latter hasn’t happened for me but I think I would miss living in my own place.
In reality, moving back home maybe the last thing you thought you’d do, but you’re doing it because you’re working towards a goal and have a family willing to offer you some support. 

For us, it’s the right decision and will help us achieve our goals. Saving for a deposit on a house and to create an emergency fund in the future.

At the moment we are spending half of our joint monthly income on rent, food and bills – this does not include any separate bills such as vehicle costs, mobile phones etc – and were expecting our rent alone to increase by (at least) 20% before the start of the next financial year (the beginning of April). The property market where we live has sky rocketed recently!

As it turns out we were informed in writing this week that the rent will not be increasing, this year, but it’s more than likely happening in 2018 instead. Having said that our utility bills are going up instead (!), but we can shop around for those.

We’ve spoken at length with my parents and plan to move in if the rent goes up or regardless this time next year. We don’t want to have another spent wondering where we’ll be living in a year and have the worry of another deposit or finding storage. It’s been a stressful few months!

Obviously we would expect to contribute to utility bills, grocery bills etc when we move in to my parents house and have estimated we will be able to save £500 each per month and still be able to give my parents the amount we’ve agreed with them. This means in approximately two years, we could have a £20,000 deposit for a house and a mortgage less than our current monthly rent.

I have been asked why we can’t save the money while still living in rented accommodation, and, having gone over our finances we could save the money with our rent remaining as is. It would take a lot longer than our two year goal and we would have little spare for hobbies, weekends away etc, after adding in rent, food, vehicle costs and bills. 

This is the best decision for us both, at the moment. I say at the moment as, until we move in, we don’t know if it will work – all four of us living under one roof, but I like to think it will.

I wish we’d thought of this idea ourselves, but it was actually my dad’s suggestion after I talked to him about how much our rent could go up this or next financial year. We discussed it at length and then Ryan and I discussed it and then the four of us discussed it together.

We came up with a proposal, after some negotiating. I think it’s very important for atblell parties to be honest, open and willing to compromise. 

Here are a few things we talked about.

1. Set boundaries. It can be easy to fall back into the parent-child roles as you lived those roles for many years. We agreed to spend family time together but also noted Ryan and I would want to spend time alone, as would they. We weren’t being rude if we watched a film upstairs or went to the pub down the road.
2. Share our schedule with them and agreed if we wouldn’t be home, or would be home later than expected, we let them know. It’s just courteous to do so. 
3. Respect that we all work and get up for work at different hours. Keep the TV low after 10pm.
4. Clean up after ourselves! Haha, that’s a given but mum felt the need to day it.
5. Help out with the daily, weekly and monthly chores.
6. What we would contribute to financially. 
7. What the house guest policy is.
8. Share our moving in date
9. Discuss furniture storage – we’re moving from a two bed apartment to one bedroom. We will need somewhere safe and secure to store our belongings for up to two years.
10. Share our moving out plan – we discussed our goal amount and how long we expected it would take to achieve this.

Outlining your expectations can alleviate any frustration you or your parents may feel adjusting to the new living arrangements. Although I don’t think it will be too difficult, I don’t know yet, but have a feeling the arrangement will work very well. I get along very well with my parents and they really like Ryan and enjoy our company. 

Have you ever been in or thought about this situation? How do you think you’d address it? Any suggestions?